Magik Quilter

Earlier this week as I was sifting through boxes of jewellery I heard a young lady say “could I please have a look at that purple glass vase that is up on the wall behind the counter? I meantime, while recovering from the shock of what I had heard, am holding my breath saying to myself….whatever it is you will not like it . I looked up cautiously through my unruly locks and saw a glorious vase about 13 cm x 15cm in a really dense purple. After realizing that I was feeling quite dizzy I took a breath and proceeded to try to hypnotize the young lady with the powers of my mind. She calmly proceeded to pay while I meantime, am mortified at myself for my behaviour, where was my community spirit, my to the victor go the spoils?

What it taught me is not that one should not covet another persons thrift find but that I have only myself to blame and I should look behind the counter as soon as I enter the shop….that is after I look in the china and antiques cabinet on the way to the counter and then to glance on the counter[ while looking for possible finds on the wall] to casually check out the jewellery cases etc. All the time remembering not to make any sudden moves so as not to alert any possible market dealers, customers and staff that there may be a find somewhere there. If this is confusing to you imagine what it was like writing it out…I may need to write a manifesto of thrift shopping.

While I was still fretting about my stupidity in not spotting the vase, I have only been collecting coloured glass for about six months so am at that every piece is critical stage. I happened to look up, no not for divine guidance but to see what she might have missed, and I saw a gorgeous handbag with fifties style women on it. Now don’t think that in my meme I mentioned that I have slight handbag addiction. I am trying to in future only support Australian bag designers like Kara and American ones like Janey but I think second hand bags are fair game so I calmly, though there was a slight tremor in my voice, asked if they could get the bag down so I could examine it [ their best bags are kept behind the counter] and to my amazement it was brand new. Not only that but very well designed with two magnetic clasps attached to either side of the centre compartment to keep it all neat and tidy and best of all, in shape.

After that I popped upstairs to look for fabric and low and behold [who says that anymore?] I spotted a Laura Ashley duvet cover, king size, and it was virtually new as well. I recognized the pattern from my perusal of their archive of fabric. So I carefully wandered over and removed the quilt from the rack and sauntered around the bookshelves a bit. Couldn’t concentrate as was too excited so paid up [don't think they knew it was a Laura Ashley] and raced down to the coffee shop so I could examine my loot at leisure.

The next day I found a large piece of retro fabric that has screen printed by hand on the selvage and another glass vase in deep ruby red.

Today I found a hardcover book on Tiffany and a feminist science fiction book by Pamela Sargent, The Shore of Women. Also spotted a yellowish glass vase so scooped that up as I went along to give one of the workers the reading glasses that she had been looking for for hours…found them amongst a lot of goods on a table. Also grabbed a magazine that has some great knitting patterns in it, though had to look for another copy as someone had removed the patterns from the first copy of the magazine I found.

While I was talking to the manager and paying, I spotted a Royal Albert small ruby glass vase, you guessed it, behind the counter! So I guess the moral of this is that if you are meant to find something you will. I ended up with two beautiful pieces of glass, both of which suit my collection far more than the purple one.

So prices now $8 for the handbag.

$12 for the duvet cover

$4 for the red vase

$4 for the yellow vase

$2 for the Royal Albert [I know, a whole lot of excitement there]

$4 for the fabric

50c for the magazine $3 for the sci fi book and $5 for the Tiffany book.

$42.50…… think I might start putting a $50 a week limit on myself to make it more interesting.

I googled myself the other day, mostly to see if this awful German site had taken my site off their directory. It was a directory of all things magic, which may make sense but right across the top of each page was the most vile pornography that I have ever seen. Course I have never seen much, but I have been around, and it appeared that the site was also a directory of porn videos of the utmost filth, also phone sex. It was in German so had to work out how to translate my email insisting that they take it down. There was also no way of knowing if they got the email as the webmaster’s contact details was on the site. I was so rattled by the filth that I did not think to bookmark my email, that is how I had proof of where my blog was on their site…I had bookmarked it, as had Google. So after doing that I looked into the Google report abuse and decided that as it would be up on Google for anyone to see if they searched I would ask them to remove all traces of it. Sorry this is long winded but it turns out that Google did remove the pages, thank goodness as I had felt quite sick about it. Apparently if you have the strongest form of safe filter on and you can still see filth then they will remove it somehow. Phew!

So when I was checking it out I also found another website had taken my photos from the flickr group Sustainable style and was really quite nasty when I asked if it was a mistake. Seemed to question my commitment to helping the environment. Several other places that sell upholstery fabric also have taken some of my quilts and put them up as a way to use their fabrics I guess. It is I guess flattering but they seem to be unaware that even though up on the computer for all to see they are my still my intellectual property…it says on the page all rights reserved. It is a worry as a lot of my quilts are my own design, and by rights I should be approached for the pattern for them if people want to make them.

Thank you everyone who played the meme game, did not realize it could be such fun. And that was just the comments.