This picture shows the fantastically named Avon Beeby showing off one of the many dresses made by ‘mother’ almost sixty years ago. Avon told Hearts Content that the dresses were made for the dance troupe she belonged to in 1950 – Ethel Ritches’ Dancing Class. There were six girls in the troupe and ‘mother’ made all the costumes which often meant sewing up to twenty-four dresses for each performance. If you look closely at the picture you’ll see that this dress had an Irish theme with shamrocks and wishing wells sewn on to the bodice.

Avon decided to give the costumes away to St Gemmas Hospice Vintage Fair and when Hearts Content spoke to her she was hoping to find someone who was going to give them a new lease of life and maybe one more encore.
Hearts Content

Hearts Content found Robert Burt sporting this fetching pair of Incredible Hulk gloves at St Gemmas Retro Fair.  He’d snapped them up at the fair for the princely sum of One Pound and was very happy to model his new purchase in the Hearts Content Portrait Booth. As well as looking extremely stylish they make impressive roaring sounds.

Robert told us that he’d bought them for his grandson, but we’re not sure we believe him.
Hearts Content

Story Donated By Frankie McGregor
@ St Gemmas Retro Fair

This hat came to me by chance. I run a vintage shop in Leeds, Lily De La Mers Vintage, but I had never really considered selling mens clothes until a guy called Joe came in with a suitcase full. The clothes were in such good condition and so interesting that I couldn’t resist! I’ve since learned that the hat is from around the 1920′s and would probably have been worn by a drayman delivering beer from a wagon. I’ve also been told that the hat is in mint condition and looks like its spent its whole life in a box. The label on the rim says it was made in Halifax (West Yorkshire).

I love the quality and style. Unlike most of my vintage things I feel it has virtually no history. Its almost like nipping into the 1920s for a brand new hat!
Frankie McGregor

Story Donated By Susie Iveson @ Hearts Content Event

These sparkly pink ladies shoes – size 8 – were being bought by Susie Iveson for her friend Bill at a local charity shop. The shoes are the finishing touch to Bill’s drag costume – blonde wig, fuschia dress, fishnets – that he wears when they perform ‘Sisters’ together at St Peters Court Home For The Elderly in Leeds.

Bill and Susie used to sing in a choir together but decided it was time for a change.
Hearts Content

Story donated by Elsie Rose @ St Gemmas Retro Fair

Elsie Rose (aged 84) was helping her daughter with a stall at St Gemmas Retro fair and (after a bit of nudging from her daughter) shared one of her Twiggy Manequins with All Our Hearts Content. Elsie spotted the Twiggy lookalikes when she was walking along Blackpool Prom. Two fantastic sixties heads sporting Kiss Me Quick hats caught her eye in a shop window, looking gorgeous, even though they’d been stapled to the shelves and looked liked they’d Got ciggy burns in.

She made an offer for them there and then and, after a bit of negotiation, managed to agree a price for them both. This one is her daughter’s and is used to model vintage jewellery and hats.
Hearts Content

Story donated by Paul @ St Gemmas Retro Fair

Hearts Content spied Paul strolling round St Gemmas Retro Fair with this gorgeous girl tucked under his arm. He didn’t need much persuading to let us take her picture in the Portrait Booth and she turned out be a very photogenic dolly indeed. Which is just as well because she was starting a new life as a film-prop. Paul told us he bought her for a music video and because,

“She had one sad eye and she stood out in the crowd. And thats all.”

Hearts Content think’s she looks very festive in a lonely dolly kind of way so, for today, we’re calling her Dolly Christmas.
Hearts Content

All Our Hearts Content are busy preparing for St Gemmas Retro Fair in Leeds this Saturday and pimping up the Portable Portrait Booth so we can take snaps of all the retro things people are buying. We’ll also have our Postcard Workshop on the go so, if you want to tell us about your favourite secondhand find but you don’t happen to have it in your handbag, you can always get busy with some paper and glue.

Cutsey Christmas is starting to get to me and I am really hoping to get some weird stories about strange things that people have bought. All oddbods welcome.

Me and Nomie will be there from 10am – 4pm taking pics, eating cakes and listening to weird stories. Its a hard life.
Abby

Story Donated By Kirsty
Photo donated by Fazen on Flickr

I rescued two gorgeous, bright blue sheets from an Age Concern shop in Mablethorpe. Originally I’d bought them to go to a fancy dress party but they also came in handy for loads of other things. My sheets have been reincarnated as a throw for the sofa, a tablecloth and, most important of all, as the major foundation in the construction of my nephews’ play den.
Kirsty

Story Donated By Jenny Hall

I collect antique textiles. I love table cloths, doylies, cushions and clothes but the one thing I have never found in a charity shop or flea market is a handmade quilt. One day I was browsing through the 20p basket in my Samaritans charity shop when I overheard the volunteers discussing an antique quilt that had been donated and sold that very morning, mere minutes before I had come in! I was heartbroken to discover that my dream charity shop buy had just passed me by.
Jenny Hall

Story Donated By Ella Dee

In 2002 my family and I went to Switzerland on holiday. I visited several charity shops around my hometown of Headingley. In the arthritis charity shop I came accross a bright yellow beauty! It was big and comfy and my 9 year old self felt wrapped up and warm, engulfed in its massiveness.

In Switzerland the fleece travelled with me on our many visits. It kept me warm and survived many a snowball fight. It has now visited Luxembourg, Switzerland, Poland and North Yorkshire regularly and never fails to be a welcome asset to any journey.
Ella Dee

Story Donated By Sophie Gleisner

I bought Peggy The Panda from a fairtrade charity shop in town.

I called her Peggy because the lady in the shop was called Peggy.
Sophie Gleisner

Story Donated By Martha and Hesta

Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a Sweetie Jar on a second hand stall. Martha and Hesta both paid ONE POUND each to guess how many sweeties were in the jar.

The both of them guessed one hundred and seventy four.

And they were both right! This meant that they had to SHARE the sweeties (and the jar) and they have stayed friends ever since!

Awwwwwwwwww!
Love From Martha and Hesta

Story Donated By Wendy Young

In the summer of 2007 whilst on holiday Canada my cousin and I visited an ‘Antique Barn’at Niagra-On-The Lake in Ontario. There was so much to look at but as soon as we went upstairs my eyes latched onto a large 1930′s-40′s quilt entirely made of Suffolk Puffs (in the US they call them Yo-Yos). As if this wasn’t enough excitement there was a 40% off sale on all textiles!

My intention was to take it apart and re-use the vintage puffs in other design work but the more I looked at it the more I grew to love and appreciate the love and history that had been involved in putting it together and as a result I couldn’t bear to dismantle it.

This year I decided to make my own version and, as an artist working primarily in denim, I themed my design around the influence of denim in society from its humble origins to its current designer status. My new quilt is made from over 300 puffs embellished with reclaimed buttons collected from charity shops.
Wendy Young

Story Donated By Abby Dix

I’ve been collecting these chintzy pictures of flowers for a while now. They’re kind of creepy – a bit like the porcelain dolls that my Nana collects – but they have (scuse the pun) grown on me. The two large roses I bought in the YMCA charity shop when we were doing a Hearts Content event, much to the annoyance of my friend Nomie who wished that she’d spotted them first.

The roses are a nod to the lady who used to own our house. She lived here for nearly forty years before she died and in lots of ways it still feels like her house. I’d like to think that she’d be happy with how we’re looking after it and I know she loved roses because she planted loads in the garden, so I think she’ll approve of these pictures.

I’d not really mentioned the increasing collection of chintz on the wall to my partner but I did think I was pushing it a bit with the bigger pictures. About a week after I put them up he said ‘Are those pictures new?’ but I told him they’d been there for ages.
Abby Dix

Story Donated By Gene And His Mum

We found a copy of Busy Busy World, a book by Richard Scarry. My Mummy liked this book when she was a little girl and she had been searching for the book for me to read as well. We looked everywhere and then we found what we were looking for right on our doorstep in Bramley!
Gene and his Mum