Bristol cottage 3.27

About

...I salvage vintage and new textiles and use them to create pretty things ..I really feel strongly and I am ultra passionate about no waste and that by reusing found and salvaged bits and bobs I'm doing my small part ... I am also learning about permaculture ....... yeah we are a just bunch of bohemian gypsies..
.I have always been drawn to beautiful fabric's. I have collected (well hoarded really) beautiful vintage fabric remnants
, scraps and trims ... just about everything really ...I have a studio full of bits and bobs I also salvage sample books from the designer fabric showroom where I work and use then to create my items,this saves them from the land fill and helps me create beautiful things ..I love to be in my studio and lose myself in a project I hope that my love of creating shows through in my work ..I love to rearrange my home and add quirky things I've made or found

*****check out our B&B *****

www.Bristol-cottage.com

we are also airbnb hosts

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/917580

I USED TO HAVE A SHOP HERES AN ARTICLE ABOUT IT


**********PRESS*****
At a quiet corner on Broadway, the word finds a new meaning. Here,
Tatters identifies a shop stocked with unique hand-made items by two Irish women who love the old, the chic and the trendy.
******
Draped in a bright pink wool wrap that she knit herself, co-owner Carol Riley, drifts among the goods with pride, softly running her fingers on a mauve satin cushion and straightening the wrinkles on an emerald green hat.
Her long pastel purple skirt brushes against the tile floor. She lifts the edge and says, “this used to be a curtain hanging in some house once.”
Her partner, Geraldine Purcell, looks up from behind her antique sewing machine where she is stitching her signature hats: “There are lots of little goodies here.”

Take, for example, a slip-on evening dress of velvet blue curtain fabric imported from France that Riley found in a vintage store in England; or the colorful sleeveless tops that were once part of a silk Chinese kimono found in a Boston flea market.

Like their creators, these items have traveled far, their mysterious tales unknown to those who marvel at them in the store or take them home.

The colorful chenille bedspread that once decorated someone's bed is now cut into tiny baby clothes. And the linen embroidered tablecloth used at garden tea parties in Italy swings as a full-skirt dress for a little girl.
Peeking into the store on her way home from work, Cindy Layton, an events designer in Newport, sifts though the antique rhinestone jewelry for a gift for her sister.

“I come here when I want to wear something that I know no one else will be wearing. This is not The Gap. In this shop there is only one of everything,” Layton said.

MAINTAINING A STOCK full of unique items presents a challenge for the owners, who handle the business as well as the creative aspects of their shop.

To satisfy customers and attract new shoppers, Riley and Purcell are constantly hunting for unusual and beautiful vintage fabrics in any shape or form. After the purchase, they spread the fabric in front of them and envision a design. Should it be transformed into a dress, a cushion, a wrap or a hat?

“We do it all,” Riley said, “hunt for the fabric, design it, sew it and then sell it