Recent char­ity shop finds

The good thing about spend­ing the summer in a small town full of old people is that there are a lot of char­ity shops and jumble sales, they often have good stock, don’t over­price and there aren’t a lot of other people look­ing for the same things as me (which is more likely to happen in a big city).

Teat­ray and trinket dish – £1 each

One of my other kitchen trays, a plastic one from Tiger, recently broke. This brown flor­al number is ideal for forcing tea and cake on visit­ors, Mrs Doyle style. (As soon as I found this picture of her, I real­ised that my dad actu­ally owns that very same trol­ley- his has lived in the corner as long as I’ve lived, with a couple of half full bottles of whis­key and brandy on it, and an empty bottle full of 5p coins). I couldn’t find any inform­a­tion about who the artist of the geese print was, there was a “Prae­si­di­um” logo on the back, but they seem to have been a big manu­fac­turer of coast­ers and ashtrays.

Hand­made 60s dress – £3.50

This was someone’s home dress­mak­ing project. There is no label, and all the hems and sleeves are hand-stitched. It’s really nicely made, and is fully lined with a gauzy skirt under­neath. It fits me well.

It’s funny how the fit of clothes can change so quickly. I seem to have been a total aver­age size in the 60s and 70s. Clothes from that era tend to fit me well. 80s clothes are always too big around the shoulders, which is not an area you can adjust easily. Currently clothes are too tight round the hips and too short in the waist for me.

The yellow striped fabric reminds me of the sets from The Pris­on­er. I’ll see if I can find some sort of No 6 motif or badge perhaps to add to the collar or the chest.

Set of 3 Hornsea Ware kitchen canis­ters – £7

These pottery kitchen sets from Hornsea were every­where in the UK in the 60s and 70s. As well as being useful in the kitchen, they’re also very popu­lar for putting plants in, which is what I’ll be doing with mine (the wooden lids also made great coast­ers). I’ve got lots of cacti and succu­lents which are outgrow­ing their origin­al pots. I’ve been slowly collect­ing attract­ive pottery pieces from char­ity shops (includ­ing a bigger one of these Hornsea pots in dark brown), and once I have enough, I’ll have a big repot­ting session of all the plants. I still need to find 4 more pots though.

Dallas stick­ers – 10p each

Ideal for adding a bit of 80 oilman villainy to zines.

Bert oilcloth travel pass- 50p

This is going in the post to my friend Chella, a native New Yorker/​Sesame Streeter (same place). She’s going to use Bert to keep her busi­ness cards in, and help her make friends and influ­ence people.