Bambi Goes to the Museum

Imagine taking your campervan right inside the inner sanctum of a very famous museum. Wouldn't it be something of an adventure? A rarity? An outright impossibility? Take a look at the pictures below. I know it might seem hard to believe, but there is Bambi - aka The Mobile Makery - looking very much part of the scene at The Imperial War Museum in Salford! But what were we doing there?

At the moment, IWM North is showing Fashion on the Ration. I saw the exhibition twice down in London and was really impressed. It's all about street style during WWII and how innovative and thrifty women in particular proved to be when it came to devising a wardrobe that was smart, attractive and functional at a time of austerity and rationing. Make-do and mend was the order of the day back then and being something of a modern make-do and mender myself, I was invited to offer a thrifty creative workshop to visitors. Not only that, but Bambi -  my upcycled craft studio on wheels, was to be a star of the show for a special weekend at the start of June.

It was incredible to see peoples' reactions to Bambi. Many of the visitors couldn't quite understand what a campervan was doing at IWM. I had to explain the link between modern upcycling and the wartime ethos of make-do and mend. But once people got it - they were hooked - hopping on board to have a look at Bambi's upcycled interior and decorative touches. Two teenage girls couldn't quite believe that I really DO travel around in Bambi putting on creative pop-up workshops and speaking about how to make beautiful stuff out of throwaway trash! 

My take on this for the museum was to offer workshops turning old T-shirts into turbans - the sort of headwear that was worn by the women working in the munitions factories during the Second World War. I think it's fair to say that some of the ladies who came along are now ADDICTED to turbans!

My weekend at the museum was over all too quickly. Staff had really taken to Bambi - who'd almost become a living character in their eyes! Bambi often has this affect on people.

Special thanks to all the museum staff and to our lovely mechanic who had to drain Bambi of petrol, take out the gas cyclinder and battery and put everything back again perfectly so that we could drive back to Scotland without a hitch!

Do go and see Fashion on the Ration at IWM North. It's on until May 2017. Also accompanying the exhibition is a marvellous book of the same name by author Julie Summers and if you want to make your own thrifty and stylish  turban, you'll find it in my book Chic on a Shoestring.

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Immersed in making in my Scottish hideway

Since I began my Scottish sojourn (let's call it my maker's retreat) I've been busy coming up with ideas and projects for my new book Vintage Vacation based on my travels in the Mobile Makery. It sounds idyllic I know - far away from the madding crowd - cutting, sticking and stitching. I  realise you won't believe me but it does have its drawbacks! It's chilly and a bit lonesome and I'm not quite sure how long I can afford the luxury of not earning day-to-day. I'm lucky in that I have a very kind brother letting me stay with him for a while. But, I need to sort out the cash flow - fast! 

My 5am starts for shifts on the foreign desk at the BBC in London seem a long time ago already, but I miss my friends and colleagues enormously. The day-to-day dramas, deadlines and banter do give you an energy and focus that you can lack when you're working on your own with no reason to hurry. It's all too easy to become disconnected from what's going on in the world. For instance,  I've not been listening to the Today programme at all. Shock Horror! It used to be my regular wake-up call but now I switch it off if my brother puts it on. I've come to realise that being hit with bad news on a global scale every morning isn't necessarily the way to stay upbeat and positive! I'm not saying you should cut yourself off entirely, but pick and choose your moments, curate your listening, viewing and reading. Too much information can be a bad thing.

But onto more creative matters....!

Here below is a sneak preview of some of the makes I've been working on. I'm using largely recycled materials to create a host of projects that I hope will please both stylish nomads and home-loving hoarders!

Anyway - time for lunch so I must be off! Food is always a deadline worth sticking to ! x

Vintage hats for ladies who lunch!

These little cocktail hats are perfect for wearing with victory rolls!

I was recently invited to Eindhoven in the Netherlands to run a workshop in a vintage ribbon-pleating technique. I had a fantastic time and was offered such generous hospitality. The trip came about as a result of my Mobile Makery Tour of Europe in the summer. You may remember that I took part in a hat festival in Caussade in France (see earlier entry)  - and it was there that I met my Dutch millinery friends. They were keen to learn some of the methods I outline in my book The Modern Girl's Guide to Hatmaking - and this resulted in my trip to Eindhoven. Whilst there, I came across a fantastic supplier of vintage millinery materials. I bought some gorgeous strip straw and decided to use it to cover one of my handmade wire frames. 

I make the frames by hand, using very strong millinery wire - the idea is to form similar shapes to the small perching hats that were so popular in the 1950's, but without using a block. I then bind the wire with tulle and stitch a tulle cover on top, stretching the tulle so it's nice and taut. Once the tulle cover is in place, you can trim it it with whatever you wish.

The first task is to bind the outer edge of the frame. I find that softening the straw with hot water really helps as it needs to be very malleable to do this. Once the edge is covered you can then sew the strip in one continuous piece to the rest of the base - taking care to hide your stitches in the straw so they're not visible on the right side of the hat.

The technique is very satisfying and makes a really light hat that can be trimmed in many ways. Use steam to lightly block the shape once finished. The trick lies in constructing a good initial base that will 'self-grip' to the head. Perfect to wear with complicated hairstyles like victory rolls!

Dutch Hat Magazine feature

A big thankyou to Elly Stemerdink for featuring my Mobile Makery Europe tour in October's English edition of HoedenNieuws - the excellent and very glossy Dutch hat magazine. It's a real privilege to be included. 

I met Elly during an incredible hat festival in the South West of France at a place called Caussade, which was once the centre of the French straw hat-making industry. Having e-mailed the organisers and failed to hear back I decided to gatecrash the event, hot on the heels of having attended a little music festival at a place called Lagrasse. I was warmly welcomed and invited to set up a stall - with Bambi taking a starring role - comme toujours! 

I met all sorts of incredible people involved in the hat business in one way or another, and was offered the warmest hospitality, in spite of being a complete stranger. Elly was amongst a group of milliners from the Netherlands who come to Caussade every year to ply their wares and make contacts. Not only has she featured me in this month's magazine, but she's invited me to run a vintage-trim-making workshop in Eindhoven on National Hat Day - 7th November. Click on the website below for further details. Thanks Elly!

If you're interested in subscribing to the magazine then please e-mail Elly:

press@nederlandsehoedenvereniging.nl

Please look at the website for all details relating to the National Hat Day event (where I'll be amongst a group of milliners offering classes in different skills) www.nederlandsehoedenvereniging.nl

Mary Jane's Mobile Makery - How to Make: EASY PEASY Vintage Pillowcase Top

Whilst in France I've bought dozens of vintage 1960's pillowcases in bight bold florals.  Many of them are the old bolster-style pillowcases which people don't use any more. These tend to be open at both ends and just simply hemmed.  They cost as little as 50p each, and are lovely and soft after being used such a lot. 

In this little tutorial I show you how to make a very easy top from one of these pillowcases creating your own pattern first from newspaper. Don't worry - you don't need to be an expert pattern draughtsman or woman - it's really easy! My cunning time-saving tip is that if you position the pattern at the top and bottom of the pillowcase, you won't have to bother hemming your top as the hem on the pillowcase is already there for you to use. Hey Presto, no tricky hemming! This pattern will work for a size 10 - 14 (UK) - it'll be loose and breezy on the 10 and a little more fitted on a 14. For your info: I'm a 14 so you can see how it looks on me. If you need another size you'll have to adjust the pattern a little.  

Hope you like it! Please send me pics when you make yours! maryjanemillinery@hotmail.co.uk. If you don't have a vintage French pillowcase to hand (and why should you!) you can just use fabric of course. Recycled is best! GOOD LUCK!

Mary Jane's Mobile Makery - How to Make: Vintage Pillowcase Top Trailer!

Coming Soon! How to make a fabulous vintage top from a recycled French pillowcase thrifted on my travels!

Mary Jane's Mobile Makery - How to Make: Vintage Paper Decorations

I've been asked alot recently for some 'how to' tutorials and so I've been giving it a go! Using a couple of apps on my i-phone I've been having great fun putting something together. It's hard to make how-to videos stylish in my opinion as well as informative. So this is my first attempt! Not quite there yet, but I hope you enjoy this. It's all filmed in my Mobile Makery, my fabulous little craft studio on wheels with which I've been travelling around France and Italy.

Introducing Mary Jane's Mobile Makery Tutorials: How to Make: Vintage Paper Decorations!

Bargain Hunting MJ-style in France

Check out this little video to see what great vintage bargains are to be had in France!

Ti Recup - Carhaix in Brittany

There's nothing better than spending a morning searching for vintage bargains in France. I shouldn't really give away this address as it's so good - but fortunately for you I'm that kinda gal! This is Ti Recup in Carhaix in central Brittany. It basically recycles and repairs stuff that people normally throw away whilst offering much-needed jobs to local people in an area of France which suffers from high unemployment. 

The great thing is that the prices are really really low and the variety of things on offer enormous!

This fabulous 1960's kitchen unit was just 20 euros. If ONLY I could have fitted into the Mobile Makery I would have snapped it up!

I did however buy this beautiful chest of drawers for all of 12 euros. It takes up half the space in my campervan, but hey, when I get back to the UK, I'll need somewhere to store all the stuff I've bought on my travels.

Luckily my cousin's husband Philippe was on hand to help heave the purchases into the car! Because as you can see from the video below - I found quite alot of things that I liked!

I was joined on the trip by my young cousins who also love buying and styling-up second-hand gems. They're already showing a keen eye.....

...and as you can see from the photos below, they wear vintage incredibly well! Left, blouse 1 euro, necklace 20 centimes, shoes 3 euros. Right, dungarees 1 euro.

Cannes glam on the cheap!

I may like wild swimming, but as my friends know, I also need a large slug of glamour to top up my zest for life. Thus after my adventures in the Alpes-Maritimes I headed down to the French Riviera to Cannes. Now of course I can't afford to stay in Cannes in a luxury hotel (or even a basic one),  so instead Bambi and I made the 'canny' decision (actually it was just pure luck) to stay in a campsite called La Paoute near Grasse. The reason I ended up in this lovely campsite was that unbeknownst to me, campervans can't park in Grasse and nor are they meant to go into the centre of the town. I discovered this after going round and round in the boiling heat and being beeped at over and over again by French drivers with their upturned noses well out of joint. Anyway, as it happens, I found La Paoute, 5km from Grasse, in my Aire Du Campingcar book. Not only is it a great campsite with roomy spots surrounded by olive trees for only 13 euros a night (I'm still not in high season), but it also has a proper-sized swimming pool and a lovely welcoming team, including a British guy who does the food at the bar should you choose not to not cook for yourself.

Much to my delight I also discovered that from the campsite you can take the bus from the end of the road to both Grasse and Cannes for just 1.50 euros each way. Such is the wealth of this part of France that it can subsidise bus fares quite merrily. It's 40 minutes to Cannes door to door, and so this girl, much in need of some sophistication,  hopped on the bus!

One expense I chose to indulge in was to pay 10 euros for one of those mini tourist trains that takes you around the well-known sites of the town and throws in a bit of history too. I was really glad I did this as I was able to sit back and gaze at the old world glamour of the famous hotels built in the 30's along the glitzy La Croisette without lifting a finger or indeed a pied! Apparently, the twin cupolas of the Carlton are modelled on a pair of very pert breasts. Fancy! All the film stars in the world have stayed at these hotels. I will stay there too of course - one day!

It may sound crass. But I really wanted to SMELL THE MONEY in Cannes. And I did. The yachts make you choke in their over-indulgence and the beautiful people are suitably kept apart in their private beaches. Luckily, you can use the public beaches too for free. Which of course I very happily did.

No visit to Cannes would be complete without a glimpse of the red carpet at the Palais des Festivals et des Congres. I'm looking forward to when my film director brother Anthony Baxter gets a screening here which I know he will at some point.

Also well worth seeing is the old town of Le Suquet which was once a sleepy fishing village before it became the focus of so much glitz. There's a great view from the Notre Dame church. Oh, and a road called St Antoine full of cute places to eat. I admit, I did splash out on a delicious meal and half a bottle of Sancerre. Well why not? Why else did I slog my guts out on the BBC's foreign planning desk if not to be able to indulge in a little luxury from time to time on my hols!

Liguria - Camogli

A few years ago, I went to the Cinque Terre on the Ligurian Coast for the first time and was completely entranced. Well I've made it back to Liguria in Bambi after about four hours drive from Aosta. It's proving harder to find campsites or overnight campervan carparks in Italy, so I booked into a hotel in one of my favourite places, Camogli, for a cheeky night of relative luxury! I have to say though, at 60 euros La Camogliese was very good value for money and I fell asleep to the sound of the waves crashing on the stony beach. There was a big buffet breakfast to set you up for the day too. Hurrah!

Camogli is a beautiful place to stay and there's free parking (and a market) on a Wednesday, which means you can leave the wheels behind for a few hours, stock up with goodies for a picnic,  and take the train to discover the delights of the Cinque Terre. In fact, I might just go and do that now! If you scroll down the photos I took last night, at the bottom you'll find a slightly older shot. This was snapped about 15 years ago when I visited Camogli with some very good friends of mine Geoff and Yolanda. We were guests at the holiday home of another mutual Italian friend whose parents had a wonderful holiday home here with stunning views of the port of Genoa. Seems just like yesterday...... If you're reading this Tomaso, I could do with somewhere to park Bambi!

Mobile Makery makes over Maurice

I have to admit. There hasn't been a whole lot of making going on recently what with all the travelling. However whilst staying with my friends in Bourg St Maurice there was a perfect opportunity to sew-on-the-go! A little help was required to make-over my friends' campervan Maurice and so in the best Blue Peter tradition we got busy with some sticky-backed plastic, some quirky Ikea fabric and my trusty sewing machine. 

We made curtains for Maurice and used the blue sticky-backed plastic to give the table a cool blue '50's feel. Wildflowers from the garden for the photoshoot of course......

...and hey presto!! We used lace for tie-backs. Perfect as the lace has ready-made holes for hanging!

You know that every stylish camper van needs a homemade up-cycled hot water bottle cover for colder nights and so we put an old jumper to good use. Pin it around the bottle inside out to get your pattern and then stitch around twice before trimming. Turn the right way out.

You don't even need to felt the jumper first. This cover will come in handy once summer is done and is a quick and simple project for beginners to tackle. Chic on a shoestring!