Crinoline Robot's Vintage Week

After last week's train-driving fun, this week has been a pretty quiet one. I've got a new old dress winging its way to me from America - a 1950s cotton day dress. I think I'm so eager for the weather to warm up so I can wear my summer dresses that buying a new one off Etsy was the next best thing. It's quite neutral in colour but has a very busy pattern, and I look forward to showing it to you.


I also got a new vase, not that I needed one as we've inherited loads from Mr Robot's mum. However, I was dropping off some clothes in a charity shop and saw the fantastic cornucopia vase at the top of this page for £3. There's no maker's stamp on it, but it looks like SylvaC or Falcon Ware, and I'm a sucker for their creams and green shades. It doesn't have any flowers in it yet as I've got my mother-in-law's Victorian ones on show. They look quite good with my gargoyle clock and Mr Robot's ceramic Foo dogs. 

I walked to Bradford-on-Avon yesterday - it took me an hour! - to go to Jumblejelly and pick up the yarn for my Odhams project. I'm going to do the lace jersey in pale grey. It's spurring me on to complete the Fair Isle cardi. I've watched loads of classic Doctor Who while working on that. Pertwee is my favourite Doctor. I veer between him, Tom Baker and Peter Davison, but keep going back to Pertwee. You can't beat a bit of vintage British SF.

Carrying on the SF/fantasy theme, I was pretty upset by the death of Terry Pratchett. I started reading his books in the late 1980s, and when Mr Robot and I got together at university he was a fan too. Agreeing to merge our Pratchett collections was a landmark point in our relationship, as it signalled conviction that we would stay together and there were no worries about who'd get custody of the books when we split up!

So, that's my week. How has yours been?

Comments

  1. Merging books collections IS a major relationship milestone. After twenty+ years together we still have our own duplicate books. Perhaps someday I'll feel secure enough to let go the second copies of Joseph Wood Krutch. Maybe.

    The cornucopia is a beauty, and a great bargain too. If you've shown the gargoyle clock before, I missed it-I do love it. Every mantle should have a gargoyle clock.

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    1. I saw the clock in a shop while I was a student, and so asked everyone if they'd mind sending me the money for it for my 21st birthday. It cost about £100, which is a lot now, let alone then, but then it's a substantial thing, really heavy solid metal. So now it's about 20 years old, and I've never got bored of it. One thing I've really taken to heart in the weeks since my mother-in-law passed away is a need to love the things I own - if I don't love them, find them a new home - and to use them, because chances are most of my stuff will end up at a charity shop. (Good job most of it came from chazzas in the first place...)

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  2. Sounds like you've had a bit of fun purchasing! I can't wait to see the dress, and I love the vase you bought. I have returned empty handed from the charity shop on Saturday, which has to be a first!! x

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    1. It means the Charity Shop Gods have something special lined up for you!

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  3. I do like cream and green together, and I can't resist a nice vase.
    Haven't been near a charity shop for a long time, none here and town is over eighty miles away, and a train that positively crawls...it's cheaper than the bus, which makes me feel sick too!...so not much fun in Winter. Have the urge to go now!

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    1. You really do live out in the wilds! I bet you've got much better scenery than we have down here, though.

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  4. The vase is pretty, and your mantlepiece looks great with the clock and the daffs in the pressed glass vases. I learnt the other week that gargoyle only ever refers to a carved head with a water spout function; heads/figures without the spout are merely grotesques. So now you know!
    I've never read any Terry Pratchett, but he seems to have been one of those authors - one of those people - who inspired great affection as well as admiration. xxx

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    1. Yeah, one of the amazing things about Pratchett's passing was that absolutely no-one had a bad word to say about him.

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  5. I'm dying to see your new-to-you old dress and the Odhams project!
    Your mantelpiece is gorgeous, love that clock and the bold red paint. That pretty vase does like something good, how exciting to find it for £3. xxx

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    1. To be honest, the fireplace is broken and grubby, and we keep meaning to replace it, probably with something more Victorian and more in keeping with the house. However, it does do a good job of displaying nicknacks. The rest of the room is cream, as it's a small, north-facing one and needs the light, but some colour was essential!

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  6. For a Pratchett fan, this came as a sorrow news.
    He will be missed.
    I love his wok (and YES they do publish it over here - and I'm a proud owner of couple of the books from Discworld collection), as well as him majestic work "Good omens" - done with Neil Gayman.

    Marija

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    1. Yes, Good Omens is brilliant. I have a feeling it's being filmed... There was a version on Radio 4 last year, and that was pretty good.

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  7. Looking forward to seeing the dress. I do like the excitement of buying yarn for a new project. I am always casting on a new knit before even seeing up the finished one.

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    1. I have been resisting casting on, but it is soooo tempting. Still, now on the sleeves of the Fair Isle. Getting the body finished felt like a massive achievement.

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  8. Pretty vase, I'm nervous about putting vases out and about as things always seem to get damaged here, we just don't have space and bunnies climb and hop up all the time. We have a heron Sylvac vase which is still bubble wrapped.

    I believe Jon Pertwee was Andy's favourite Doctor, although he has said recently he thinks Peter Capaldi is the best. We've been watching Gotham and I have developed a little soft spot for Sean Pertwee.

    I'm not a Pratchett fan, Andy is, but I was sad to hear of his passing, he was a real character xxx

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    1. Capaldi is extremely good, hampered by the awful scripts nowadays. I too have a soft spot for Sean Pertwee, have done ever since Dog Soldiers! Isn't Gotham great? We really weren't sure for about the first two episodes, then really got into it.

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