Thoughts on Kirstie's Vintage Home - plus Stitch it for Christmas Giveaway Winners

So, did you watch Kirstie's Vintage Home last night?

When her "Homemade Home" series first started, I rather loved it - especially the bits showing talented, skilled craftspeople making amazing things (glassblowing! stained glass making! knitting!).

I wrote in my blog post about it at the time, that... The program is trying to sell that whole "make your house a home" thing, advertising handmade things as a way of adding character and a truly personal touch, which is aesthetically very refreshing after so many years of being sold clean, white, modern, chic and also a welcome change after a decade of "quick fix" DIY shows packed with MDF and stapleguns... and that You get to see how much work and real skill goes into making handmade things, and their value and specialness is prized. This isn't a show that says "and you can make one at home for 50p!" but recommends serious workshops and craft courses and suggests commissioning pieces from craftspeople in your area.

Then series two came out in which instead of doing up her own (holiday) home, Kirstie was helping couples create their own "homemade home" and the title of my review probably gives away my feelings about it: Kirstie' Homemade Hmmm. I found the crafting featured in the show a lot less impressive, the makeover format pretty standard and the shift from "look at this amazing handmade special thing made with skill" to "look how easy and cheap this is to make!" a bit disappointing. BUT it was still great to see crafting (and talented crafters) on the telly and I think the "real people decorating their real homes" angle made it perhaps feel a bit more relevant/accessible to the target viewer than "Kirstie Allsop makes her holiday cottage look nice"?

And I think I feel the same way about Kirstie's Vintage Home, which appears to be Kirstie's Homemade Home all over again just with an added emphasis on retro styling. She helps a couple redecorate, they meet some crafters and make some things, she takes them shopping and gives them tips on buying second hand stuff... but this series they say the word "vintage" a lot (often when they just mean "retro") and use words like "upcycling".

I did quite like the finished makeover (though I wondered where they were going to put all their stuff as that living room looked a little low on storage!), I rather loved the screenprinted sideboard (though I'm not sure that painting a bit of perfectly nice furniture really counts as "upcycling"!!) and it was fun to spot some Mini Moderns wallpaper pop up and to see Lisa Comfort's appearance on the show (I'll be reviewing her book later this month so it was interesting to see her "in person" if you know what I mean). But still. Hmm.

I'm probably going to watch the whole series, as I'm interested to see which other crafts & crafters they feature, how the "vintage" makeover turns out each week and whether a "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster ever makes an appearance! Did you watch last night's show? What did you think? And will you be watching the rest of the series?

P.S. Also, today's the day to pick the winners of the copies of Stitch it for Christmas. 

The winners are...
 
K2 who said... "Very cute. I just love the look of redwork embroidery"

and AnitaS who said... "I love this book and bought it for a friend. But I like to have it for myself"

Kirstie's Homemade Hmmm....

"Hmmm" is mostly how I'm feeling about the new series of Kirstie's Homemade Home that's being shown this month on Channel 4.

I really enjoyed the first series - you can read my original blog post about it HERE if you like - I don't find Kirstie "posh and annoying" like I know a lot of people do, it was exciting to see craftsmen and women showing her how to make stuff (people making things! on the telly!) and it was super refreshing to see a program that presented DIY and vintage shopping as a consumer option with more personality and specialness to it rather than just as a way to save money.

But this series? Hmm.

The first episode (shown last week) felt very underwhelming. Partly I think this is because they've changed the format to Kirstie doing up her own house to the more standard "home makeover" format of helping a nice couple "transform" their house with some telly magic, complete with lots of scenes of Kirstie standing around at antiques markets banging on about how much of a "bargain" this that or the other item was compared to the high street. Yawn.

It was also in a large part because they repeated so many crafts / features from last year: they visited the same reclamation yard as last year, made stained glass with the same stained glass artist, and made book ends with the same blacksmith as last year.

There were some new crafts and crafters featured in thie second episode, and some were great (Angel from Tobias and the Angel teaching Kirstie how to make a patchwork cushion) and some not so great (visiting the same candlemaker as last year to make a rather hideous shell lantern)... but it's still left me feeling a bit "hmm" about it all.

I'm still going to be watching the show every week (because even a teeny bit of crafting on telly is better than none, plus I'm excited to see the lovely Manda teach Kirsty to make a beanbag later in the series!) but I think perhaps I need to admit that from my crafting-obsessed viewpoint I'm not the ideal target audience for a show like this!

If you've missed any episodes this series, the last one and the Christmas specials are all currently available to watch on 4OD and you can see lots of how tos and video clips from the show HERE.

Have you been watching this series? What do you think of it?