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Monthly Archives: February 2008

meme…7 weird things you don't know about me

I have been tagged by Kate for this meme…..thanks I think!

The rules are:

1.Link back to the person who tagged you.

2.Post “The Rules” on your blog.

3.Post 7 weird or random facts about yourself on your blog.

4. Tag seven people and link to them.

5.Comment on their blogs to let them know they have been “tagged”.

As Kate said it is strange that there are not seven rules…but I so enjoyed writing the rules out as just love Kate’s music on her home page.

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[1] I saw Led Zeppelin in concert in Sydney in the seventies, still cannot believe my parents let me come to the city on the train, it took two hours, then I stayed with my friend Linda at her Grandma’s house in Randwick. Three great things happened, my parents who were very strict trusted me to go to away, I had such a wonderful time with a grandma [my family migrated here in the early 60s] and I finally got to see and hear Jimmy Page play the guitar….heaven.

[2]My vocational guidance test in high school said that I should be a computer programmer. This was 1971 and we did not even have a computer at the hospital where I went nursing 18 months later.

[3]Since 2000 I have had a sleep disorder that has caused my sleep pattern to change from going to bed at 10pm for most of my adult life to anything from 3am to 7am. Even if I do not sleep at all one night I will still not get to sleep until 3 to 5 am the next day! But hey I took up quilting because of it and look at me now!

[4] I hate cooking, it is the bane of my existence.

[5]Almost two years ago the doctors and consultants at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Sydney told me at 10pm, after admitting me with a monstrous headache to casualty at 5pm, that I had better say goodbye to my husband and son as they “did not know if I would be alive the next morning”. I did not as it just did not feel like I was dying. Apparently they were all stunned that I spent the whole night consoling the nurses and the doctors who messed up repeated lumbar punctures…and I mean repeated… Well they did not know that I have insomnia so it was my daytime ha ha.

[6]I am very messy and I just do not care! During the above incident all I could think about was how messy my storage area and sewing area was and promised myself I would fix it, ready for when it was my time to go, for my guys. Well it is almost two years now and I am only half way there. But it is still an improvement on before!

[7]Apparently I have the skeleton of an 80 year old. And I don’t look a day over 58.

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I tag Janey, Bombshell, Kara, Judy, Ruth, Sunnie, and Stina.

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Okay that took longer than I thought, all that linking, its exhausting! I am sewing madly at the moment, or should be. Have sandwiched my Japanese cranes and dragonflies together with some fabulous used to be curtains in Laura Ashley fabric and some lovely low loft poly batting…cannot wait to get hand stitching…it is 1.13 am here so better get cracking only got a few hours sewing ahead of me.

I have also got a few ideas for some of the old embroidered linens I rescued recently so have to get going on those. When they are ready they will be available to buy from my website or etsy store…when I get one that is. Also thought I would sell some of my retro and quilting fabrics online too. Photos of all of the linen are on flickr, they came up fairly well. Have a few quilts to make for friends and a few orders also. Maybe it is my new sewing table but I have felt more inspired….it could also be that it has been a bit cooler here lately.

Vera Wang and Thrifted Thursday

This week I found a really lovely powder compact, think I had one given to me for my 18th birthday by my parents. This is in good condition with some kind of a bird on it, maybe a pheasant. Also was lucky today to find a pair of flat shoes…after returning those high heels last week I was in need of a replacement…..and these were a great colour too in suede.

The earrings are very 80s and go well against the shoes….I am trying to stop matching everything up but old habits die really really hard. My husband found me the lovely butterfly mirrored compact and it has a magnifying mirror as well, as if a normal one isn’t torture to the over 50 woman. Actually it is a godsend as I don’t have to put my glasses on to apply mascara….never figured out how to do that.

The oriental dressing gown is from last year but a lot of people have been asking about it as I wore it to commemorate my first blog post. Also found a Vera Wang formal skirt with the label still attached and $900 on it!!! It is an American size 4 or Australian size12 which are really popular sizes so don’t know whether to sell it or keep it for one of my son’s friend’s eventual weddings, was thinking of making a hand beaded bustier to go with it. I looked on EBay and I had no idea that her clothes are so popular for weddings.

Saving the best for last…..today the local charity shop was getting rid of two lots of fabric, probably cause it stank so much and think it may be barkcloth from the 60s or 70s. Cannot believe it because it is a fabric Kara loves to use in her hand made bags. There is about two metres of each piece of fabric and after I emailed Kara to tell her about it I washed it as it gave me a headache and a runny nose! But it will be worth it if the smell will eventually come out, hard to describe the smell, not mothballs, more like something dusty magnified by ten thousand…if that makes sense.

Okay now for the bit that one normally does not discuss as it is just well, not done, in polite circles. Of course thrift is different everyone wants to know the price and if you haggled etc. I don’t haggle as it is for charity but I do hold my breath when I discover a real bargain. The Vera Wang was an exception as I felt morally obligated to tell the manager that I thought their price was too low. He however had not heard of Vera Wang and so the price remained. I gave them until the next day and as it was still that price I bought it.

So the powder compact was $8, the shoes also $8, then the earrings were $6, the dressing gown was $10 and the Vera Wang was……$12.00 [remember it had $900.00 on the label]

The fabric was a freebie…although I started itching while I was writing that!

By the way I have an update on my Hillary on Kaffe scoop, felt like a real journalist when I researched this, found out through Liza that the quilt was from a Kaffe kit and was made by the mother of a doctor at the Child Study Centre Yale
where Hillary used to do volunteer work when she was young. The doctor has it on the wall in his/her office and the CBS people asked if they could use the room for filming. So it was not orchestrated, she was in that suit and the television people obviously thought, wow, and the rest is history. Can you imagine the pride of that mother, apparently she adored sewing it and was so excited and then one day this happened. So you never know where your quilts might end up or the joy they may bring to others than the intended recipient. Thank you so much Liza for being so kind as to let me know and it was a real joy for me to be involved in “the search for the quilt!”

Accessory Addiction: Pilgrim and AURORA

Jewellery

Earlier this week I re-donated some shoes[stunning avocado green suede sandals and one pair of leather sandals in sage green] that were heavenly to look at but absolutely hell to wear as they were 10cm heels. I don’t know what I was thinking as I am on the waiting list for two, yes two knee replacements. Well actually I was actually thinking they would go nicely with my green tapestry handbag while conveniently forgetting my age and surgical status. Imagine my delight the next day when I found this gorgeous pair of rust coloured Spanish strappy sandals that still look kind of cute and are comfortable to boot.

shoe addiction

shoe addiction

Jewellery Jewellery

On Tuesday I found a beautiful necklace and bracelet set by Pilgrim. Love the name, and after googling found out that they are quite reasonably priced new and that Myer sells them, as well as a lot of boutique stores, including this shop in Paddington. I wore the set today and what I really love about it is that my neck didn’t go green! Copper based jewellery has a horrible affect on my skin but Pilgrim is sterling silver or real gold so although this looked like copper it didn’t have that result, whew!

The other jewellery pictured is from late last year from the same store, and no I am not telling you which one! That was a few months in the collecting, although all the Aurora were found within a week of each other. Not totally sure where the Aurora is made, it is signed AURORA, and on ebay they have it as being from the 50′s…does anyone know anything about AURORA?

Other wonderful news was that my dear Janey’s parcel arrived, a gorgeous handbag that she crafted herself. More of that next time, I’ll make sure I have it out well before my husband’s bedtime so that I can photograph it. She also made a lovely pink hearts tablerunner for Valentines Day today for her home and hubby said “but it is pink”. You can see it here. I have also found a wonderful young designer of handbags, Kara Smith, and she is hopefully going to help relieve me of some of my vintage fabrics. I am so happy they are going to such a talented designer. You can find her here.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Hillary on Kaffe

Much to my astonishment when I watched CBS evening news this morning…..we have Foxtel and get all the stuff live….I saw Hillary Clinton being interviewed by Katie Couric on the economy and wait for it……..

She was standing in front of what appears to be a beautifully executed quilt …..Handkerchief Corners ………..which is a Kaffe Fassett design. Not only that but Hillary had on a stunning yellow suit with a black collar and we all know that Kaffe’s Handkerchief Corners has an acid yellow centre to each block!!!!!!! What a stunning move by either Hillary or her stylist/advisor. Now she gets the quilters of America behind her and the arty types and the fashionistas!!!! Stroke of genius whoever thought up that combination. You couldn’t accidentally get that colour scheme going, it had to be planned.

I salute you Hillary and whoever was behind it. Kaffe are you out there, what do you think?[He is probably not too keen on me after my expose of the colouring of one of his quilt kits] Anyway I salute you too Kaffe, imagine how he must feel……I mean even if it isn’t his own quilt it is his design and his genius, all hail Kaffe! By the way, I am just high on quilting and politics ……haven’t had a coffee in hours.

I also am excited cause it is the first time I have embedded a video and sent emails  straight off the video on CBS.

By the way, you will have to suffer through the other candidates as Hillary isn’t on until the last minute or so, but it is worth watching the rest to see how dull the others look by comparison.

Red Boxes Quilt

Excuse the boots in the photo…have to crop it some how!

This quilt was made several years ago after I had made one in a darker colourway. Alas I do not have a picture of that one as it was in pre blogging days when I was quite slack about documenting the construction process. It was a gift for a wonderful young woman and hopefully brought much needed comfort at a difficult time in her life. That quilt had the dominant fabric in black with coral roses and blue with pink roses through to creams with more pink roses. I also used a lot of recycled fabrics taken from ladies blouses in it.

The red version came about at a time when there were masses of shabby chic and soft pink rose quilts around. I wanted to still have some depth to the colour scheme and after looking at all the shabby chic quilts around that year at our big quilt show in Sydney I wondered what red would look like with all the soft creamy rose fabrics I had been collecting. So the hunt was on for a red rose fabric. No luck, just lots of dark colours which I already knew worked! Then luckily on one of my fortnightly raids on Spotlight I found a gorgeous red fabric which was perfect, even though it didn’t have roses it had large flowers which were really scattered over it which was even better as all the other fabrics with the flowers closely packed looked too busy somehow.

The quilt was really simple, the top came together quickly as each finished block measures 30cm. I really recommend this quilt for using up lots of fat quarters and for running something up quickly. After making several blocks I decided to add various soft green rose fabrics from my stash, the green seemed to lift the quilt somehow. I was lucky enough to find some duck egg blue fabric scattered with roses for the backing and after adding low loft polyester wadding I quilted each block about 1cm inside each box using gold perle thread. After finishing off the edges by hand I also stitched around the outer edge with perle thread.

This quilt has been very popular on Flickr which is why I thought I would rephotograph it and write it up on my blog. It has a certain modern feel to it and looks great draped over a chair. It makes a great scrap quilt and I also noticed in Kaffe Fassett’s last book he has done a version in his shot cottons in two colourways. You can see a version of his quilt here and another also by the very talented Fruitsalad :

Speaking of Kaffe I have almost finished the top of the four patch upholstery quilt which I interpreted from one of his books, he used quilting fabrics but as I love the sheen of brocades and jacquards I decided to try to make dent in my upholstery stash. Tried and failed, I’ll have to do another five quilts at least to make any impression. Ah the challenge!

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