TODAY - RAG RESCUE TEXTILE AUCTION SALE - SELLING WORLDWIDE

The Rag Rescue auction sale is now in full swing. 

You can find it at -

 https://www.facebook.com/groups/893726210744428/ 

SELLING WORLDWIDE

RAG RESCUE BARGAIN BONANZA - 69 MORE ITEMS ON THE WEBSITE

I've been working very hard this week preparing a large amount of desirable items for you. Sixty-nine items in total. There are 20 pieces of vintage fabric, long lengths of vintage lace, Antique French fabric heart shapes for Valentines Day projects and stash bags of mother of pearl buttons. Also Vintage goods, vintage fabric stash packs and vintage fabric strip rolls as well as some haberdashery stash packs. Lots of photo's so please scroll through them all. Of course you can see them altogether on two pages

  HERE 

Vintage fabrics

  Long lengths of vintage lace, Antique French fabric heart shaped and stash bags of mother of pearl buttons.

 Vintage goods, vintage fabric stash packs and vintage fabric strip rolls.

VINTAGE HABERDASHERY STASH PACKS.

 

I would like to say a big thank you to all my new customers and my regular ones as well. I'm glad you are finding some  good bargains.

Only nine more listings to go before Rag Rescue closes.

Today's new listings and last for 2014

I  have decided that this will be my last listings this year as I have family and friends visiting throughout December. Hopefully this will give me time to sort out my stock room ready to show you some real bargains in the New Year.
However I will be keeping the website open throughout December so will continue to accept orders.

 

Today I have listed 36 more items, as can be seen below. As usual you will be able to see them in the
'New Listings' category by clicking
HERE

 

RAG RESCUE VINTAGE HABERDASHERY ITEMS NOW AT HALF PRICE.

Rain and more rain, still the gardens will be glad of it.
Why not take a look at the Rag Rescue website as the items of HABERDASHERY have been reduced by 50%.
Here you can see some bags of vintage tassels. Only £2.00 a bag. The antique French wooden lemon coloured ones, are sold at £1.00 each, ideal for adding to tags, keys, bookmarks and a whole variety of sewing projects. Grab when while you can, because when they are gone, that's it.

RAG RESCUE HABERDASHERY PAGE CLICK HERE

Using vintage haberdashery in your jewellry making projects.

I found this wonderful necklace this morning whilst browsing Pinterest. It has given me so many ideas. There are lots of similar haberdashery and lace items on my website I think I might use some of them to make a similar necklace for myself. Better be quick before I use them all. www.ragrescue.co.uk

Once Upon a Time Necklace by AllThingsPretty, via Flickr

Vintage haberdashery packs at Rag Rescue

It is always a good idea to have a stash of haberdashery items that you can delve into when sewing. This is why I've listed some vintage haberdashery packs today. I hope they come in handy for you.

Pinks

Reds

Yellow and greens

Blues

Vintage haberdashery at the Rag Rescue website

You never know when you will need some of these haberdashery items.

Don't forget there is a 20% discount on everything on the Rag Rescue website.

Huge four week SALE begins today at the Rag Rescue website.

The big four week SALE begins today. This leads me up to my son's wedding in Croatia on June 1st. I thought I would share my happiness with you by refunding 20% of any order you place after 7am BST today 28th April. I hope you enjoy browsing the website and can manage to grab a bargain.
The RAG RESCUE website - www.ragrescue.co.uk

Rag Rescue lists more vintage haberdashery items

Superb vintage haberdashery items have been listed today. These are ideal for use or display.

Talking about display, if you haven't the heart to use these old items then why not frame them or try this - 

It would make a superb talking point.

Lots of haberdashery items can be found at the Rag Rescue website

Click here

Vintage haberdashery at Rag Rescue

Rag Rescue website, tomorrows listings

Vintage haberdashery at the Rag Rescue website tomorrow

Rag Rescue website

More vintage fabric tomorrow at Rag Rescue

A mixture of vintage fabrics and haberdashery items at Rag Rescue tomorrow

More vintage fabric and haberdashery again at Rag Rescue tomorrow

Vintage fabric and haberdashery tomorrow at Rag Rescue

See them at the RAG RESCUE WEBSITE tomorrow.

I'm excited today as a dog that we wanted to see and was reserved is now back in the kennels so going to have a look tomorrow, can't wait.

Vintage fabric and vintage haberdashery

At Rag Rescue tomorrow 24th November

Article in Craft Business magazine - all about the Rag Rescue business.

 

On the Shopfloor

After discovering a trunk full of 1840s clothing, Sandie Kerensky decided to put her passion for textiles to good use and launch a business like no other. Read on for her inspirational story

Having worked as a special needs teacher for more than 18 years, I had grown tired of the increasing amount of time I was spending handling the managerial side of things and decided to throw caution to the wind and try something new. I was 45 years old and although it was a huge risk, I knew it was ultimately the right thing for me to do.

From a very young age, I always had a very keen interest in textiles and soon began working with my husband selling antiques. It was an amazing experience and we would literally go from one fair to another to see what we could find. However, it was not until 1996 when I came across an old trunk full of fabulous 1840s clothing, that the idea for Rag Rescue really took hold.

Following my discovery, I spent the next two weeks going through all the mesmerising items I had found to see if there was anything I could rescue. The costumes themselves were simply awe inspiring and although many of them were in a terrible state and had certainly seen better days, I was amazed at the vast amount of components – buttons, ribbons and scraps of fabric, for instance – that I was able to salvage from them.

On a mission to ensure they went to a good home, but also curious to discover whether they could present a profitable opportunity for me, I decided to take them to a couple of fairs and see if they generated any interest. The response was simply extraordinary and before long I had everyone from dealers and collectors, to designers and students asking for my goods.

Realising that I could be on to something big, I quickly began looking for other distressed fabrics, such as laces, trimmings and ribbons, that I could sell and eventually decided to launch my own website, Rag Rescue, two and a half years ago.

An Innovative Idea
Specialising in one-of-a-kind, vintage haberdashery items, the store now boasts everything from salvaged embellishments, trimmings and lace work, to rediscovered sewing cottons, silks, embroideries and needles – many of which are simply impossible to find else where.

Materials tend to come from the unlikeliest of places and I find I will often come across the most amazing products when I least expect it. However, that is not to say I am not always on the lookout for things to rescue and I spend a great deal of my time visiting house clearances, auctions, antique fairs and car-boot sales to see what I can discover. I also have many people contacting me directly to say they have recently cleared out an old relatives attic and were wondering whether I would want to see if there might be anything of interest.   

Rag Rescue certainly is not your everyday craft store and while we might sell many of the same things as traditional haberdashery outlets, the fact that our goods have been salvaged and boast such a strong and fascinating history definitely makes them stand out. 

People's perceptions have really changed over the past few years and while there will always be customers looking for the latest products and materials, most generally seem to be moving away from many of the newer, more contemporary haberdashery items on the market and gravitating towards truly authentic, vintage materials from the past instead.

Environmental matters have also become increasingly important and people are now far more interested in where their goods have come from and whether or not they have been recycled than they were before – something which has definitely worked to our advantage.

I now have customers from all over the world purchasing their materials from me and tend to do a lot of business with people in Japan, Australia, Germany, New Zealand and Europe. America has also become a surprisingly strong market for us and we seem to have developed a huge following overseas, which is great. Having said that, the UK is definitely still our biggest area.

Customers use the materials for a range of different purposes and I am often amazed at just how inventive they can be. We really do attract a very varied demographic and while we get a lot of trade from professionals – dealers, antique collectors and designers, for example – we also appeal to an astonishing number of young shoppers as well, particularly art and fashion students who will usually continue buying their goods from us once they are established and also frequently recommend the store to their fellow colleagues and friends. Of course, crafters also account for a large part of our business and we literally have everyone from quilters and sewing enthusiasts, to embroiders and dressmakers shopping with us.

Hurdles to Overcome
As a complete newcomer to the industry, the greatest challenge for me has been getting my head around the internet and advertising side of things. It has definitely not been easy and is something I have pretty much had to start learning from scratch. Fortunately, my previous interest in textiles meant I had a good understanding of that aspect of the business, so I wasn't totally clueless!

Luckily, we have been given some great media coverage in the press since our launch and although we are still nowhere near as well known as we would like to be, we have certainly done our best to get our name out there. However, it has been difficult and there is still a lot more we would like to do to ensure people know who we are and what we are known for.

Of course, cash flow is always a problem and the overhead costs of visiting fairs can be extremely expensive. At the moment, we attend around two or three a month and have to fork out about £500 each time, which isn't cheap! 

The economic downturn has also been an obstacle and although we have not been affected by it personally, I have definitely noticed a change in our customers' behaviour and, whereas in the past most people would purchase as many items as they wanted from us during their visits to the site, we are now finding that shoppers are being more cautious and only buying one or two products at a time. They are also being a lot more careful about the choices they make and testing the waters before making their decisions.

Fortunately, we do not appear to have suffered at all so far and have actually experienced a massive boost in our sales over the past year, which is pretty amazing given the current climate. In fact, we are now selling approximately 500 to 600 of our items each month and have seen our customer base increase enormously since we launched.

Brighter Musings
At the moment, our smaller fabrics seem to be the most in favour, with consumers mixing and matching different materials to come up with their own designs. We are also seeing a growing number of people incorporate our accessories into their everyday garments – stitching old buttons onto new jackets, for example – to create something completely unique.

Our vintage French toile is also incredibly popular right now and literally sells out as soon as it goes on sale, with other materials from France also doing especially well. Anything from the 50s or 60s is also very much in favour and we are always on the lookout for new things from forgotten eras that we can stock.

Generally speaking, there seems to be a lot of interest in vintage clothing and materials at the moment and a number of different factors – the economy and environment, in particular – are encouraging a growing number of people to make their own things. Whether it's sewing an old ribbon onto one of their t-shirts or making an entire quilt out of scraps of old fabrics, customers are definitely more interested in reusing previously-owned items than they once were, which is great.

At present, I am really enjoying running the business and plan to put all my efforts into making it as successful as I possibly can. For me, Rag Rescue has never been about generating a big profit – although that is, of course, important – but ensuring that some of the world's most beautiful, hand-crafted pieces are not forgotten, but enjoyed, valued and recognised for as long as possible.”

Beautiful vintage buttons

At Rag Rescue website tomorrow.

Dress your clothes up with vintage buttons - all the rage.

Buy vintage

Filming in Morecambe

I've just found out that yesterday a large film crew descended on Morecambe yesterday to make a film about Eric Morecambe. My daughter tells me that my 6 month old grandson Oliver met Vic Reeves and Victoria Wood. My daughter missed it all as she had taken the two new school children to wackie warehouse. My husband says that one of the car parks on the front is just full of the crew's trailers. I was going into town tomorrow so I'll take my camera.

A mixture tomorrow of haberdashery etc.

at the Rag Rescue website

Vintage haberdashery and embellishments

At RAG RESCUE tomorrow

Vintage buttons etc. at Rag Rescue tomorrow

RAG RESCUE WEBSITE