Public Library Number 1.

If Lucien's unseemly delight in drawing her attention to the detailed biological diagrams required to support his "research" wasn't enough, his eerie duplication of her daily choice of knitwear should have set alarm bells ringing.

Things Go Better With Love

They just do.

Authentic psychedelic era textile wall-hanging and one of my favourite things.

It also reminds me of a joke from my childhood (and it was an old joke even then):
Q: What do monsters eat?
A: Things.
Q: And what do monsters drink?
A: Coke. Because Things go better with Coke.

Tea-Towels I Have Loved (Part 1)

A tea-towel is the most utilitarian of textiles. Drab tea-towels are the faceless public servants of the kitchen, drying the washing-up and swabbing the counter tops with a mind numbing lack of grace or charm. But ah, there are vintage tea-towels at large in the world, small brightly printed rectangles of joie de vivre.

A series of these delights will be blogged here, but for the position of honour at head of the parade I gladly hand over to my wonderful sister Du, who combines a sweet appreciation of any day's little felicities with a way with words which leaves me awestruck. Her topic is a jauntily sophisticated vintage tea-towel gleaned from a nicely laundered and neatly folded stack of its lesser fellows at a garage sale in Blackheath (NSW Blue Mountains) last year:


"This one is of such generous proportions that it might even be some sort of supper cloth: something you’d whisk out of the drawer and onto the traymobile as you hear the crunch of approaching drinkers on the gravel outside the sitting room window. The sun is dropping. Time to tinkle the swizzle sticks, Delores.



With a strict palette of red, green and black and the minimum of confidently rendered detail, the artist has somehow evoked a whole party in two dimensions.

The jolliness of the simple red and green border device just adds a little something, without intruding on the main graphic content.


There are no repeats in this cocktail cavalcade.

You dream them up, drink them and instantly forget how you made them. Some are sweetly fizzy, others still and deadly with a pearly onion punch at the final draught. Sup up kid and let’s have another."

There's a Fish in my coffee!

In the enchanted poinciana-shaded glades of the Hotel Brunswick garden little trippy things are welcome to happen. It took several minutes of delighted appreciation and a couple more of agonising before I could bring myself to dissolve this masterpiece of piscatorial ephemera (thankfully my husband had his phone with him and took a photo, or I might be there still).

My mother, visiting from cooler climes, was similarly impressed with (although less compunct in getting down to the business of drinking) her frangipani-topped cup.

Not in any way related to vintage fabrics of course, but thanks to Nadia for not being afraid to express her happy spirit and for weaving a sparkling thread into the fabric of our day :)

Bernard Bowd Jnr. and the 'Scamps'

Today I have the delight of sharing one of my absolute favourite labels. The most tantalising fragment from a groovy time. Even the font is fab.

But who were Bernard Bowd Jnr. and the 'Scamps'? I can't find out a thing about them but the name has always conjured a mental image closer to a musical act than a design team - the 'Scamps' of course would be up for an interlude of interpretive dance during Bernard's guitar solo.

Not just an enchanting label but a superb psychedelic Peter Max style print. The garment itself is an incongruously druidic hooded piece suspiciously close to loungewear, which spends much of its time lamenting that it wasn't incarnated as the mini dress to which its spirit rightfully aspires.

Knowing The Ropes

From this otherwise unassuming mid 60's button-through cotton shift dress by Roth's of Sydney springs a printed stream of pure design joy. What beautiful mutiny allowed the ropes to rise up from their coils on the decks and cavort in attitudes of abandon with rum, pipes and semaphore flags?

A strikingly perfect detail is the placement of this button - the pattern only allowed it to happen once but imagine the satisfaction!