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| Spiral Tarot |
There has been an ongoing trend for retro, kitsch and vintage. Of course, when I say that, both you and I are imagining Laura Ashley, Cath Kidston, stressed white-painted Shaker-style furniture, handsewn quilts and copper-bottomed pans hanging from a wooden rail in our country kitchen next to bundles of home-grown dried herbs.
In actuality, what we are far more likely to get are some horrors from the Decade Without Taste ie. the Seventies. Oh the vileness of the avocado bathroom suite; the stunting of one's color sense and love of random gidgets that resulted from too much time spent trailing after one's parents in Habitat. And there are just no words for the plasticness and the nightmare wallpaper. It is simply amazing that we survived without bleaching our eyeballs, or poking them out: anything to reduce the aesthetic agony. I am permanently scarred. And I don't care how many times bell-bottoms and flares come back round, you will NEVER see me in them unless I have been drugged senseless and forcibly dressed.
So seeing as my DH poisoned me with mushrooms this weekend (the flaw in his plan being that he also ate them and was ill too) and sickness if not the actual mushrooms affecting one's perceptions of reality, I thought I would inflict upon you my own little hommage to the 70s:
I wish I could claim some mitigating irony. But sadly I could find none. Of course, you realize not only the colors but the crochet itself is retro-kitsch ? The only saving grace of these pieces of cushion covers is that they are leaving my house as soon as they are completed.
Yes, the intended recipient is a relative of mine, why do you ask ?
Now, while I hang my macrame plant holder next to the lava lamp, I am absolutely positive you will find some soothing prettiness over at Tami's Amis ....
Very kitch! I'm not a big fan of the 70s either (other than the music which was FAB)....and my mother's kipper pate for her parties. Think Abigail's Party and that preetty much sums up the 70s up my mum's street :-)
ReplyDelete...and at least wipe down your mushies next time.
Ali x
So pretty! My mother will be thrilled if avocado bathroom tile comes back. Hers is the real vintage stuff:)
ReplyDeleteThe only thing I remember fondly about 70s clothing is an Asian mirror T-shirt from kensington market. You know the ones with little circular bits of mirror embroidered in. I luffed that shirt :D
ReplyDeleteOh, and velvet - lots of velvet in the 70s :D
I quite agree with you... Good thing I was only a baby in the 70s - these years haven't stained my memories too much!!
ReplyDeleteAh, yes. The irony for my poor military-wife mom was that as soon as she'd done up the bathrooms in avocado and gold and put up the gold curtains, Dad got a promotion and we moved to a house with longer windows, and...well, she adjusted.
ReplyDeleteI still remember when my sister and I repainted our bedroom in bright yellow and spring green. Talk about blasting the eyeballs!
I feel for your mushroom nightmare, though. Thanks for taking care of my reading anyway (although that might have been Monday your time).
And I do actually like bell-bottoms and fringed bags. I have visions of becoming the hippy in old age that I was to young to be in my youth. :)
I love the seventies and not only have I got a lava lamp I've got a fibre-optic lamp as well. I used to work in a marvellous office that we got cheap because it was going to be demolished and it had cork & bamboo walls and glass tiles and mirrored pillars. I made the handyman paint it olive green and we had enormous seventies-print lampshades from TK Maxx.
ReplyDeleteIt's now a Travelodge. Heart = broken
I think some of the color explosions of the seventies were a symptom of the optimism of the times.
ReplyDeleteReally, you think my macrame plant hanger looks dated? I'd better not show you my melamine tableware then :)
ReplyDeleteSorry about the mushrooms ... ick.
Actually, I could really use a couple of macrame plant hangers - any idea where I could get them ? :)
DeleteI'm confused: if you don't like the cushion, was it specifically requested by said rellie, or do you just not like them? Deeply envious of your perfect little flowers, in any case! :)
ReplyDeleteI like the cushion (it's the 4th one I've made of this pattern) but the colors wound me deeply :-D
DeleteSo I'm guessing the colours are to match something in said rellie's home... ;)
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