✴ edith's sweet treats::giveaway

Today this little blog is celebrating it's 3 year....ermmm...and one week birthday!

Ok, so with all the excitement, festivities and bank holiday relaxing of last weekend I completely forgot about my little blogs special day. I'm sorry little blog. 

Anyway, to mark this momentous moment....ahem....I shall be doing a little giveaway.

A short while ago I started to stitch some button brooches from a raggy old bit of unfinished embroidery. And so, although progress has been a little bit slow - blamed solely on my infatuation with watching The Killing almost every night and as we all know, evening craft and subtitled viewing do not mix well - I think I may have a few of these little vintage embroidered brooches to giveaway to a few lovely readers...that is you. Details below.

Someone asked me if I had ever thought about the stitcher of this unfinished embroidery, and let me just say, OH YES, I HAVE......! {Warning! Long ramble approaching...}

I imagine she is a lady who lives in a house similar to mine, in a London surbarb. 

Her name is Edith and it is spring 1939. 

She spends her day consumed with duties of a busy housewife. In the morning she cleans out the grate of last nights blackened ashes from the stove, washes the windows with newspaper and vinegar solution. She exchanges pleasantries and discusses the delightfully clement weather with the postman and visits the grocer for cabbage for the evening stew she'll spend the afternoon preparing.

She is a stocky, middle aged lady with greying pincurled hair. She never leaves the house without her hat and her best coat, even when the sun is warm and always wears her crossover pinny when home. She's a bit clumsy and heavy handed but she works hard and is meticulous in her chores.

She worries that she cannot keep up with the local housewives and their 'domestic goddess' like ways.

Having visited them all for afternoon teas and congratulated them on their lightness of scone, selection of perfect china and beauty of their delicately hand stitched and co-ordinated table linens.

Realising it will soon be her time for an 'at home' and she sets about with a 'stitch it yourself' small tablecloth. 

Oh how she wants to impress those opinionated ladies. 

The stitching is harder than she thought, the threads become tangled all too often and the embroidery takes many months of stitching.

She works on it in the evening while her husband sleeps off dinner in the armchair and listening to the wireless she trys to shut out news of the impending troubles in Europe with colourful threads of periwinkle blue, peach and magenta, slowly creating a bouquet of flowers on the cream linen cloth.

The tablecloth will never be finished because with the outbreak of war comes far more important chores than embroideries and afternoon tea. Edith carefully places the unfinished embroidery in her sewing box.

She now wears overalls and sturdy lace up boots, she rolls up her sleeves and heads off to the local garage to take up her job as a mechanic. 

Now the men are all off fighting for their country it's down to the strong and sturdy women like Edith to keep things going. This was what she was born to do. The 'domestic goddesses' are appalled at her dirty oily hands and disheveled hair but are secretly just a bit in awe too.

Edith finally feels important and worthy, she never takes out the embroidery again, such delicate tasks are not for the likes of Edith. Neither does she worry about her failure in baking or spends too much time on making her windows shine. Instead she is Queen of the engine and all is good.

{not factually based....obviously - ramblings of a daydreamer!!!}

These two little birds {£3 each}, picked up and subsequently sprayed in white from the local charity shop the other week, were just a bit chuffed to be asked to carry the banner to announce the giveaway. I can't help but notice how lovely these are in a weddingy sort of way. A brilliantly cheap way of decorating a venue.

I'm wondering about giving them gold painted beaks...what do you think?

So if you would like to enter, just leave a comment below with an email address/blog link so that I can contact you should you win.

No need to be a follower, or mention this on your blog, or tweet or bleat or whatever else about this. It's just a simple gift from me, and I am happy to send these little lovelies wherever in the world you may be.

I will, in a blindfolded sort of way, draw three winners from the proverbial hat {well, in actual fact, probably a real hat...} the week after next so you have until midnight {GMT } next sunday {15th} to enter.

Brooches will be selected randomly and I suspect a few other bits of craftiness will be added to the giveaway package!

Bonne chance, mes amis!

{Swinnertons 1950's cake stand from my sister-in-law}
Flea Market Finds at Her Library Adventures.

P.S Please do not reveal the ending to The Killing, I have not finished watching it yet!!!!