Camden Market

Down memory lane, across the cobbles and near the Canal. That would be Camden Market then. I had a stall at Camden Market for many years, during the time when the indoor market was for makers and designers selling their own handmade goods. This changed over time which is a shame. I was reminded of this period recently when a writer called Caitlin called me to ask about the market and its people. Caitlin has written this book spanning several decades, showing how at one point, the market launched the careers of people like Wayne Hemingway, who I love.

There I am in the index, yes, my surname does not lend itself to coming first, this became apparent to me from the tender age of 5 when school registers were read out surname first.


So, well lets have a look at the kind of thing I made and sold at Camden, here is the corner of a mirror I still have in my bathroom which incorporates flowers pressed between layers of glass.

I used this technique to make frames, clocks, pendants - all sorts.

I learnt to make stained glass, with Lynette Wrigley who taught me both the techniques of leaded (like church windows), and copper foiled and soldered, which is less messy and easier to manage at home. I did sometimes make coloured glass and heres something I designed and made for my parents.

Next week I shall be in Sweden, many wonderful things are planned, all revolving around photo shoots. Luckily I also get to see my God-daughters who are frequently my models on such trips.
The designer (and bessie mate), Van Asch has got Swedens top newspaper coming round to photograph her at home, so she is going through the same turmoil as myself. we have both found ourselves  scrutinizing every detail of our homes before they get photographed. Mine will be for Homes & Antiques in the UK.  

I hope to be doing some research on Swedish knitting and antiques, lets see if we can fit that in our schedule.

left is a Mora clock, I will be doing a piece on these soon. 

we shall be celebrating Midsummer Festival while in Sweden

Swedish Midsummer parties will be happening during my trip, thats partly why Im going, it's very Pagan, garlands of flowers in hair, folk costumes, dancing round an effergy while drunk on some sort of home brewed alcohol and full to the brim with raw fish.
What more could a girl want? My camera hopes to be capturing the season in its full glory, and yet again, I will be thanking auto focus. Somewhere along the drunken path, I shall have to learn a song about a frog while dancing round a Maypole, the song is  called Sma Grodorna. There will be an extra long, double strength, all guns blazing, blog on my return .....

did I mention that my hosts are excellent cooks this was one of last years creations.

As usual, all photos are my own and so are the typos. 
Since writing this I have thought a lot about my surname, and if its good enough for Will.i.am then I shall from now on, be 

Jan.is.IT  - why not make it work for me, who else could do that with their real name. Might as well !

Colour

Colour love is still high on the agenda in Janice world this week. Yes, I'm still decorating the house, and trying furniture in different places, like some installation piece of art or something, to me it's never finished. Well I suppose it keeps me off the streets. 

coffee table painted with a mixture of Florence and Paris Grey.

Judith Devlin, who you can see in this months Homes & Antiques, was one of the sellers I met at Village Vintage last week. I bought several pieces from her like the pink enamel coffee pot. I also bought a French Lavabo, ok I didn't know that name until after, but its a hand washing device, fixed to the wall, and if you read about it on Wikipedia, it has religious connections. It also has amazing pink enamel tank and basin but the wooden stand needed some shuzzing,so I delved into my Annie Sloan paint library.

It is a proven fact that colour effects mood, and I think for creative types its more than that, it touches something deep down that cannot be described. Green is relaxing, red increases your heart rate and blue, apparently, actually makes your body produce calming chemicals.

Just recently I have been buying Kantha quilts and Suzanis. Kantha is the name of the stitch used to patchwork vintage saris together to make quilts and blankets in India. The two I have on the floor above are very old and faded, they bridge a gap between ethnic and country perfectly.  Suzanis are embroidered pieces from Afghanistan, I have been using them as throws and also recovered some seat cushions. 






Since hearing of the death of Jocasta Innes, I thought back to her amazing paint transformations with stencils.
Chalk paints work quite well with stencils as they are thick and don't bleed. 






I found that Homebase had a little stand of stencils and just to get my hand in I tried this one on my dresser.  I chose it because it matched with my Swedish jars, and the dresser houses my Dala horses and Swedish bits. I will tell you the gorgeous story about Dala horses later in the year. 

My dining area is Sweden while my lounge is India. My two favourite countries. So in "Sweden" its Paris Grey and Old White, a very classy combination. 

The knitting is no exception to the vibrant colour combinations as I've now knitted my third piece for a book on bright fairisle by Nicki Trench.  Its a jumper knitted in the round with a yoke. 
The wool above is Debbie Bliss Donegal Tweed Aran and comes in some gorgeous brights. 

The cushions above are, not surprisingly, Van Asch, a few more shots for her catalogue before I go to Sweden for the big shoot.
The blue decorated coffee pot just peeking into shot on the dresser was another find last week from Faded Rose vintage
Kantha Quilts and cushions are from The Bohemian Beach Company
and the Suzani throws are from e-bay. For stockists of Annie Sloan Chalk Paint look at her website, I am so lucky to have the wonderful Patricia at Making The Best near where I live.

If you spend more time on facebook than twitter, here is another way to find out when blogs are being posted etc. Go here and please like the page. 

Village Vintage Fair

Red and yellow and pink and green ..... summer is here, and just in time for the most wonderful event: Village Vintage at Plumpton Race Course. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Village-Vintage/103917839661532?fref=ts heres their facebook page.

I am so pleased that the weather turned nice for them just in time. Having had a market stall myself, I know how much effort goes into setting up a good display, and this they surely had done beyond excellence. Every stand was brimming with amazing finds, and decorated to the hilt with fresh flowers, the rush of colours and scents quite overwhelmed me, I wanted everything, it was all beautiful.

So many photo opportunities, I made a collage to fit them all in.

The problem with shopping with a like-minded friend is that they sometimes beat you to the very thing you want. Jane and myself have magazines coming to feature our houses very soon so were on the lookout for statement pieces.  At this fair there was no time to dither, about ten times I pointed and went "OOOO" and at that very second someone else was there, money at the ready.

I really wanted some shutters, despite having nowhere to put them, and was too slow for both the blue and green ones. My own fault. 

Village Vintage is held at Plumpton Race Course, quite a journey for me and Serendipity Reclamations very own Jane, who is fearless in the extent she will go to find gorgeous things for the house. 

There is most definitely a French flavour to the fairs in East Sussex, due to their proximity to the coast. Up in Buckinghamshire we are about as land locked as you can get so the feel of the vintage and antiques is much more British. This French feel gives a lovely alternative to interior decorating, which for the eclectic decorator is yet another string to their bow. 

I really hope we can stay in touch with the dealers we met here today and I will list the names that I got, please though, if I missed anyone out send me a message so that I can add you in. You can message me on facebook https://www.facebook.com/JaniceIssittLifeStyle Some of the dealers sell from their shops and some are purely pop up fair sellers, most of whom have a facebook page.

There is something about certain colours that connects to me. Its pretty hard to describe but I know there are many others out there like me who get excited by a particular shade of green, or pink or blue.  It must be an interior stylist thing, but I have to hold my hand up and say "hello my name is Janice and I am a colour holic".

In amongst these photos are items which are now sitting very close to where I type. Perhaps I should run a competition "guess which things I bought home with me".  Sadly the Shepherds Hut was not one of them, it was a particularly fine example of the genre and I doubt there was a single person at the fair who didn't have "hut envy".

Theres some cupboard love going on regarding the one above from Harrietts Attic..... we couldn't fit it in the car but I think Jane has a cunning plan.

If you want to find me on facebook, Ive revived my knitting page vintage stitches and it doubles as a link to this https://www.facebook.com/JaniceIssittLifeStyle

Heres some of the sellers whose products are featured here ..
Harrietts Attic, Heartfelt Designs, Sue & Janes Nice Things, Wolves Antiques, Rustic Garden Things, Nightingale Shepherd Huts, Nikki Page Antiques, Mia Fleur, Quince, Faded Rose Vintage, The Old Haberdashery,Love Lane Vintage Wild Willow, Love Inc Ltd

A really big thank you and well done to everyone working at the Village, and we can highly recommend the ice creams from Bluebelles ice cream parlour. They have been tried and tested, twice. 


ALL PHOTOS AND TYPING MISTAKES ARE MY OWN.

Birds of a feather

Birds, birds, birds ... are featuring very high on the radar out here in the countryside, my other half did another rescue this week for Tiggywinkles where a duck had laid her eggs in a school courtyard, yes another one, safe from the perils of the wild yet in an area where there was no water or food and the newly hatched ducklings couldn't fly away from. Anyway, safe to say, another mum and her babies have now been relocated to a reservoir. 



Not long ago we found that a pair of swans had made a nest on the Grand Union Canal which runs near our village in Buckinghamshire.
They had laid eggs on their amazing floating nest and were working as a pair to build up the nest, one bird passing reeds to the other bird who wove them in. As we watched this amazing event we noticed, (and who couldn't), the amount of rubbish floating in the water around them. Plastic bags, drink cans, all manner of horrible human litter. 

As we were passing yesterday, on our way to look for antiques in Ampthill, we pulled over to find that the eggs had hatched and the proud parents, still working together as a pair, were safeguarding and protecting their lovely fluffy babies.

This is a lovely story, almost.  If you count the eggs and then count the signets you will see that we have one that didn't make it. When I looked down at the nest I could see the poor little thing. Who knows why it didn't survive, but when you see that in the nest right next to it seems to be part of a vacuum cleaner, is it any wonder. 

Heres hoping that the not so ugly ducklings, like in the song, turn into beautiful swans. 

One of my favourite shopping destinations is an Antiques Emporium in Ampthill. It has three floors of very keenly priced antiques and collectables, all housed in an old department store which has reinstated original shop fittings from a pharmacy. You never know what you will find here, and the most surprising item of the day had to be these platform shoes from the seventies. 








Ampthill, is like a lot of the small towns in middle England, a real blast from the past



The high street has all it original buildings, and some authentic old signs still in place. There is an abundance of thatched cottages and this week the Wisteria was in full bloom. I love this plant and have never had the patience to grow one, as they are so slow, I would love to have one on the front of the house just like this ...

To finish off with an interiors shot, I am photographing more of the Van Asch collection and when Ian brought home the nest made by the Duck he had rescued, it seemed appropriate to have it with this wonderful Bullfinch cushion. The cushion tells us to "Ponder" and maybe thats what we should do, about how the thoughtless actions of some can have a ripple effect. 

More knitting to come soon, Im now working on a jumper for the fairisle book mentioned before, its in a lovely combination of grey with orange and pink details, the wool is by Debbie Bliss, one I haven't used before, the Donegal tweed. When more of the project is complete I shall report back on my findings.

If the sun peeps through a bit more this week I can take some more photos, indoors and outdoors. Another trip to the bluebell woods was rained off but I do have plans for shots in the bright yellow rapeseed fields which are currently brightening up the landscape.. see you later.

my garden

Dandelions, bluebells, and other colours in the garden. To get away from the dust in the house caused by the wood sanding, I nipped round the garden and took these ...

I don't have a macro lens for my new Canon 5D so I took these on large format and zoomed in on the computer and cropped them in photoshop, my eyesight is so terrible these days its lucky for me that cameras can focus for you. I was so delighted with the dandelion, it is so soft and fluffy looking. On the right is the original photo. Technology can be wonderful (sometimes). I am still amazed at how different things are now that you can view the photo instantly, I wonder if I will ever dabble with film again, I certainly have enough old cameras and lenses to play with, a bit like getting a record player and playing all the old vinyl, which we have been doing recently.

and because I couldn't blog without a  pic of one of my cats, heres ziggy, who runs up the tree and waits for Ian to throw up a ball, he bats it down every time  and never misses. Ziggy thinks  he is a dog as this is just one of his many tricks.

Wool and wood

Wool and wood....and woods.....This week has seen me making quick trips down to the woods to check out the bluebells and back home to check out the new wood floor, in between the mud and sawdust I've been working on a fairisle knitted cushion for a book of knitting patterns.

My lovely friend Jane, who has the company Serendipity Reclamation http://serendipityreclamation.com/ is another one of us who likes the really old and interesting (hence why she likes me), and designs classic dressers and tables made from reclaimed pine. Jane walks her dogs in the Ashridge estate every day and was on 'bluebell' alert for me. We checked out a couple of woods and found the perfect spot for me to take some more photos for Gemma's portfolio. 

Like Jane, I  love reclaimed pine and decided to have it fixed as a floor to the dining hall and lounge. Paul at PM Carpentry (https://www.facebook.com/pmcarpentry.joinery?fref=ts) was the only person who 'got' what I wanted, a rough rustic floor that looks like its the floor boards to an old house. I wanted something I could play with, different finishes, maybe ending up being painted one day.  When choosing a professional for the job, don't be intimidated or bossed about by them, if they do that thing where they suck in a load of air when asked a question, my advice is to wait and find someone with a positive attitude. When I first looked at having wooden floors I saw a stream of chaps who told me all kinds of technical reasons as to why it would be a problem, trying to sell me expensive solutions with a finish that could easily have just been laminate.  Before I went ahead and bought the reclaimed pine, Paul just had a chat with the wood yard to give instructions about how he would like it cut and they proceeded to make our boards from a one hundred year old beam. If you need to chat to Paul you can contact him through his facebook page, where you can also see a picture of this floor being worked on.

I've decided to treat the wood with a new tinted OSMO oil, they have just started doing one with a hint of white in it.  Now all I've got to do is work out  how to keep the cats off the floor for 6 hours while it dries. The guys at http://www.osmouk.com/  were so helpful and lucky for me they are local. The hint of white doesn't actually make the wood look white but keeps it pale and natural in colour.

And then there's the knitting. Not socks this week but a fairisle cushion cover.  The wool had been chosen for me and in theory one should be able to knit a fairisle design in exactly the same wool and in exactly the same way as normal knitting, this can be a challenge with some wools though. I have a handy tip for knitting fairisle, particularly if you think the wool might be a bit too stretchy and the work is puckering up. Also if you have trouble keeping to the design when purling back, which for some reason I seem to make more mistakes on, then try this. Invest in a set of interchangeable cable knitting needles. They have liberated me. Because you have needles at either end of the cable you don't have to work the back of the work, you can cut the yarn, leaving a long tail and start again from the right side, thus only working the front of the work. This isn't a good idea for garments where you can see the inside as the edges will be raggedy.  

Generally I use http://www.knitrowan.com/yarns/felted-tweed-dk Rowans felted tweed, its quite robust and the best thing about it for knitting fairisle is that is doesn't stretch. The above scarf was a Rowan pattern designed by Kaffe Fassett from the book below. I've been a fan of Kaffe since the eighties, he is one of those people who has a way with colour combinations.  The socks above were knitted to match the scarf and I made up my own pattern for them but the felted tweed worked great. 

when my cats were first rescued from the wild as kittens.

Lots for me to do this weekend then, oiling the floor,cleaning up dust, painting the walls and moving all the furniture back. Expect to see the "big reveal" next week.

friends products

Recent product photos.

I am so lucky to have creative and inventive friends, a network of like-minded people who design, invent, create and find beauty in the every day things.

When the ladies at Holy Cow Home showed me their first products for this exciting new company, I asked them to drop off the handmade Indian statues and set about getting in 'the zone'. Having travelled extensively in India I have a great fondness for all things related to that wonderful country. Lots of my collections ended up in the loft when we moved so we dug through the boxes and went on a trip down memory lane to holidays spent travelling up and down mountains of tea and coffee plantations, marble temples on hill tops and palace hotels.

Having found all my old treasures it put me in the mind-set to get a bit more colour in the house. When we first renovated we neutralised everything to feel the space and work out how to live in it. I wanted to add colour to the walls not just the soft furnishings so started delving into the colour collection of Annie Sloan chalk paints. Once one wall was done there was not stopping us, finding walls in every room which would showcase another colour. Heres some of the colours behind the photos for Van Asch cushions.

Expect to see more shots for both these companies over the coming months. I will be posting links when the Holy Cow Home website shop is up and running and you can find the cushions from Van Asch at Van Asch shop