Market Days

It's been another busy week in the Norris household, and we have been continuing to enjoy the festival summer season. First up, for the bank holiday weekend the French market is in town. M and I both have a love of all preserved meats and we have stocked up as you can see below. Parma ham, chorizo, and various sausages. Who could pass up the oppertunity to try kangaroo sausage? The meats and smoked garlic are making our kitchen smell divine! We also treated ourselves to fresh goats cheeses, bread, olives, and artichokes.

To celebrate this culinary haul, we had a gorgeously smug lunch with fruit and veg entirely home grown. Rocket, melon and radish salad with your parma ham? Oh, yes! I opened a bottle of 2001 Cairanne bought when I was a house officer eight years ago and it set off the food brilliantly. It's a hard life!

My mum is staying this week which is really nice, and yesterday we had a day out in Bridport for the Open Studios weekend. They also had a Vintage Market with mainly furniture and had a lovely time mentally rearranging and redecorating the house to accommodate the pieces for sale. In the studios I discovered one artist in particular called Paul Blow. He is an illustrator working predominantly for magazines and I was instantly struck by his work. I'm definately going to keep an eye on his work and aim to invest in piece one day. I had to rein M in a bit and remind him we didn't have any room for another vintage electric fire... We were really excited to find a set of rare Woolworths 'Homemaker' 1950s crockery at the market, which we snapped up in a blink. Amazingly the lady had had them for a while and having trouble selling them as a complete set. Annoying she sold a singular teacup and saucer from the set, but it's still the largest collection I've seen for sale. Most of the pieces are the early Ridgeway prints.

We already have some Jessie Tait 'Quite Contrary' ceramics from Midwinter, also from the 1950's. I can see a collection growing here! I am embracing the era by watching Mad Men as I put this blog together.

On the sock knitting front, I have finished my latest pair as a gift for Christmas. Another design from 'Knitted Socks, East and West', this time using 'Casbah' by Hand Maiden. They were lovely to knit and I'm very happy with the end product. Next project is a cable tank top from Easy Knits.

I made use of the buttons I bought at Goodwood on this high street cardigan. I was really pleased with the result - they match better than I could have hoped for and instantly made it something special.

Last weekend, my sister and her husband came to stay, and we had a lovely walk around Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens. I bought a Taipei Silk plant (with flowers as pictured below) for my patch at the allotment. I'm trying to record all my flowers here so that I have half a chance of remembering what they all are.

I don't tend to talk about my family and friends on this blog, but my Grandma died this week. This is for her.

Vintage at Goodwood 2010

Yesterday the long awaited Vintage at Goodwood was finally upon us. It was great. We started the day meeting up with friends who live near the site, and made our way to the festival ground about noon. Having obsessed about not forgetting the tickets, placing them ready in my bag from the night before, an ill thought out plan to photograph them before leaving home resulted in them remaining in our dining room all day. Bum. Luckily the nice people on the gate were able to check our booking and let us in without paying again. Phew! As someone who prides herself on time keeping and organisation skills, I took this failure rather hard. There was plenty to distract me from procrastinating too much though. The all important outfit was finished in the nick of time, as I completed my socks for the event the night before. They are another Japanese inspired Judy Sumner design, and I've made them here with a silk/merino blend from Malabrigo in colourway Redwood Bark.

As has become a tradition now, here is a photo of the goodies I came home with. Very restrained for me. There were hundreds of Vintage stalls with lots of lovely things, but I had promised only to buy if I saw something I felt I couldn't live without. I tried on a couple of things but they didn't fit. Probably for the best... The souvenir brochure was a hardback annual, enduring evidence of the thought that went into the whole event. Design heavy, nothing was remotely ugly or out of place all day.

Even the wristbands were cool. Holographic vintage watches, no less.

Here I am, relieved to have been let in despite not having the tickets with me (phew again) in my self-crafted, vintage inspired get-up. Very thoughful of them to produce the brochure to match I thought.

M was looking rather dapper too, although not vintage (maybe just 25 years early?). The great thing was that enough people dressed up to make it special, but there were enough of us in 'civvies' not to feel left out or awkward.

I'm not sure if you can discerne it from this photo, but Martyn collects pin badges for the strap of his satchel. He politely declined my offer to buy him this gem... (My sister and I had the 'vintage' edition of 'Happy Families' these were mounted on. Does that make us old?)

Some revellers really committed to the look. Only mobile phones betrayed the fact that all was not as it seemed.

We spotted curator Wayne Hemmingway a couple of times during the day...

The centrepiece of the festival was a pop-up main street. It was like walking in a pop-up book of our youth, and was ambitious to say the least. Complete with a pub, art cafe, cinema, many shops and even an Indian take-away. All as expected looked beautiful. Is this the most glam Oxfam shop you've ever seen? Mary Queen of Shops - eat your heart out!

John Lewis has never looked better. It was lovely to see lots of people getting involved, learning to knit, crochet and sew.

Another highlight for me was a sewing school run by a company that shaped my childhood wardrobe (and now my adult one), Clothkits. I was keen on a new fabric made for them by Mini Moderns, but even I couldn't justify nearly £30 a metre having had half the year off work so far. It was designed for a skirt kit, and given that I have nearly 15 skirts at the moment, I was wanting to make a dress with it. One day maybe.

Whilst in Clothkits, I came across this lovely knitting/sewing box. Is this the coolest knitting box ever?

The answer came just seconds later. No, this one is. Red wins every time when you're me.

A little further along in the day, I found something else to grab my geeky attention. As a seasoned fan of all things Scrabble, a vintage travel set was rather exciting. Unfortunately they were props for her stall and not for sale. She smilingly told me they were quite hard to come by. I couldn't help but notice she had two. Now that's just rude! I did however admire her partners' jewellery made with broken watch pieces and scrap charms. There is one on the right edge of this photo.

The DeLonghi art cafe was bedecked fittingly, and M blended in rather well.

Airstream buses were very popular throughout the site for stall holders, 'glampers', and there was one particularly fine example up for auction.

The Chap magazine staged it's very own Olympiad at the festival this year. Cucumber sandwich discus, Hop, Skip and G&T and the Pipeathlon featured. The Pipeathlon required the brave chaps to keep a pipe lit whilst sauntering for 10 yards, cycling 10 yards, and travelling the last 10 without his feet touching the ground. Being carried by friends and the classic 'wheelbarrow' were employed in the round we were witness to.

Next up we have the Bad Art Studio, which was hilarious.

Check out this politically ill-advised gem...

Alongside the Bad Art was the Bad Taste Disco.

(In my best Jim Bowen voice) And here's what you could have won!

This Meccano scultpure was growing throughout the weekend...

...and the Rollerdisco was a big hit!

Even Banksy made a contribution.

We headed over to the main stage to see Martha and the Vandellas. IT WAS FAB!!!

Under sufferance, M joined me to see Swing Out Sister. I'm not sure how familiar the rest of the world is with their work, but my sister and I spent many an hour singing along to their first album thanks to our parents.

Here is a selection of other low res pictures from the day.

Until next time! x