Merry Christmas!

Corset Laced Mannequins

Please take a look at these fabulous mannequins by Lucy, which have been covered in various wonderful fabrics! Lucy is obsessed with mannequins and has a great antique and vintage collection of them. These unique beauties are just delightful!

You can see all of Lucy's mannequins on her website.

And you can see all her day to day shenanigans on her blog. We would love to see a collaboration of our fabrics and her mannequins one day!! A match made in heaven!

December Vintage Vogue Fair

On Sunday 6th December,Anne and Colin attended the ever more popular Vintage Vogue Fashion Fair in Brentwood, Essex. The fair is fast becoming the most fashionable place to be seen outside London, especially with celebrities joining the masses and seeking out a bargain or two! The day was a great success and we hope to return with our wares for the next fair in the new year. You can take a better look at all the information and see all the dates for 2010 here.

On Friday 27th November, we took part in a fabulous Ladies Only Spa and Shop event to help raise money for Breakthrough Breast Cancer.

We held a stall along with several other ladies who were selling jewellery, handbags, make up and other lovely girly products. There were also ladies giving hand massages and advising on colour therapy. Also on hand were 2 wonderful men dishing out hand made canapes and delicious mini desserts! All the various stalls and organisations donated gifts for goody bags and raffle prizes for the 50 women who attended the party. It really was a great night with over £1000 being raised. Our heartfelt thanks go to Sophie Brown, the amazing woman who organised the whole thing, for inviting us to take part and help in our own small way to make the evening such a success!

BBC Homes and Antiques Christmas Issue

Once again, we are proud to say we are in the current issue of BBC Homes and Antiques. This time it is in the Christmas Guide. Please take a look and see if you can spot us!

Belated Halloween Pictures

Hello everyone! Sorry for not posting for so long, The Vintage Fabric Market has been a hive of busy bee-ness since November. Here are just a few of the many, many, many photos taken on Halloween of Hazel and The Little Emperor. They had a fantastic time at a party and then went trick or treating! It was great fun and lots of sweeties were collected for consumption over the following days!!

Halloween Pumpkin Cake

Halloween pumpkin cake

Ingredients

• 300g self-raising flour
• 300g light muscovado sugar
• 3 tsp mixed spice
• 2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 175g sultanas
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 eggs , beaten
• 200g butter , melted
• zest 1 orange
• 1 tbsp orange juice
• 500g (peeled weight) pumpkinsor butternut squash flesh, grated

• 200g pack soft cheese
• 85g butter , softened
• 100g icing sugar , sifted
• zest 1 orange and juice of half

• Cuts into 15 generous portions

  Preparation and cooking times

  

  Prep 20 mins

  

  Cook 30 mins

  

  (without frosting)

  

  1. Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Butter and line a 30 x 20cm baking or small roasting tin with baking parchment. Put the flour, sugar, spice, bicarbonate of soda, sultanas and salt into a large bowl and stir to combine. Beat the eggs into the melted butter, stir in the orange zest and juice, then mix with the dry ingredients till combined. Stir in the pumpkin. Pour the batter into the tin and bake for 30 mins, or until golden and springy to the touch.
  2. To make the frosting, beat together the cheese, butter, icing sugar, orange zest and 1 tsp of the juice till smooth and creamy, then set aside in the fridge. When the cake is done, cool for 5 mins then turn it onto a cooling rack. Prick it all over with a skewer and drizzle with the rest of the orange juice while still warm. Leave to cool completely.
  3. If you like, trim the edges of the cake. Give the frosting a quick beat to loosen, then, using a palette knife, spread over the top of the cake in peaks and swirls. If you're making the cake ahead, keep it in the fridge then take out as many pieces as you want 30 mins or so before serving. Will keep, covered, for up to 3 days in the fridge.

  

  Try this

  Pumpkins can vary dramatically in water content, so keep an eye on the cake towards the end of cooking - yours may take less or more time to cook through. If you're not carving out a pumpkin this year butternut squash works brilliantly, too.

All of us at The Vintage Fabric Market would like to wish all the Ghouls and Gals a Happy Halloween!

Get to some Trick or Treatin' and have a great time!!

Royal Mail Postal Strike

This is an informational message regarding the Royal Mail postal strike. As ever, we will do our very best to ensure that your purchases get to your door as quickly as possible.

On all orders over £10, we will send them as Recorded Delivery, this will enable you to track your order more easily.

On all orders over £40, we will send them as Special Delivery.

The Vintage Fabric Market strives to achieve the best in customer service and satisfaction, if you have any queries whatsoever, please don't hesitate to contact us at info@vintagefabricmarket.co.uk

Ladies Indulgence Evening

On Friday 27th November, The Vintage Fabric Market will be contributing to a special evening for Breakthrough Breast Cancer in Newton, Cambridge.

Lots of ladies will be attending for a night of pampering, preening and most importantly, shopping!

If you are in the area and would like more info about the event, then get in contact with us and we'll do our best to help. We are certainly looking forward to it, it will be lots of fun!!

Thank You Offbeat Bride!

On November the eighth last year, Hazel and Ash got married. Before the wedding Hazel pored over many different websites looking at dresses, hats, shoes etc. She became OBSESSED with just one. Offbeat Bride. It's fabulous, so much inspiration. Well they've only gone and included the wedding on their blog! You can have a look here.

Back to Brentwood!

The Vintage Fabric Market is taking to the road again for another Vintage Vogue Fashion Fair in Brentwood, Essex. It takes place on Sunday 18th October between 10am and 3pm at The Sports Centre, Brentwood School, CM15 8EE.

Please come along and take a look around if you can make it. There are hundreds of stalls fit to bursting with all kinds of Vintageness!

Zoe's New Website

Cambridge Girl and Friend of the Vintage Fabric Market, Zoe Morgan has a new website showcasing her jewellery designs. You can have a look here. Zoe has been designing jewellery for over 20 years, using a wide range of materials to create some stunning pieces. We wish her all the best on her journey to world domination!!!

Autumn's Here!

Just a few lovely Autumnal photos Hazel took whilst on her travels through Little Shelford today.

Believe in yourself, your neighbors, your work, your ultimate attainment of more complete happiness. It is only the farmer who faithfully plants seeds in the Spring, who reaps a harvest in Autumn.
- B. C. Forbes

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
- George Eliot

Publish Post

Raised In Cotton

Hazel has found this delightful blog full of stuff about decorating in a vintage style. Have a look here.

Lovely Brooch!

Anne has discovered a fabulous vintage retro brooch. Check it out here along with lots more lovely things!!

Cambridge Cancer Help Centre - The David Rayner Building

Hazel was lucky enough to spend an afternoon yesterday, helping out at a bit of a do, for the Cambridge Cancer help Centre. She was invited to help dispense drinks from the bar for the opening of the David Rayner Building which has been 18 months in the making. It was officially opened by none other than the Duchess of Gloucester.

Everyone who helped to make the project a success, whether donating time, money or materials attended and even those who attend the centre currently. Everyone was so proud of what has been achieved in such a short space of time and incredibly awed by the work of the centre itself, which continues to provide support for those suffering from cancer and other terminal illnesses.

Anyone who has suffered through such a terrible illness as cancer, or their families and loved ones, can appreciate what a great need there is for centres such as this. If only more people could have the vision and courage to go ahead with these kinds of projects. Those which bring together the whole community, as is the case here, then perhaps we would not be without hope in the face of such struggles.

Baby Scarlett- An Update

Scarlett Mabb is doing very well and is turning into quite the little lady. She attended her first official function in the Little Shelford area on Saturday evening at a joint birthday barbeque for our dear friend Loretta and her Aunty Becky. Here she is above with Daddy Mabb and Uncle Giles.

And above with her Aunty Becky.

A true little princess!

Thanks Jo!!

We just would like to say a big thank you to Jo, who took care of The Vintage Fabric Market while we were on holiday. She has kept everything in order and continues to be a great asset to the team! THANK YOU JO!!

The Holiday Album

Our heartfelt apologies for being away for so long! We have been on holiday to Newquay, in beautiful Cornwall. Hazel, Ashley, Anne, Colin and The Little Emperor have had a wonderful rest. We stayed in a caravan park called Summer Lodge. Cornwall is a delightful little corner of England with gorgeous beaches, good surf and friendly people. We visited many great attractions during our stay. Including Boscastle, of which it's harbour can be seen below. Much of it was destroyed during a flash flood in 2004 but has now been rebuilt thanks to the hard work of the villagers and many volunteers.

We also visited Bodmin General Station, which boasts a full size working steam train. Of course in true Vintage Fabric Market style we were too fashionably late, and missed it.

We also visited Charlestown Shipwreck and Heritage Centre. A very interesting museum of all kinds of nautical and maritime history and artefacts. It is built on the docks where China Clay was imported and exported below the museum. There are still the original tunnels you can go down to see where the workers used to push the carts through which The Little Emperor refused to go in and threw an impromptu hissy fit. He was eventually lured in with hands over his eyes with the promise of cornish Clotted Cream Fudge at the other end!

This beach below is Watergate Bay which is absolutely stunning! There is a small stream on one side which runs from the top of the beach to the sea. Many, many kids have dammed it up over the warmer months to make a constantly filling pool for them to splash in without having to even enter the sea. Perfect for parents who don't want the worry of jellyfish, crabs, currents, rip tides etc!

This is the view from Fistral Beach which is situated on the centre of Newquay itself.

We shall certainly be returning to Cornwall again next year, it's so beautiful! Hopefully in our new project, The homemade Vintage Fabric Market Camper Van!!!

A few weeks ago, Hazel and The Little Emperor went to see Ashley(Daddy) playing cricket for The Queen's Head in Newton. The team were playing their annual grudge match against rival pub, The Blue Ball, from Grantchester.

Not really caring about cricket, I'm afraid Hazel cannot tell you the score, nor even who won the match. She can say however, there was alot of ale consumed by the players, and also some fabulous homemade scones.