The Dairy House and The Artisan Market

This is the Liz's (washerwoman) little corner..and behind me is all her gorgeous vintage clothes and lots more fabric I only managed to get this pic before she got lost under a sea of fabric, her space was packed all morning, was amazing how she kept going!

I have been out and about since my last blog. On Sunday I was lucky enough to be at the first Dairy House Vintage Costume and Textile Fair.
Just as everyone had finished setting up the crowds poured in! The picture above was taken just before 10 after that you could not see the stalls for the rest of the morning.
This is the lovely Donna Flower's stall she has the most amazing vintage fabrics from 19th century to 80's and beyond. I loved the childrens vintage fabrics made me go all nostalgic.
These pics are a little glimpse of what was there, apart from the stalls outside the Dairyhouse is packed with little collections from a variety of dealers..vintage heaven!
Above is Sue's corner as you go in the door there are drawers to search through full of buttons and fabrics along with haberdashery and lace..some of my friends have been known to go missing in there for hours! I loved the Mannequins that Sue has covered with vintage fabrics, excellent way of showing off her crocheted button necklaces and lace :)
More glimpses of little corners..
This was my little corner I took this pic at the end of the day, the display had been a bit destroyed ;) I had a great day sitting making button necklaces and actually sold one of the pearl button ones before I had finished it. People could sit down and learn how to make brooches and necklaces from buttons. I am very grateful to Sue for inviting me to be part of the Fair. I had a fab day and feel really inspired to carry on making and teaching :)
The Dairy House is also packed with some lovely furniture..think the above would look great on our patio..
Last Sunday we went to the Artisan Market in Catherine Hill Frome. I am hoping to do the next one and wanted to see how everyone balanced on the Hill and get an idea of how I would set my stand up. It is full of designers and makers a fab atmosphere and some delicous cakes..which kept Arthur happy :)
The shops on the Hill are all open as well, great if you also like making Millie Moon stocked with scrumptious fabrics and yummy coloured buttons. Make Do and Mend full of Vintage bits.
It felt a bit like Portabella Market, I am looking forward to being part of it :)
The shops are all independents so if you like a bit of individuality its well worth a visit :)

Reading through I notice I have missed a lovely pic of the Washer womans stall I will add it later as Arthur is demanding breakfast!

Cupcake Giveaway!!!!!

To celebrate getting the gorgeous fabrics in my shop Tamsyn G I have decided to give away a fat quarter of my favorite fabric.

As well as one of my felted brooches, made from a recycled jumper, I have needlefelted gorgeous merino wool to make the icing and vintage wool on to make the cake case then added a lovely vintage button (that looks just like a smarty) and beads.
So if you love cupcakes as much as me...(well i like to look at and eat them not so good at making the real ones!)
and you leave a comment on my blog, I will put all of the names into a hat and get Arthur to pick one out to be the winner next Sunday, the 10th of May..I hope thats not too long to wait :)

How lovely is this?

I love all this fabric that has just come in!  I've got masses of ideas of what i could make with it.

These little Russian dolls would look great just cut out and embellished onto things, they would look fab as fabric buttons, and brooches. There is also ribbon like this which i have yet to photograph.
I love the vintagey feel of these linen fabrics.  I am going to cover some boxes in this fabric and turn them into little sewing boxes

How fab would this fabric be for tables at craft and vintage fairs?  Though a little costly, it would be a great base to put things on and look amazing.

This would be lovely made into vintage style aprons or pinnys. I think I might cut up the little squares and use them as little patches, soooo cute!

This is obviously my favorite!  The cakes look good enough to eat, they would look great emebellished with little beads to look like hundreds and thousands.

More Russian dolls but a much bigger print such gorgeous colours.
I have now posted these onto my website Tamsyn-G.com, which is quite quick for me :)  Tony has taken Arthur out for the day and the shop has been fairly quiet so for once I have actually put the time to good use.

I am thinking of doing a Fat quarter giveaway tommorow.......so watch this space :)

Sneak Preview..

Ha ra the fabrics arrived! A much smaller box than I thought, Which i had a little trouble opening due to my excitement.
I was a bit worried of running the knife straight through the packaging and through the fabric..I have done that many times before!
You can't really tell from this pic, but the fabric is as fab as I remember.
I will take better photos over the next couple of days..and maybe actually put it on my website :) For now I better find some space in my shop.. and then start cutting some fat quarters.

Banished to the dining room.

Last night I was banished from our sitting room, as tony and harry were taking it over.  They were going through rugby dvd's of the under 15's North dorset Teams season...which I must say has been a good one winners of the County Cup 3 years running, infact i think they only lost one match in the whole season and that was to come second out of 8 teams.  any way tony is putting together the end of year dvd where it shows highlights from each player.  So they annoyingly have to watch all the matches , they watch a bit discuss it, pause rewind watch it again discuss, write down the number so they can go back to it..this goes on for hours! Now i don't mind watching Harry play rugby a bit, but i get bored after....10 minutes and moan so much that they have had to banish me, and warned me in advance.

Well I do have a lot of toys to play with (of the crafting kind!) so I decide to get out the embellisher which I have not really tested out properly since I got it at xmas.

The skirt on the table i started to embellish at the last Make do and Mend workshop, and just need to add one more heart and possibly some fabric to the bottom, to make it longer. I have this great wool that looks like it has been sewn all down the middle of it, I have embellished onto the skirt and used it to make some cup warmers (will finish them and post a pic tommorow). It is great for edging and looks as though I have sewn it on.

I have been collecting lots of denim skirts and jackets to upcycle, so at least I got going on that.

I also used the embellisher to fray the edges around fabric hearts which I anm adding to old pillow cases and turning them into laundry bags. So I had a lot of fun.
I had a brill day yesterday, starting with a carboot in the morning, me and arthur left the house quite early to get there before the other buyers, it was lovely and peaceful for the first half an hour and we managed to get quite a lot of good stuff, I got some fabric, needles and assorted knitting bits, as well as an old wooden sewing box with a lovely needle holder full of really old needles (twice as thick as the modern day ones) and two skirts to upcycle.  

 Arthur got a fab spider man suit (which he has not taken off since it came out of the washing machine. I did make him leave it at the end of his bed explaining how hot he may get if he left it on! (not great to sleep in nylon!) he also got a whole load of army vehicles for a 1.00 so was very pleased.  
When we got back Arthur played with his new toys and I was able to do some spinning in the garden yay!  Alice aka Ladypole gave me some of her gorgeous carded wool to spin a few weeks ago, so it was great to see it turned into yarn. A wee bit over spun but i am just learning :)
Saturday i spent cutting some of my fabric mountain to put in the shop as fat quarters.  I have a huge delivery of fabric arriving tommorow, which i am a little apprehensive about as no one really knows i have started doing fabric...ah they will tommorow ,it is gorgeous linens from japan, some cupcake ones, some vintagey looking and some russian dolls with the most amazing ribbon.
These are button hearts i have been making to show people how they can use up there buttons.