Flea Marketing and Housekeeping Tips, Please!

Happy Easter to all who celebrate it! We don't, so it's just regular goings-on for us.

It's been raining all weekend over here in southwest France, which meant that I've been stuck indoors for two days. Not a bad thing, since if I can get away with it, I'd stay home all the time. (Sometimes I wonder what the heck ever happened to the twentysomething version of me, the one my friends and family doubted ever slept, as I was out either working or partying all the time -- but that's for another blog post.)

So what do I do when I'm home with lots of free time on my hands? Why, I sew of course. This is a sneak peek of my weekend project, a line of new pillows I'm working on for the shop.

I did want to go to the Saturday flea market in Lunel, but I doubted if even the hardiest vendors (they line up to get a place as early as three a.m.!) was going to be there, so I scratched the idea.

I love that market. I drove over there two Saturdays ago. If you read this blog, you'd know that I have a thing for lace, but seeing the inspiring ways crocheted doilies are being used over at Etsy these days, like here and here, I snapped a few up. And yep, I used one of them for the pillow above.

Along with the doilies, I also got this woven blanket that reminded me of Christmas, sort of, what with the red-and-white colors and the snowflake pattern. The woman selling it said it belonged to her mother-in-law, but she couldn't tell me much more than that. My cat Luna had a sniff, but couldn't tell me more either. Anyone has an idea where it comes from originally?

Still on questions and acquisitions from that trip: I was looking at this piece of cloth that was charming and old, but was unfortunately marked with brown moisture spots. The woman (the same one selling the blanket), seeing my interest, just gave it to me and wished me luck with the stain removal. I pre-soaked it, then put it in the machine at high temperature, but the stains are still there. I'm sure there's no way I can remove them now, but I see these kinds of stains a lot when I'm digging through fabric at flea markets. I find it such a shame when I see an otherwise nice piece of cloth rendered useless this way. Can somebody help me out and tell me how these stains can possibly be removed?


P.S. Je me demande si je dois traduire mon blog en français. Si vous êtes francophone, puis-je vous demander votre avis?