You may regard this as rather a bizarre request but does anybody out there know where you can get hold of bedding in the old-fashioned 'candystripe' style that will be familiar to anyone who grew up in the '70s? My girlfriend and I are both fans (sad, I know) but we can't find it anywhere. We think it will provide the finishing touch for our newly moved-in-to wreck of a new house... ('finishing touch' meant in full Laurel and Hardy sense...). Thanks.

Ummm, you could try Designers Guild or Cath Kidston. They both have/had retro-styled fabrics in their collections...

Alternatively, look at children's fabrics. You could then have some made to order...

I take it you've done a search on google (tried candy stripe as 2 words?) or looked on ebay?

May Nan has an old lady style catalogue I think it's called oxendales or something (it's one of those catalogues which sell swimming costumes with skirts attached) that sells flannelette candy stripe sheets.

Thanks for the tips (and the smirking). We have eBayed and got all manner of stripes, just not the classic candystripe ones we were after. Thanks a lot for the Oxendales pointer - according to their website they do indeed do candystripe sheets but not duvet covers or anything. Oh well. Nice to know I'm officially an old lady...

Could two candystripe sheets be sewn together to form a candystripe duvet?

Try your local department store.

quote:

Originally posted by Hatster:
Could two candystripe sheets be sewn together to form a candystripe duvet?

Of course they could!

what about this?

http://www.tchibo.co.uk/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity/eCS/S..._query_keyword=duvet

g

Oooh, it's close but it's not that retro-classic '70s candystripe. The Oxendales sheet is spot on but stitching two of them together is (a) rather expensive when you take into account the rest of the bedding and (b) far beyond one's homecraft abilities. I'm still proud of the wooden pencil case I made at school that managed to contain not a single right-angle, though it reduced my draughtsman father to tears...

my mum is the proud owner of 3 wonky shoehorns

I don't know that duvet covers ever existed in that sort of fabric - I certainly remember the sheets, but I think blankets and a polyester bedpread were more common than duvets (or continental quilts as we used to call them!) in the 70s! If you want to be really authentic you'll have to sacrifice good taste!