Sneak preview

I work in London, right on the East side of the city. At lunchtimes I go to Brick Lane, or Petticoat Lane Market, but best of all is Spitalfields Market. Every day is different – on Thursdays it’s antiques, which allows for a huge variety of stalls selling everything from vintage buttons, jewellery, bags and clothes to antique furniture, toys, crockery and dolls with missing limbs. On Fridays it’s hand crafted things – bags, toys, clothes, jewellery etc, with a splattering of the weird and wonderful antiques stalls thrown in.

I often go to Spitalfields just to wander and immerse myself in a world utterly different to that of the office. I like my job as a PA, but it doesn’t compare to getting hands on with needles and thread, or tiles and cutters, it doesn’t even come close.

The stall-holders are always really friendly, some are more hard-selling than others, some are just chatty and tell you the stories behind the objects displayed on their tables. I always come away feeling like I have had, at the very least, a small experience. Today, after managing to pull myself away from temptation of the Indian fabric shop on Brick Lane (don’t get me started on the abundance of sparkly things to be had in there, drool…), I found myself admiring a lovely piece of fabric at a stall in Spitalfields.

I am at work with no time at all so the best I can do for now is a sneak preview with my camera phone!…

About four metres in all of 100% cotton vintage fabric with a gorgeous retro print. Quite obviously out of my budget. I got chatting to the lovely woman on the stall who said she had bought it in Harrods when “fabric was sold in yards, not metres..but you won’t remember dear…”

I am always falling in love with fabric at Spitalfields, and it is nearly always about £50 over my budget. But today the fabric goddesses were smiling on me…£10!! So I sacrificed my planned treat of chocolate and a diet coke and handed over my tenner with glee*.

It really is gorgeous. I will post much better pictures over the weekend.

More from me later today…!



*note to self: must use the word “glee” more often.