Here are a few pics of the Vintage Fair at The Culchie Festival on an absolutely glorious day. I didn't get to stay as long as I would have liked due to a tired child, but we had lots of fun, ice-cream and tractors. This was the highlight for me. A Trotters Independent Trading Co. van.
Textile-wise there was very little. It always amazes me how little of these vintage fairs involve textiles. It's mostly metal and machines. Old engines, tools, etc. Considering how big the textile trade was in Ireland for a long, long time, I get disappointed. Thought I did meet a man with the biggest collection of cast iron tool boxes and oil cans in the Republic. We had a great chat. Hey don't laugh, I know there's at least a few of you who have a thing for boxes/rusty metal...
This implement caught my eye however. According to the man, its was used like a giant pincers. If you needed to sew leather, you would put it in the pincers, squeeze tight then sew together. Never heard of that before. There were lots of women around, and I get talking to a few. They love travelling round to vintage fairs as much as their menfolk, but they don't do anything. So why isn't there more vintage women's stuff on show? It started giving me ideas. I have been having bad thoughts. (I call them bad, because the last thing I need right now is more projects...). Thoughts on developing The Woolly Way Roadshow idea. Going to festival and fairs around the country. It's been mulling round my head for some time now, and I really feel there is an opening, a need for something, but I just can't get my head round exactly what it is yet... Then I saw this....
This was a purpose built trailer which housed the man's prize bits of....well, junk to most people, precious vintage items to others. Oil cans, horse bits, old toys, brass plaques...etc. I thought it the most ingenous thing. No packing, no panicking, it's all there on show. What if I were to get together something similar but with all vintage textile tools. According to this guideline: Antique - 1910 and earlier/Vintage - 1959 and earlier/Retro or Classic - 1960 - 1990’s. My crochet hooks are vintage, my spinning wheel and carders are retro/classic. What if I were to gather together a collection of textile tools, from needles and hooks, to pin cushions and patterns, that could fall within this perimeter. A friend of mine some years back wrote her thesis on Folk-medicine on the Dingle Peninsula, she spend a few months hanging out with the oldies in day-care centres gathering bits and bobs of info. Surely it is possible to do the came with textiles info. Gather old implements and old stories. My granny died when I was young, just as I was starting to get into crochet and other hand-crafts. My mum says I would have loved her, the house was yarn mad, toilet-seat/tissuebox/toilet roll covers, throws and cushions, etc... I feel like I missed out on granny-time. That essential passing down of yarnie words of wisdom. If we don't capture some of it now, we'll lose it forever....AAAAH bad thoughts, brain stop thinking, too may possibilities.... This was supposed to be a quick post with just a word or two on the pictures, and the time has flown...Here's the rest...
Interesting stools...
Rusty old blue tractor...my favourite colours--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Big Electric Picnic Banana
Squeezing in on the same post, because I don't want to write another...I never got a good pic of my large fruit cushions either before the Electric Picnic or at it, so here they are....
1 banana cushion, 1 apple beanbag, 1 pear beanbag, 1 kiwi cushion.
These are now in the ownership of Manna, Tralee's only organic fruit and veg shop. I jokingly asked would they like a giant banana for display in their window and they said yes. So they now have the lot because what the hell else am I going to do with them!! For good measure, I threw in 1 crocheted mushroom, 1 yellow lemon, I green apple, 1 green avocado, 2 orange carrots, 2 crocheted pears green and yellow....sounds like a Christmas song... The real fruit, came from Manna in the first place, I just threw them in the photo just so you could gauge the size.A big big thank-you to Buggabug who has a wonderful shop on Etsy. I had bought a few of her lovely sewing patterns to make fruit and food for my child when I suddenly got the notion to make them very large....Her patterns are so well laid out it was easy to adapt them, I just drew them onto newspaper extra large, and hey presto, extra large fruit patterns! I wanted to make sure she didn't mind her patterns being abused in this way, ( well she actually hasn't seen the pictures yet...), but she was great, said she didn't mind at all. Seriously look at her Etsy shop, her work is amazing....Again, thank you Buggabug for making such easy to follow patterns for someone not very good at sewing...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally....
THE END
THE END
No comments:
Post a Comment