magikquilter July 14th, 2008
The inspiration for this set of beaded jewellery came from my totally gorgeous knitted boucle jacket which was an unusual purchase for me as it is unusual for me to buy a new garment especially when its not on sale or not my birthday or Christmas. This lightweight jacket has contrasting pewter knitted lace which is especially stunning on the sleeves which are gorgeously long and drape over the fingers in a sort of princess or witchy fashion.
I bought this to wear to my good friend young Daniel’s Barmitzvah although I ended up not wearing it as I thought that the dress code would be more sombre for the temple. Duh…my friend wore gold spangles and others wore bright colours so it would have been both tasteful and different as a lot of women wore suits. I ended up wearing a black skirt and a black with teal swirls knitted top with a teal long cardigan…nice but not as special as this. Think I shall wear it for our 25th wedding anniversary celebration in September…if we
get there that is!!!.
As I was going to wear this I felt that some special jewellery was called for and so I sorted through my beads and found only a handful in the colours of the jacket and realised I would need to buy a lot of beads to get the mix of these shades that I desired. Luckily our local shops have a good quality discount shop which stocks products from businesses that have closed and I was able to find some glass bottles of mixed beads and mixed packets as well. These had lots of different colours which were not in my colour scheme so I bought several packets of the smaller beads and two bottles of the larger ones so that I would have enough beads in these colourways. I really love the bronze and slate grey in these necklaces…would never have dreamed of that myself and also find that they soften the green beads which were much darker in shade than I usually use! For a while I was going to make three necklaces but settled for two as one sits nicely inside the other and they really dress up an outfit.
Tags: Barmitzvah, beading, dressing for temple, glass beads, knitted boucle jacket, necklaces, set of jewellery, where does the inspiration come from?
magikquilter July 9th, 2008
I did a little research on my previous spectacular buy and the label is actually by one of the top fashion designers of Indian Haute Couture and I read that it is not an oxymoron by the way, and she also has some ready to wear as well. And here I was thinking that my purple beauty and this suit and my white pintucked shirt and camisole were beautifully made by a dressmaker/tailor!!! And I guess you could say they were! They describe her fashion items as trousseau wear and hand finished tailoring so I was not far off. No wonder those stunning young Oscar Wilde types were drooling over my purple beauty….its haute couture!!!!! And remember what I paid for it?
$15 for the silk dupion [fully lined in cotton muslin] pantsuit
$5 for the teal asymmetrical silk chiffon camisole.
This week I found some more beautiful frames for my collection and a pottery vase which has a rustic feel to it. Notice how all three pieces have black inserts, trims or inlay which tie them together. I also adore the swirly pattern inside the twin frame….think I shall keep it like that, its very arts and crafts. The vase was $4 the twin frame $8 and the square frame $5…altogether $17…not bad when you consider burr wood is so expensive. One of the twin frames is over $50 new.
Tags: arts and crafts, burr wood, deepika govind, haute couture, Indian fashion designers, photo frames, silk camisole, silk pantsuit, spectacular thrifting buys
magikquilter July 8th, 2008
Been busy undoing this quilt top which is too similar to
the one below which I prefer anyway.
What is the difference you say…well that is part of the problem but mainly because I prefer the softer look of the one above and also because it has the prettiest borders in a floral striped rose print. I have already found a pattern for the other fabric and as it is a little different to my usual I am looking forward to that.
We have had a nightmare 36 hours of not being able to use our toilet due to repairs. First of all after I was told that it was going to be 24 hours we were going to go to a hotel but my husband was then assured that it would only be one hour for the sealant to dry…..yeah right…..and here we are now 36 hours later and it has only now been able to be used. It was too late to go to a hotel by the time my husband got home. All I can say is hooray for Gastro Stop, it is my friend!!!! Daniel and I went to see Get Smart today [wonderful film] and it was wonderful to go to the public toilets ….never thought I would say that!
Tags: broken toilets, Get Smart, nightmares, quilt tops, shabby chic, wips
magikquilter July 7th, 2008
This is the ballroom of a friend who lives in a heritage house in Sydney. Her ballroom is filled with antiques of all kinds and a glorious Persian Rug in Navy with gold and shot through with red. A year or so before I made this I had found the fabric and bought the whole bolt in a charity shop. I had been saving it for making a bedspread or curtains but when she was preparing for a function there [she also hires it for film shoots and allows it to be used for charity events] I suddenly thought that it would look stunning, especially as she uses Willow pattern china in blue for those functions.
After asking her to measure the table ….five metres I think it was…I had a word with her husband just to make sure us girls weren’t forcing our will onto him! He genuinely liked it and he even took photographs of the room before the function so I would have a record of my work. I made the table runner and backed it with the same fabric so that it would be reversible, a square tablecloth for the side table and dozens of large dinner napkins. the fabric was Mandarin Robe by Warner Fabric UK and it carries the Royal Warrant! The other photos are here.
I still have enough offcuts of the fabric to make some throws and I also found some stunning aqua brocade which will look perfect on an ottoman or footstool with a throw. I am saving that for myself and also one of the throws. It is going to be a mix of gold and cream and turquoise with splashes of hot pink..multi textured…I have got to get it finished! It has a surprise fabric in it of Colefax and Fowler. Got you wondering?
Tags: handmade, hertitage, mansion, tablerunner, Warner Fabrics Mandarin Robe
magikquilter July 4th, 2008
Working towards having a selection of smaller articles for my shop and for the new local artisan gallery. Have completed half of the smaller items and already am more than halfway through a few quilts. It was fun and inspired me to tidy up my work area a bit and actually used up a huge pile of fabrics which has to be good. Oh by the way I am merrily uploading all these photos myself now! And they are fully optimized as well. Now that I am confident that I have not pushed these skills out of my brain by learning new ones I have been creating a gallery of quilts and also wips here on the blog…they are up the top under my header in case you missed them. [As well as a book list which is going to take a while to compile]
Tags: artisans gallery, gallery, Sewing, small artisan items, small quilts
magikquilter June 26th, 2008
All bound and tied and pressed…at last! I finished the top of this quilt last September, along with several other strippies, simply strips sewn together making a pattern when put together with the other strips. The process was very simple …. I bought several pieces of feature fabric…..grabbed co-ordinating ones from the stash….then fretted for a few days because I didn’t have enough blacks and grey accent fabrics. My friend asked me to get her some of it too, as usual, so I went back into the city to get hers and the rest of the blacks and greys at the same time. While I was there I bought the cranes in two other colourways so that anyone body else who liked it would have a bit of a choice within the context of the design.
The other two colours are burnt orange and a sage/silver green with more brown than black accents. I luckily have a lot of accent fabrics for those two quilts so did not have to buy any more at the time and also did not show my friend the other colourways as I can only take so much imitation. I actually don’t find it flattering as I go to great lengths to find my fabrics and need to keep some semblance of originality going.
The top was easy to run up, in fact I made several tops in a few weeks in the strippy style, mostly shabby chic ones though. A few months ago I sandwiched this one together using a pair of almost new Laura Ashley curtains as backing and then I tied it, then I took those ties out and quilted it using largish naive stitches in perle thread. I hated it! It just lost all its appeal to me so I put it away until a few weeks ago when I decided to unpick all the quilting stitches and retie it. After binding it with the remaining pieces of fabric joined together scrappy style I was more than happy with the result. I think you will be too if only because it is so different from my usual dark florals and scrappy quilts. It has a contempory feel which I like and I can’t wait to find my black oriental vases and various other china to photograph with the quilt for my decorating with textiles group on flickr, have to keep up with Sally and all the other wonderful people there!
Tags: one of a kind, Oriental cranes quilt, original design, pink black and silver quilt, tied quilts
