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Monthly Archives: December 2009

Reflections

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I find myself very reflective at this time of year. Maybe it is all that is involved in getting ready for Christmas or maybe it is the excess that is so prevalent.

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I have trimmed down my life to the essentials…my friends and my immediate family are what is important to me and my friends have indeed become my family. We live modestly and try not to overindulge at this time of year.

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My son and I went to see the David Jones Christmas window displays earlier this month and I had almost as much fun watching the children and the parents and the grandparents faces as I did looking at the scenes myself! Maybe it is because as the child of migrants we had very little in the way of family…especially grandparents so I love to watch the interaction between them today.

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My son has had very little actual time with his grandparents …he does not remember really the times when his British grandmother spent the holidays with us and my family…well let us say they would rather be with my brother and his family at Christmas…nothing new there.

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So here is what is important to me…the nativity…and my own little family. Sharing in children’s joy of the time of year …school concerts and the delight they find in the lead up to Christmas. I also love spending time with my closest friends and their families…..but I also love spending time alone sipping a flat white and reading the fashion, art and design magazines at my favourite coffee shop in Randwick.

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I love our tree decorations, such simple pleasures to be found in the decorations of yesteryear and in finding fabulous new hand crafted ones like my new found hand painted one above and the four hand painted ones my son gave me for Christmas last year.

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I love sitting watching the reflections on the wall cast by the tree lights.  I would love to know what Christmas means to you.

Oh by the way…if you look closely at the first photo…or click on it and make it larger on flickr you will see little old me reflected in the window…purple top….grey hair!

All photos courtesy of cjwriter [my son]

Ruminations of a mad quilter/facebooker

Authentic Twist

I was chatting on The Friends of Fabric Patchwork and Quilting Fanpage on Facebook today with Sarah of Sewn… her blog is The Last Piece... about a photo of a quilt which I had shown there to try to promote Australian quilting. The flickr photo does not have much documentation, it simply says quilts as a tag. Sarah said that it is run by someone who looks after the website of the Hunter’s Hills Quilters in Sydney. It turns out that I ascribed the quilt incorrectly to the person whose stream it was in as there was nothing else there to say any differently!

The quilt was actually made as a group quilt, by the Hunter’s Hill Quilters which includes Sarah as one of their members, for the raffle at their yearly show. You will find the quilt here. Oh and there appears to be a flickr group showcasing the work of the group.

Cascade Lily is an Australian photostream on flickr I discovered today where the exact opposite is the case! Her photos have some rights reserved which means I can actually show you here the photos as long as I attribute back to her….which obviously I would always do. Usually I ask first by email …so that I have it in writing that they said yes… but this method of attribution avoids all that and is such a great way to share work that I am thinking of doing that with most of my photos.

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Anyway Cascade Lily added links to her blog posts about the photo and along with the attribution also mention the name of the design of her quilt and explained about the fabric etc. Fabulous for we who live and breathe quilting!

Cascade Lily lives in Canberra  and is in the Army Reserve. She added these stunning quilted pieces to the group today and I was so excited and thrilled and ….they are up for QOTW and POTW! The quilting on the tablerunner is wonderful…pyramids…and the rail fence..though so simple a pattern is wonderfully sophisticated here. I won’t give away all her secrets…do visit her here on her blog …all I will say is that there is one lucky school teacher at the moment!

By the way I find it very intersting to read of the other meaning for rumination…..regurgitating so that animals can make more digestible …or something like that…maybe that is what I did today…..made more palatable a situation where I could not actually digest or benefit from my meal…in my case my earlier poorly attributed quilt ! Well I did say ruminations of a mad quilter/facebooker!

 

All photos are courtesy of cascade lily on flickr

 

UPDATE..Lily is so honest she just let me know what her inspiration was for the quilt…although I have seen the block  before many times and well…that is why she is up for QOTW! Cause hers is such an original take on it. The colourway …the limited amounts of fabrics…it is a very original take on what I believe is a block in the public domain. Well done Lily! And Lily…you have actually inspired me…can’t say what I am going to do yet but it is down to you!!!!

True to her Muse

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Leslie’s stunning Bricks quilt is a work of art in this room

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as is Kimono and her namesake’s quilt below.

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I like to see how Leslie’s inspiration develops…from these

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to this fabulous spiderweb wip

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I love looking at Leslie’s work as it is so refreshing and true to the spirit of her muse, Denise Schmidt while still being fresh and original. Leslie is blogless but you can find her on her flickr stream here.

Isn't it grand?

100% thrifted!

My new summer outfit, 100% thrifted and 100% natural fibres and products!  The designer is Marina Rinaldi of Italy who makes the most glorious plus sized as well as usual sized clothes in only the most gorgeous of natural fibres. This is a set which again took me three visits over two weeks to find as the outfit had been split up. It is unworn and made of silk and linen.

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The outfit consists of a maxi coat dress in linen, a stretchy cami and stretchy pants. It is incredible to touch and really beautifully made. When new the coat dress would be minimum four hundred dollars …so this is around a thousand dollars for this outfit…a grand outfit in more ways than one!

100% thrifted!

Yesterday while charity shopping I found the perfect handbag made of silk….patchwork too! The Diana Ferrari mules with a small heel are the perfect companion  to this outfit. Roll on all those Christmas parties and theatre evenings! All I need to do now is make myself some jewellery.

Do let me know if you like this and if you would like me to look out for one for you..I am selling my finds through The Wardrobe Store.com and I can also look through their data base to see if they have anything similar on your size. Unfortunately though it would cost a tad more there than the thirty dollars I paid for the three pieces. The mules were eight dollars and a real find as they are brand new as is the bag…a steal at eight dollars also.

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