Town & Country

My blogging week started last Saturday with a trip to Walthamstow. 

We came across this wonderful old London gem as we explored the expansive market. 

There were also several fabric shops, my favourite of which was Saeeds, where I purchased the Zebra cotton below, to make a shirt. The service was polite and attentive, the selection of fabrics was really beautiful, and the shop itself was light and airy, and well laid-out.

The crinkle cotton was an impulse purchase from one of the other shops. I love paisley, and at £2/m I decided that it would be worth the investment. I am tempted to make a very simple skirt, but I am as yet undecided. 

One reason for going to Walthamstow was to visit the William Morris house. I am a huge fan of this man, and of the Arts & Crafts movement as a whole. The house had neither the dead feeling of a museum, nor the snobby feeling of an art gallery: we felt welcome and comfortable wandering from room to room. I loved the way that not everything was behind glass, and you could get really close to tools and artefacts, and even touch certain things. Although it was not old, leafing through an accurate reproduction of The Canterbury Tales, as produced by the Kelmscott Press was a surprising delight. 

Walthamstow's indoor market, in Wood Street provided some quality vintage browsing, and threw up this magnificent skein of hand dyed merino wool. I fell in love with these colours, but I am unsure what it will turn out to be, perhaps a hat...?

Pictured below is a dress I whipped up this week. Made from a linen blend with a jumbo print, I used the same pattern that I had drafted for the grey striped dress which you may remember from a couple of weeks ago. I kept this version really simple though, to let the print breathe. I was considering jetted pockets as an alternative to patch pockets, but even that I felt would be too disruptive. This linen is also very chunky, and the 'jets' would have been cumbersome and probably untidy, so I have no pockets. 

As you can probably tell from the background, I debuted the dress when we went walking in the woods (as we seem to do often these days), and as we were slipping around in mud after the rain, I began to wonder whether that was such a smart idea. However, the dress escaped unscathed, which is a testament to what a practical length mid-calf styles are.  

These little beauties came from Abigails Drapery in Lewes, which I visited yesterday. Stuffed full of yarny and textiley goodness, this is definitely somewhere I would like to visit again. The young lady who served us was extremely polite and helpful.

Lewes housed several really beautiful shops (as well as enticing lanes and a spectacular castle), as well as the wonderfully titled 'Needlemakers' arcade. Unfortunately (or luckily for my bank balance) we were early, and many of them were still closed.

Pictured below is one of my favourite places in the world, where we took advantage of the glorious weather and had a swim.