Friday, October 10, 2008

a walk into town...


Yesterday i left the kitties at home (they are settling in nicely) and Alice and i took a walk into town with Rufus. It was a beautiful day that had started off on the chilly side but soon become much warmer. I never know what to wear when the seasons are changing and as someone who feels the cold had put on a thermal cami underneath a long sleeved top and a lightweight jumper and then over the top my denim jacket, a scarf and my wool peaked cap which i love. I soon became overheated. The scarf and jumper were discarded into my shopping bag first and later the jacket. I love my hat and it was doing a good job of covering up hair that needed washing.. but i realised how foolish it was to be wearing a wool hat when most other folk were still in short sleeves and sandals. My head was hot. I reluctantly took it off.

We stopped off at Waterstones to discuss arrangements for next week's book event. I am a little nervous i have to admit. The shop next door sells fabrics and although we mainly use recycled, if we are looking for something specific we sometimes use new. We found some perfect linens to use as base cloths for a new project idea. Our reason for the trip was to source these fabrics and check out the charity shops. There are a lot of charity shops in town, seven to be precise. One was closed for refurbishment and two we had checked out earlier in the week. We went into the other four. We found a wool cardigan which we are going to felt in the exact colour we were after - a real result. We also sourced some tee shirts which we hope to repurpose.

I have never bought Christmas cards in October but in Oxfam i noticed these.. 50%recycled charity cards in beautiful designs.

I bought them. It was a morning for bumping into people we knew, catching up, chatting to strangers and of Rufus being admired buy all. I think the sunshine must have helped put folk into a good mood as the atmosphere wherever we went was light and friendly. Alice managed to buy a present for one of her boys birthdays and an outfit for Rufus to wear at his christening. It's coming up soon... i wonder if a 'fairy' godmother should have a new outfit? I do need to finish making that wand.

I do love charity shops and have a skill of flicking through the rail at a great speed to see if there is anything there that interests me. This is a skill i learnt when in my early working life i had to costume 30 dance students on a budget of £100. Lots of ingenuity needed there, so i often hit the charity shops with gusto. I have always thought that the less budget you have the more creative and innovative you are forced to be. I love looking at all the bric a brac too but as our new kittens are rather lively decided that it would not be wise to buy anything breakable. I was delighted however to find this.



An original Mary Poppins souvenir song album with piano music and lyrics. It also contains beautiful drawings and features photographs from the film.
My eldest is learning the piano and as my husband plays, we had a little family sing song last night before the girls went to bed.... 'practically perfect in every way!'


Wishing you all a happy weekend.
g x

7 comments:

JuliaB said...

Gosh what a find - that mary poppins book. I didn't say thank you for your lovely comment on my blog earlier. THANK YOU. (your email address doesn't come up so had to reply via here!) Hope you have a great weekend!xx

Anonymous said...

Mary Poppins....what a fab treasure, I love the cards as well might have to purchase some of those next time i'm in town and as for the cats....delicious!!

Kitty said...

I have posted before about my love of charity shops - so much potential! My daughter is distraught that I buy things to cut up and reuse, but it's all fair game isn't it?

I think that Fairy Godmother should definitely have a lovely new outfit ;-)

x

Anonymous said...

A budget of £100! "you were lucky" as they used to say in that famous Monty Python sketch. Under the wing of a wonderful woman called Ellen I used to do costumes for an Am Dram group. We would do a whole large cast e.g Shakespeare production for under £20. Thank goodness for church and scout jumble sales. Strangely enough I still have a few bin bags of "stuff" lying around from those days. I came across my sparkly/bling bag the other day and was wondering if I could make some glam evening bags.

walter and me said...

Oh I love the Mary Poppins book! Can just imagine you having a sing-song, what fun! xxx
Love Diana

Selfsewn said...

Oh wow those cards are great. I always buy charity cards so I think I shall be popping to my local oxfam!
Clare

Louise said...

I wish I had had the opportunity to learn the piano as a child, I would love to know how to play now. My niece who is now 21 started at a young age and kept up with her lessons over the years. The Mary Poppins sheet music was a great find, I love looking at all illustrations, something else I wish I was good at, drawing! I very much like the cards from Oxfam, I usually buy mine in the sale, must look out for those after Christmas, that's if there are any left! x