Fab Fabric

Since the arrival of my sewing machine at Christmas, I have become a bit of a fabric junkie. I cannot stop buying the stuff and will quite happily spend hours trawling the internet for "finds".
Lord knows, we'll be drowning in cushions soon, if it continues. Anyway my latest fabric fix came in the form of these 1950s style fabrics . I even visited a real shop to get them when in London last weekend. I think they are actual 50s designs which have been re-released by John Lewis.

Big Smoke

At the weekend I went up (or possibly more sideways really) to London to meet up with some old friends. Needless to say, I had a great time and would have liked to cram in a few more things. Amongst other things, we went to the British Library and whizzed around the Evolving English exhibition that is on there. I'd never been into the British Library before - from the outside the building is a bit ugly, rather like an overgrown Tesco's . However, the inside of it is definitely worth a visit and it has a good cafe (always a bonus). Here are a couple of items from the exhibition which caught my eye. The riot act one could catch on in a "Keep Calm and Carry On" sort of way. We could certainly do with it in this house at mealtimes! On the other poster, the Skeleton man in a kilt made me laugh. Unfortunately, the spectacle of a Fat Child these days isn't such an oddity. And "Giant Rat" - is it really a crowd puller? Obviously, the poster dates from the days before we had freak shows (ooops, sorry. I mean Channel 4 documentaries!) on telly.

Pretty Flamingos

Here's a design I did for a Valentine's card. I think it was subconsciously inspired by some old 1950ish wallpaper my sister found in their bathroom when they redcorated it! We saw some Flamingos yesterday when we went to Paradise Park in Hayle. They were even more pink than in my illustration. Virtually flourescent they were!

Brideshead Revisited- Revisited

We have been watching the ITV 1980s production of Brideshead Revisited, which makes for good viewing. It is also something of a tweed-fest. Regular readers of this blog will know we are currently undergoing a tweed craze in this house. I say "we" but really mean the other half, as I haven't quite gone down the Miss Jean Brodie route myself! (yet) . The series inspired me to pick up the 1970s copies of Evelyn Waugh's novels that we have and I was reminded of how great these covers are. The cover design is credited as Bentley/Farrell/Burnett . I also did a couple of little drawings myself of the Brideshead characters.