Monday 1 February 2010

A flea market find


My good friend Cesca (another seasoned vintage hunter) was planning a trip to Paris and offered to look out for some French fabric to decorate the tables at my wedding. She came back with this gorgeous faded floral table cloth from the Montreuil flea market - so beautifully tied up in a ribbon, I can't bring myself to unwrap it! If you're prepared for the rummage, I would recommend spending a morning at this sprawling market towards the east of the city. Those with the patience to sift through piles of old jumble sale clutter are (almost) guaranteed to find a bargain.

So the tablecloth hunt is already well underway (the more mismatched, the better of course). Below are a few hand-embroidered ones - shockingly - abandoned in charity shops... well now they've found a good home.




6 comments:

  1. They are gorgeous -- I used to collect them too and when my grandaughter Kitty was born I cut them up ( shamefully!) and made her a patchwork cot quilt with all the different embroideries. As some of them had been worked my mother and grandmother way back when, I thought it was a nice way of passing their handiwork down to another generation.

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  2. Jo, what a brilliant idea for a blog! Altho us middleagemum's are more likely to be planning weddings for daughters or comtemplating (in a more battle-weary way) second marriages, it is just fabulous to read this. Will you be carrying on once married and doing My Vintage Marriage?

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  3. After 43 years I think I could do a My Vintage Marriage !!

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  4. Can't wait to see the finished tables!

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  5. I have just discovered this blog through another blogger & I really like the idea -by the end of it all you'll have heaps of lovely things and lots of lovely things to store away - you won't want to throw anything out I'm sure.Do remember that the wedding is about two people though - what does your would-be hubby think of all this? Is he a vintage fad too?

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  6. You're right, may be I should have called it Our Vintage Vows! But don't worry, the theme has been approved and my fiance is actually getting quite into the whole thing... he's thinking about 50s accessories for his outfit!

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