The Vintage and Handmade Fair

Hello readers, here I am bright and breezy after a marvellous weekend. Hope you had a good one too and if you came to the Vintage and Handmade Fair, I'm pretty certain you would have! It was another great fair, extremely busy with eager shoppers, lots of fellow bloggers and stall holders to have a natter with and of course, gorgeous things to buy (did I mention scrumptious handmade cakes to munch?) It was a bumper fair with 40ish stalls, there was so much on offer all of which was extremely covetable! Here is the main hall, ready to open for business...

Coming on a tour round all the fab stalls then? Here's Gertie's stall, look at that great vintage pram...

Sue's gorgeous fabrics and haberdashery (Sue writes the Vintage to Victorian blog and can be found at Dairy House Antiques, too)...

Pretty fabric bundles at The Sea Garden...

Beautiful hand crafted items by Viv of Hen's Teeth (I treated myself to a gorgeous handmade felt brooch made by Viv)...

Scrumptious fabrics from Sal's Snippets (couldn't resist some goodies from here)...

Lovely vintage Christmas items on Fair organiser Michele's (Cowboys and Custard) stall...

Oh-so-cute vintage furry friends, also on Michele's stall, which were very popular and have been happily re-homed...

Fair organiser Jayne's (Country Cottage Chic) stand groaning with seriously desirable vintage items...

Out into the front lounge area, Tracy and Michael (The Vintage Bothy) had a lovely display...

Oooh, it could only be the wonderful Donna Flower with her gorgeous stall looking very Christmassy. Did I shop here? You bet I did!

Donna also had this beautiful quilt on display...

Scrumptious Christmas items were on offer here...

Beautiful vintage linens here...

These could only be Nicky's (The Vintage Magpie) brilliant handiwork...

Clare (Daisy Darling) brought a selection of her stunning handmade hats and hair accessories...

Lesley from the brilliant Totnes shop "This 'n' That" also had a stall at the fair and had some seriously cute vintage children's toys and books...

Last but not least, I probably don't need to say much about this pink stall, do I?!

The dolly bunk beds have gone off to a fabulous new home, hidden away until 25th December...

One pink crib was re-homed, also tucked away for the big day, this lovely large-sized rocking crib is hopefully looking for a little girl to play with it (available at £95, pick up from London or South Somerset/West Dorset or somewhere in between!)...

Some of my quilts are also looking for new homes to help dispel this nasty Winter chill! (Pretty in Pink £140 - SOLD - thank you), Dutch Windmills available at £145, (Christmas Quilt £125 - NOW SOLD, thank you), Calico Country £130 - SOLD, many thanks). I slept with one of mine on my bed last night, umm cosy!

Awww, here's my lovely man who did a fab job for me.

Phew! I am still on a high from this super duper day. Several customers were kind enough to remark that my goodies "look even more lovely in real life" (!) and indeed, the real pleasure in the Fair for me is to get out from behind the computer or sewing machine and really meet people. To see and hear their reaction to my work was such a pleasure. Thanks to those of you who stopped to chat and were so kind, you really made the day for me. And now, I had better get on with tidying away and snapping some of my lovely items which are now available to those of you who couldn't make it to the Fair itself. If you are interested in any of my items and would like more details on any of them, feel free to get in touch (henpinn@hotmail.co.uk).

If you missed this Fair, it's time to get plotting to visit the next one which will take place on Saturday 9 April 2011. Please visit the Vintage and Handmade site for more details and also to find a listing of all the stall holders at yesterday's Fair with links to their online blogs/shops. Well done Jayne and Michele, you excelled yourself again, a very big thank you for the privilege of taking part in this extremely special event.

Don't miss the Vintage and Handmade Fair

Well goodness me, I didn't think I was going to be writing this post! Hooray for the broadband-fixer-man who just came and made everything magically work again. So now I can tell you that I've spent my week getting ready for the bestest fair around, the Vintage and Handmade Fair which takes place THIS SUNDAY in Chipping Sodbury, oooh I'm very excited! Now's the time to get all your Christmas shopping done and make sure your nearest and dearest are presented with the best, most beautiful and most original gifts ever. Not forgetting a few well deserved treats for yourself, of course!

On the HenHouse stall, you'll find a selection of gorgeous patchworked notebook covers...

...and some cute patchworked lavender mini pillows with fun coloured bobble trims. Use them to store brooches, scent your drawers, decorate beds and chairs, or for dollies to rest their weary heads as you choose.

Of course, I'm biased but I think I'd very much like to receive one of these on December 25th!

I've also been working on these pretty and practical teacup pin cushions. I had lots of fun choosing the gorgeous vintage fabrics to top the pretty vintage china.

Meanwhile, I've also been at the papercrafts and to accompany my usual selection of popular hand made cards, I have a special Christmas selection.

I've used paper copies of original vintage fabrics as the backdrop and then added detail with lovely vintage festive ribbons and labels which I've been hoarding for a few years now.

I think it's a shame so many people have chosen to forgo Christmas cards, I do love to receive them each day in the run up to Christmas and then displaying them around the house, reminding us of friends and family we can't necessarily be with at Christmas.

But that's not all! Two items which have demanded most of my time recently are these special beauties...

Yes, two most-coveted dolly's rocking cribs, now subject of a full HenHouse make-over with pretty pink paint and rosy transfers and inside, all the gorgeous bedding a dolly can desire...

New clean covered mattresses, cosy flowery flannelette sheets, vintage lace trimmed pillows, vintage satin-edged woollen blankets, pretty vintage embroidered top sheets and finally, proper patchwork quilts made the traditional way with real batting and hand sewn binding. Lucky dollies, eh!

Talking of quilts, special little girls and of course PINK, when my cheeky sister recently asked me "Do you ever make anything without pink in it?" I thought, "Do you know what, I'm really going to give in to my love of pink, let's make something which ONLY has pink in it!"

What fun I had raiding my stash for every pink fabric imaginable. And errrm, there were quite a few. Vintage, modern, floral, polka dotty, they're all there.

This is possibly the pinkest cutest quilt ever, what else could I name it but "Pretty in Pink"?!

Here it is on a king sized bed, we don't have a pretty girl's single bed here at the HenHouse and I didn't think I would be allowed to put it on the Munchkin's bed!

I think I am going to have to make myself a grown-up girl's version of this...

Hopefully, this quilt will find a special home keeping warm a little pink-loving lady.

Ah yes, it's certainly the season for cosy quilts, isn't it and I'll be bringing a selection of fine, handmade ones with me.

Golly, now I had better get everything downstairs ready to pack the car, I still have a cake to make for the tearoom (I think it will be the choc orange loaf cake from Nigella's new book, it's yummy) and believe it or not, I'm also hoping to get the binding on and finish this quilt, a version of the much admired (thank you!) Calico Country quilt, to grace my stall as well.

So, I hope many of you will be coming to join us at this super event on Sunday, please come along and say hello. I hope everybody, fair-going or not, makes the best of the coming weekend.

Calico Country

Well hello readers, how does this Friday in November find you all? It's actually one of those bright, crisp and sunny mornings here, always gets the day off to a good start.

It's the sort of chilly weather that makes you want a good snuggle indoors though, don't you find (any excuse!) Perfect for catching up on all that reading, hand sewing and perhaps a spot of blog surfing. (Some great books we found in the second hand shop in Bridport last Saturday.)

As we all know, the world of blogging is a constant and never-ending source of inspiration. So too are the many books which proliferate my shelves here in the Den. Maybe it's the weather but I've found that my colour preferences have been changing recently. You would be forgiven for associating me with candy coloured fabrics, 1930's reproductions maybe, gorgeous vintage pinks and greens definitely! But with Autumn has come a new found love of a more sludgy palette (more of that project next week) and from somewhere, a love of reds, blues and creams. How very patriotic!

Many of the quilting books available come from America (books by "That Patchwork Place" being my absolute favourites), where there is of course, a long tradition of quilting and I would say quilting is more popular there today then it is here in Blighty. Maybe there are just more people to be quilting? When I'm mooching through my quilting books, which I do every day even if not until bedtime, I'm often struck by the beautiful and very patriotic offerings within; cosy, cute, homespun. I also, whilst surfing a while back at one of my favourite blogs, was struck by Alicia's gorgeous quilt (and look at that doggy!) So last week, seized by the sudden desire to make a creamy country-style quilt of my own, out came every cream, blue or red fabric from my stash. A bit of pink crept in too. As my sister, then in residence remarked, "Do you ever make anything without pink in it?" Cheeky.

So here it is, what became a rather gigantic quilt top! I sat with a pile of 6" squares and before I knew it, these became a pile of 50 four-patch blocks. Even after making this sizable quilt top, I had a handful left over. This quilt is ready to come together, as you can see. Backing is taped to the floor, batting relaxing on top, quilt top ready to make up the "sandwich".

I loved working with these colours. I don't use a lot of red in my work so it was good to give these fabrics an outing.

But why isn't it finished, Hen?

Well because I was waiting for pins to get that quilt sandwich together. The pins were being used on another quilt. Because I had left over blocks so I thought I'd make a sister red-blue-and-creamy quilt. Naturally, this was a bit of a mad idea as although I had some blocks left, I needed to make many more! But what can I say, it was pure pleasure and because of all those cute ditsy fabrics, which I learned from Alicia are called calicoes, "Calico Country" was born.

It has some delicious vintage fabrics...

..alongside beautiful cute calicoes of course...

..and some retired "impossible to get hold of" Cath K fabric...

Out into the garden then, but the sun is casting mischevious shadows on my quilt!

Jacky-Ginge accompanies me, naturally, never one to be left out of the action.

This is a very cute quilt, warm and pouffey, super-snuggly...

An extra layer on the bed?

Perfectly suited to a good snuggle on the sofa!

Calico Country awaits someone to get cosy with here!

Have a wonderful weekend...