Meet the stallholders...a quick cuppa with Eirlys Penn aka Scrapiana

Eirlys Penn is another one of our amazing traders who’ve been with us since the beginning. She lives in Bath, sells the most beautiful vintage haberdashery and also writes a very popular blog, Scrapiana.

Hi Eirlys, tell us all about yourself.

I sell vintage haberdashery, textiles and other individually selected items, some handmade from scrap fabric by yours truly.

Eirlys

When and why did you start doing this?

In truth, Scrapiana was the sand-lined safety exit for my unstoppable impulse to collect old sewing items. My proper day job is writing, and I’m just beginning to combine my knowledge of vintage sewing items, my ability to make, and my writing skills - a really exciting development. I blog about my collecting, making and selling at www.scrapiana.com

Where do you get your ideas/inspiration from?

I’m a probably a frustrated curator deep down, and there are a few museums which particularly inspire me. The Shaker sewing items in the American Museum (which has just re-opened for the season) are exquisite, especially the signature oval sewing box lined with unexpectedly vibrant, almost psychedelic fabric, and the collection of different sized, beautifully shaped thread bobbins. We’re also hugely lucky in Bath to have the Fashion Museum; their Behind-the-Scenes exhibition is well worth a nose round. But all hail to the mighty V&A! Last February half-term I took my sons to London for the Natural History Museum, but the monstrous queues circling right round the block persuaded even them that it wasn’t worth it, so we scooted over the road to the uncrowded V&A instead. There was ample amusement for the boys in the revolving door alone, but they actually found the exhibits themselves interesting (big surprise) and I was obviously in seventh heaven. I keep my eye on the museum’s free lunchtime talks list and their impressive array of courses.

At the moment, I have a soft spot for the early twentieth century when labels on cotton reels, darning threads, packets of pins etc tended to sport an understatedly elegant old-gold lettering; some nice examples are reproduced in this year’s V&A diary.

Have you been part of “It’s darling!” before?

Yes, I’ve been to all of them! Do I qualify for a loyalty badge? The organizers are very charming and helpful, and the traders are a really nice, friendly assortment too. And it’s wonderfully busy, otherwise I wouldn’t be there. I’m really excited that this one coincides with the Bath in Fashion festival.

What do you remember most about previous fairs?

Possibly talking to older visitors about their memories of darning. I sell old darning mushrooms (wood and Bakelite) and they evoke strong memories - not all good - of an era before the factory sock when girls were expected to mend Daddy’s holed ones. I’m all in favour of bringing back darning skills but think Daddy should really be capable of mending his own.

Are you doing anything special with your stall?

Yes, I’ll have lots of Mother’s Day goodies: special labels to sew into your textile gifts [see picture], teeny reels of ribbon and vintage ric-rac, covered buttons, old cotton reels which will slip happily into Mum’s sewing box. I also have vintage brooches, hankies and scarves, plus some Easter and general spring-time delights too, such as vintage children’s and natural history books and cross-stitch patterns featuring bunnies and birds.

Mother's Day label

Please finish this sentence: What I love most about Spring is…the Magnolia bursting into flower, and the bustling activity of nesting birds; a pair of blue-tits is nesting in an air vent just outside my office window and I keep catching sight of them bringing more material to line it. Nature is beautifully irrepressible.

Please finish this sentence too: What I need to buy most in spring is... Bird food! Those bird parents could do with our help.

What’s “It’s darling!” in your life?

I might have to say Mittens the cat [pictured with an eiderdown I’ll be selling] as your charity’s the Cats & Dogs Home. But at this time of year, the Magnolia stellata is really the star for me – a darling little pale pink Magnolia which is currently flowering in my garden. 

Mittens the cat and an eiderdown

I planted a tiny white Magnolia stellata in our London garden 16 years ago when my eldest was born. The lovely thing about these little trees is that they flower when still very small indeed, so are great value for money. When we moved (just after our second son was born, five years later) we uprooted the poor little tree and took it with us, so it became his birth tree too. Our new home was only round the corner, so we trundled the treasured specimen there in a wheelbarrow! – along with the well-rotted contents of the compost heap, which the new owners didn’t want. That was February, and the Magnolia still managed to flower that year. Sadly, it would have been utterly impractical to do another uprooting three years later when we moved to Bath, so we reluctantly left the little tree behind. I hope it’s putting on a good spring show still.

Magnolia stellata

For more details about Eirlys and her work go to www.scrapiana.com, email eirlys@scrapiana.com or telephone  07769 655073

Meet the stallholders...tea and cake with Eirlys Penn from Scrapiana

Back in July we held our very first "It's darling!" and Eirlys was one of the traders who put her faith in us and took a stall. We were immensely grateful to her, as we were to all the original stallholders and are very pleased that many of them have booked again.  Here's what she has to say.

Tomato pincushions

Hello, for those of us who don't know you already, please introduce yourself.

I’m Eirlys Penn, and I live in Larkhall on the East side of the city of Bath. My stall, and my blog are called Scrapiana.  I sell a cornucopia of vintage haberdashery and related items: buttons, wooden cotton reels, embroidery thread, red-and-white baker’s twine, packets

of bias binding, old belt buckles, ric-rac, etc. But I’m also an enthusiastic upcycler, making new things from discarded scraps etc. This Christmas, for example, I’ve been making lavender heart ornaments from worn-out woollen blankets, and lucky tomato pincushions from other textile scraps (above). Haberdashery fridge magnets are my latest thing – I’ve been having lots of fun making those out of buttons and giant snap fasteners!

Sounds amazing! Now who is in this picture?

It's a picture of me (left) with an old college friend, Kate, in New York a couple of years ago. I managed to do a trawl of the historic textile and millinery districts of the city during that visit (Wow!). Kate is an antiquarian bookseller and years ago she gave me one of my treasured old sewing textbooks; eerily, it had been inscribed by someone bearing exactly the same name as me, back in the 1930s. I have an obscure Welsh name, and have never actually met another Eirlys, let alone one with the same surname too. So how spooky is that? I also sell old sewing books, sewing and knitting patterns, so do look out for those on my stall.

Why did you start Scrapiana?

I’ve never had any trouble attracting bric-a-brac,  especially sewing-related, and I did the first "It’s Darling!" in July, partly to clear the decks slightly, partly to gauge the response and see what people liked. I really enjoyed it, and the response was lovely, though my decks remain remarkably cluttered, but that’s another story.

My day job is quite solitary (I’m locked away writing most of the time) but I love meeting people and nattering; my first jobs were ALL interfacing with the public and press (I was a salesperson, receptionist, then press officer for a couple of publishers) and that was perhaps too far the other way for me. Writing, making things, then frantically interfacing with the public on high days and holidays is about the right mix for me.

What inspires you?

In terms of making things, there are some favourite blogs I follow; people like English sewing author Ruth Singer, and Americans Mimi Kirchner and Lisa Brainerd (two hugely creative American crafters). If you pinned me down on an era, I might have to say early-mid-20th century. I find any vintage of cotton reel and button interesting, though darning ephemera

(cards of darning yarn), especially from the 1930s, is currently catching my eye. I also love the Singer sewing machines of the mid-20th century, especially the celery-white 221Ks made in Scotland in the 1960s (below). 

Why did you want to be part of “It’s darling!”? 

July was great! There was a nice mix of other stalls, and the stall-holders were lovely. I originally heard about it via Twitter (I think I was somehow following @mrsstokeschina and caught her tweet).

Are you doing anything special with your stall? 

YES! Lavender scrap wool hearts.  If you catch me at a quiet moment I’ll show you how to make your own. I’ve blogged about them here.

Describe your ideal Christmas day 

If I had my way, I wouldn’t get out of my pjs! I love just watching the boys open their gifts, while admiring the tree - hopefully bedecked with a few shiny buttons, cotton reels, lavender hearts and gingerbread cookies! A glass of something bubbly wouldn’t go amiss.

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without….

Singing! There has to be a lot of music in my Christmas: give me a burst of Handel’s Messiah and my cup runneth over. I sing in a church choir, and I really value its quiet companionship throughout the year. Christmas kind of falls into place for me around that activity. Oh, and gingerbread cookies. I make vast amounts every year.

Then there’s the excitement of late Christmas Eve trying to get everything done and wrapped and swig the sherry and munch Santa’s mince pie so that the kids are fooled, and listen to Carols from Kings, and watch It’s a Wonderful Life, and read The Night Before Christmas and The Velveteen Rabbit (‘There was once a velveteen rabbit, and in the beginning he was really splendid…he had real thread whiskers, and his ears were pink sateen.’) and stay up WAY too late trying to make everything magical.

What’s your favourite cake? And kind of tea? 

New York cheesecake (is that cheating?) or lemon drizzle cake (I have a very good recipe c/o Sophie Grigson). Lapsang Souchong is probably my favourite tea: the smokiness is almost as good as a log fire in the depths of winter, and it makes me feel like I’m drinking something slightly illicit when I’m really being very good and abstemious. Earl Grey comes a close second. Favourite café? I like Bloomsbury, Shoon and can’t wait to try the

new Patisserie Valerie, conveniently opposite the Guildhall, all in Bath. It takes me

back to when I worked near Soho; I don’t think I ever went in (publishers don’t pay well), but used to press my nose up to the window. I love the exquisite arrangements of gateaux, and the soft lighting.

What would you say “It’s darling!” about in your life? 

I have a bit of a thing for old scissors: buttonhole scissors and pinking shears especially, and you’ll find some on my stall. A while back, I managed to get hold of an old-fashioned pinking machine, the sort pre-scissor which you mount onto a table edge and work with a crank-handle. Singer used to make one as a sewing-machine attachment, but that’s another story. I love this one because it’s quite small and dainty, and it takes an ordinary piece

of card and turns it into a beautifully flute-edged thing. Now, THAT’S what I call ‘It’s Darling!’…

To find  out more about Eirlys go to www.scrapiana.com or email eirlys@scrapiana.com

Meet the stallholders: 60 seconds with.....Eiryls from Scrapiana

Eirlys Penn lives in Bath and sells vintage haberdashery (Sylko cotton reels, cards of old buttons, bias binding, zips etc), some vintage household linens, and related handmade lovelies such as pincushions. Eiryls is a professional writer too which you can see from her beautifully worded interview. Naturally she blogs - hers is called “Scrapiana” which is the same name as her work.
 

1, Hi Eirlys, how long have you been doing what you do?
Scrapiana is, ironically, brand spanking new!  Before that (and on the margin of it still) I'm a writer; I can be also be found at www.writingpenn.com

2. When did you first fall in love with haberdashery? 
My passion for collecting vintage threads, buttons etc began many years ago. I adore old sewing items, probably because of that archetypal knee-high experience of sifting through my mother's sewing box; I can still visualise the red satin strawberry emery she used to sharpen her needles, and I loved the solid weight of the old wooden cotton reels, and their fabulous typography. The deep shine of an old mother-of-pearl button or buckle still takes my breath away. But there comes a time in every button- glutton's life when they need to de-stash. Or start a museum. So selling Scrapiana vintage haberdashery was the next logical step. I've also begun hiring out items to a craft publisher, which is a terrible encouragement to my inner magpie.

A selection of feedsack patchwork shapes that

were cut by Eiryls' grandmother in the Great Depression.

 3. What's the ethos behind what you do?
I hope to save these beautiful, old, often overlooked items from the oblivion of landfill; not just sewing-related things, but other items which can be turned to new account: for instance, I make up bias binding from old clothing (I'm making up some lovely stuff at the moment from an old Liberty lawn skirt with an unfortunate, indelible ink stain which makes it unwearable), and laundry and gift bags from old sheeting. Most things can be re-used, and the challenge if figuring out how. Even half a diamante buckle (with the odd stone missing) can become a beautiful necklace just by adding a length of ribbon.

4. Why did you want to be part of "It's darling!"? 
Vintage and handmade are my twin interests so when they came packaged up together and tied in a big pink bow by "It's darling!" I didn't have to think long at all.

A tomato pin cushion

5. Any personal details you care to share? Partner, kids, hobbies, guilty pleasures?
I have a husband and two sons who just about tolerate my magpie tendencies. My career is so chequered it makes gingham look plain; I've been a book publicist, a waste campaigner (well, anti-waste campaigner), a writer, and also trained in soft furnishings. My guilty pleasures include chilli-chocolate, charity-shopping, browsing in second-hand bookshops, singing (not well!), hanging laundry on the line (I know, I should be ashamed. It's the old clothes pegs, you see), late-night tandem-cycling beside the Kennet & Avon canal, and smelling roses in other people's gardens. What a hell-raiser!

 6. Will you be offering any special offers at It's Darling and if so what? 
A free beeswax thread-saver with every purchase over £10.

Eiryls is a self-confessed "Button-Glutton." These are just for starters.

7. What's your piece of "three second wisdom" - life or crafting advice! 
Measure once, measure twice, measure once again, and only THEN cut!

"My guilty pleasures include  hanging laundry on the line (I know, I should be ashamed. It's the old clothes pegs, you see). 

What a hell-raiser!"

Don't worry, we all succumb to airing our dirty laundry in public at some point Eiryls.

8. What three things would you want to be stranded with on a desert island?
A bottle of chilled champagne, my husband, and a 1930s motor-yacht.

9. What in your life would you say is "It's darling!"? 
I'm compelled to say both my newborn sons' tiny fingers and toes, but they are relatively grown up now. So, it would have to be a set of tiny wooden reels of silk thread, designed for children's use, which turned up in a mixed box of cottons. They're so perfect and, I think, such a rare survival. The box only has 5 of the 6 original threads, but they are nonetheless utterly treasurable. And a card of 36 tiny mother-of-pearl glove buttons which I picked up in a French brocante years ago and framed. Oh, and the jauntily printed feedsack patchwork shapes cut by my grandmother in the Great Depression; she completed a lot of quilts but these were left over, all stacked up and ready to go.

A child's vintage sewing set

To find out more about Eirlys and her fantastic work, go to her blog http://scrapiana.com or email her at eirlys@scrapiana.com