Maker’s Choice – Dorothy Stiven

Homeworks regular Dorothy Stiven is back again this year with a selection of her carefully sourced one-off vintage finds. She’ll be at Homeworks on Sunday 2 December:

I started selling antiques and vintage when I was working in television and my daughter was at Malorees School in Queens Park. What started as a hobby has now become my business...I sell at Fairs all over the country, on Instagram @dorothystiven and at my stand at Station Mill Antiques in Chipping Norton in Oxfordshire.
I am also the co-organiser of The Reclaimed Home Fair in the Cotswolds.

I love the hunt involved in finding old things...it may be dark and cold at 5am at a brocante in France, at a trade fair on a racecourse in the U.K, or in a field at an antiques show in rural America but I still get a thrill in discovering treasures

It might be a torn old patchwork quilt, a tatty painting or a dirty old pair of candlesticks but I get a thrill in cleaning them up and seeing the beauty in them.

My customers, I would say, are those who love their homes, but are not bound by what is only mass produced or available on the high street.

I feel that by buying antiques and vintage you are not only reclaiming your home but also you are doing the planet a favour by not adding to landfill.

But paramount is that everything I sell is beautiful as well as useful!