Thursday 31 December 2015

Build Your Own Postcard

As well as having a thing for old maps, I love a vintage postcard too.  Some show fascinating scenes of places in days gone by - all the more interesting if it is a place you are familiar with. Then there is the genre of postcards dating perhaps from the 1960s and 1970s that show comically mundane scenes.  I have one of Cleethorpes baths, and I have seen postcards of motorway service stations.  I’m also a fan of the cheeky seaside sauce postcard – well, who isn’t?




I had a go at making a postcard with a Vintage Map Lady angle. I cut out a square of old map around a Devon seaside resort and stitched it on to a plain modern card.  A bit of floral decoration was added.  You could perhaps get even more creative and attach old maps to old postcards.  I have decorated the backs of vintage cards, where the messages were more interesting than the scenes on the front!


Wednesday 23 December 2015

A Favourite Place Corsage

I got this idea for this corsage, after seeing one that someone had made from an old copy of their favourite book.  Although how they could bear to cut up a copy of their favourite book is beyond me!


It is a paper map, so, like the book corsage you shouldn’t wear it on your outside coat in case it rains.  But it’s a fun decoration for a cardigan or shirt.

Mine is made using two circles of Harris Tweed, cut with pinking shears to try and contain this fabric’s tendency to fray. I then sewed on a circle of map using Sylko Mustard Gold thread in back stitch and finished it off with a button from my vast collection.


You can use this as a reminder of a favourite place or holiday.  Alternatively, you could proudly display your birthplace.  I went for Buxton – if I could be anywhere in the world I would be in the Peak District, and Buxton is the capital city! I’ve had many a refined day out in England’s highest town.


Friday 18 December 2015

Mapping a Story

I love creating with maps because it gives me the opportunity to have a good look at the place names while I work. I may be biased, but I think that Britain has the best place names.  Some elicit a schoolgirl titter (Broadbottom, Wetwang Slack, Thong) while others are deeply poetic (Ryme Intrinsica, Land of Nod, Fridaythorpe).  The two-worded place names are often the best, then you can play that game where you pretend it’s a person’s name and describe that person’s character.  For example, Milton Keynes may be a retired RAF officer.  Lytchett Matravers is probably an ageing stage actor who once had a small role in ‘Z-Cars’. Read your Dictionary of English Place Names, and you can begin to work out what the name tells you about the geography or history of the area concerned. It’s endlessly fascinating.
Puckeridge is very near Nasty.
Of course, one of our best known champions of the English place name is John Betjeman.  If the poem was not actually about a specific town, then he liked to give a sense of place by referencing the names of towns and villages.  His poem ‘Dorset’ lists several wonderfully named locations.

So a couple of years ago, when I wrote my novella ‘Dear Mr Betjeman’, I named the two leading characters after villages. The story is about a woman from Lincolnshire, who joins a local campaign to save the county’s railways.  My inspiration was the 1970 closure of much of the county’s network, especially the station of Firsby, a description of which I stumbled across during research. 

I decided to give her the name of Mavis Enderby – a Lincolnshire village.  It seemed apt somehow.  When deciding what to call the hero – a frayed old British Rail stationmaster - I was influenced by my family tree research.  I gave him the name of Newton St Loe – from the Walters’ homeland near Bath. ‘Dear Mr Betjeman’ is sent from me to Lincolnshire, in sadness that it lost its lovely old railway and now suffers from weekly carnage on its roads.

Here’s a couple of extracts:

Mavis left the house, buoyed by her new look and its underlying ambition.  She felt wasted on a train ride to Lincoln, she could take on London.  But she went to the station and the ticket office with enough money in her hand for a return to Lincoln.  Newton was at the ticket window, already dealing with an old man who was determined that he should reach Manchester before 11.00am the next morning without having to change trains more than once.  He looked briefly up from his timetable to acknowledge the beginnings of a queue behind his awkward passenger.  And then he needed to look up again to verify that it was in fact Mrs Enderby.  Mavis, looking like the woman from the ‘Visit Norwich’ poster.  Looking the best he’d seen her since that evening she went to the hospital.  It was all he could do to keep his mind on the nuances of changing trains at Sheffield for the passenger before her.  Like the ‘Visit Norwich’ poster, she beckoned him away from his daily existence to something a little more...engaging.



The march began as planned at Barmby Junction.  Only a handful of people were there.  People with proper walking boots and well packed rucksacks.  There was a drizzle in the air, but fortunately it didn’t turn into a full downpour. The walkers kept as close to the rail line as roads and bridleways permitted.  Hoobythorpe’s vicar took the lead with a well folded Ordnance Survey map, the route marked in smudged blue pen.  A few more joined in each village that they passed through, and on the third day, a respectably sized group of windburned marchers arrived in Hoobythorpe.  A group gathered outside the station, ready to join in with their placards.  Mavis was among them in her slacks and headscarf – and her plimsolls which she had only ever worn on the beach.  She hoped that they would stand up to concrete, but rather knew that they wouldn’t.  Stood next to her, Newton wore his sturdy work shoes, which looked incongruous with his rather startlingly orange cagoule. He had taken a one week holiday for work to join – and recover from – the march.  Miss Shacklady, who couldn’t get the necessary time off, stood with Joe who was perching on a bollard, ready to cheer the group along.  Joe formally presented Newton with the petition and the report for the local newspaper photographer.  Then, with a blast from a whistle and a wave of a green flag, the group set off towards Lincoln.  They left Hoobythorpe behind, passing the church where the vicar’s wife, in pinny and gloves, waved a duster at them.  She was cleaning up the previous night’s accommodation and not slacking, she wanted to assure them all.  The group began to separate into bunches as the walk progressed.  Mavis clung to the edge of a group that had formed around Newton who wanted to ask him rail related questions.  Happy to be on the edge, she took mental notes of the landscape and drafted rhyming couplets in her head.


You can download 'Dear Mr Betjeman' for Kindle, or buy the book from Sarah's Amazon page here:


Sunday 13 December 2015

Vintage Map Bunting

Bunting has become quite fashionable in recent times, and is reminiscent of summer evenings in the garden.  It is now the middle of December, utterly dark and depressing – how I live for the summertime. I spend this time of year planning ahead for the garden, leafing greedily through the Sarah Raven seed catalogues and staring at the soil, eagerly awaiting the first green fingers of the spring bulbs.

So the other day, I sat and made some vintage map bunting, which will look splendid draped from the terracotta geranium pots.

Here it is in preparation – just triangles cut from a map and stitched onto a length of old knicker elastic that I found in my sewing chest.


Here it is now it is finished, currently draped from my pinboard to my bedhead, awaiting the summer breeze.


Instagram: @Sarahmillerwalters

Wednesday 9 December 2015

Vintage Map Gift Tags


These gift tags were made using an old paper map and some plain brown parcel tags from W H Smith.

The tools that you need are as follows:

Sharp scissors
Strong glue – I use extra strong Pritt Stick
Hole punch
Ring reinforcement stickers

Take the string out from the parcel tag and place the tag on top of your map.  Cut around it, leaving a little bit of a margin. Repeat for the reverse side.

Carefully stick the map onto the tag and leave it alone for 10 minutes so that the glue dries.  Trim very carefully along the edge.  Repeat for the reverse side.

You now need to make a hole on the top of the tag.  Take your time lining up the hole punch.  Try and get it as near as possible to the location of the tag’s original hole.  Reinforce both sides with the stickers.

Re-thread the string and there you are!


An original tag for a gift of any kind, but especially good for a Bon Voyage present or for someone who is into Geography or Orienteering.


I have some on sale in my Etsy shop, SewsAttic.  One buyer commented:

"Great item! Lovely, well made, retro chic"



Thursday 3 December 2015

Vintage Map Necklace

I had the idea of combining my love of books and maps in jewellery.  My first attempt, using a paper map, didn’t work so well.  The theme was the Mitford Sisters, and I cut out the area around their childhood home at Swinbrook in the Cotswolds. Unfortunately, there being high ground around here, a lot of colours were used in the printing of the map and they smudged when I applied the glue.



My next attempt was an Agatha Christie themed necklace, featuring her home in the Dart Valley.  The map used was a 1940s cloth bound OS map of Devon, and as you can see, this worked well.  This necklace soon sold in my Etsy shop, SewsAttic.

I have another still for sale, made using an area of Dartmoor.  Hound Tor doesn’t strictly have any literary associations as far as I know (I’d love to be corrected if I’m wrong!)  However, it makes me think of the ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’.




The necklaces are so easy to make.  I got a kit from ebay, consisting of a silver chain, pendent holder and glass dome.  Simply glue your map into the pendent holder, then when this is totally dry, glue to glass dome onto the top.