I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who absolutely loved reading about Karen of didyoumakethat.com‘s kookily brilliant ‘pattern trail’, which involved her hiding a range of lovely patterns in various nooks and crannies all over The Isle of Wight, with a series of clues to help her readers to locate them 🙂 So disappointed to have been miles away from the action!
The highlight of my week so far wasn’t quite on a par with this, but it made me smile nonetheless. Every year we take our pupils to visit The Imperial War Museum in Salford, here in Manchester, to further their understanding of the war poetry unit we teach them. It’s a fantastic, and deeply moving visit, which both our girls and the staff enjoy. I’m always fascinated by the contributions made by women in particular and the individual stories behind the artefacts on display. What I wasn’t expecting to find though were these…
… nestled in the museum shop. In fact, there was a whole little section dedicated to the ‘make do and mend’ mantra. Well, clearly as they’re both completely impractical for a British Winter, I couldn’t resist 😉 I probably paid over the standard rate for them, but it’s clearly for a good cause and I’d have probably paid something similar for p & p, and no doubt wouldn’t have stopped at just placing two patterns in my shopping cart (anyone else guilty of justifying their additional purchases to get their money’s worth out of the p & p?)
I might also have made my first couple of purchases for my ‘Sewing Santa’ recipient… Head on over to Stitched Up From the Start for more details, and if you’ve missed it this year, definitely something fun to consider for the next 🙂
Where’s the most unexpected place you’ve purchased patterns from?
navybluethreads 
Oh these are cute! I’m not much of a pattern buyer… Yet. But I am often spending more online just to get free P&P haha!!
I’ve been so good of late, so thought it was justifiable 😉
Nice patterns. I have the Betty dress too and I haven’t used it yet. I really like sewoverit patterns.
I haven’t used one before but seen lots of them on various blogs. Little worried the tea dress looks pretty difficult, but the Betty doesn’t look too bad. They’ll have to wait until Spring though I think…
Oh well spotted! I think she has just opened a shop in London?? Did you read that somewhere too?
Yep! Wish we had a sewing place near here to go to! I get v jealous of all these courses down South. Must make some time to see if there’s any ‘up North’, although not really heard of any…
No, me neither. Don’t you have the Ministry of Craft near you?
I’ve heard of that one, but it’s in the centre of Manchester which isn’t that easy to get to for me. City centre parking super expensive, so would mean drive to nearest tram station and then tram in, which is fine in the day, but not at night. Might be worth a look if they have day courses on though I guess…
Could we open one half way between us…Nice cafe as well? 😃
Oh, even better idea! I like it 🙂
Ministry of Craft in Manchester run courses on Saturday too! I’m looking forward to attending one next Saturday with my daughter who’s a novice sewist. I know what you mean about parking though; it’ll be the bus for us.
Enjoying your blog. Inspiring!
Too kind, thank you! Do they have a website? Sat classes would be great, now feeling bad for not checking! Will take a look now… 🙂
They are lovely, and an amazing perk of a school trip! Do you have any fabric in mind yet? I look forward to finding out what you use for the one on the left, but they are both beautiful 🙂
I know, totally wasn’t expecting to buy patterns but figured I’d stuck to my stash-busting cleanse for such a long time… Think I’ll tackle them in the Spring, so plenty of time to hunt down some pretty fabric to make them up in 🙂
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