Leslie’s stunning Bricks quilt is a work of art in this room
as is Kimono and her namesake’s quilt below.
I like to see how Leslie’s inspiration develops…from these
to this fabulous spiderweb wip
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.
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.
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!
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.
I have had an interesting time since publishing my last post. I was savaged by one member of our group who then cut and ran but more astounding to me was the lack of actual response for or against the issue of fair attribution of inspiration of work by quilters and artisans. I had talked to some people on facebook who were very upset about it and others who thought a simple error had been made but still needed to be addressed. By the way it has been now….Stella was influenced by the actual floor of the cathedral and by the method of Colleen Wise.…so there was definitely an issue of attribution.
I was savaged on flickr for taking the award away while I investigated the matter…I think that is what is done in sport etc while investigations go on. I am not and have never said that I am anything but an encourager of quilters …so I am not really sure of the procedure…I just knew that I had to explain why I had removed the photo and the award…although on the surface it looks as if it did not matter as very few people have been prepared to comment on the issue apart from Joan and Ruth and the previous ones on Facebook.
That post had seventy views… and of those views
30 were from people reading the blog from the link on flickr
17 views were from quilterblogs updates
5 or so from the facebook discussion
The remaining were people rechecking the post and the person who savaged me accounted for several visits though she was not prepared to speak her mind here! What is interesting is that there are several people whom I know had considered stopping blogging recently due to supposed stealing of their ideas….and not a peep to be heard from anybody who had read their posts…..one of the posts had 95 comments!
So I do thank dear Joan who is always level headed and Ruth who is as honest as they come and admits when she is torn about something.
I have been rethinking my habits online. I do spend a lot of time on flickr looking for wonderful quilts which will inspire the more experienced quilters and obviously as with many others a lot of time is spent in the encouragement of both new quilters and quilters with works in progress. I also have spent a fair bit of time on the facebook fanpage....which helps show the selection of QOTW and POTW photos. So I guess what I am saying is I am not sure how much time I am now willing to spend on the flickr side of things…it does not really seem worth the effort when issues like this arise. I think the facebook page is worth developing as it opens quilting up to people who are not on flickr and I know there are a lot of people on facebook who do not blog …although I think that many of them are involved with quilt guilds etc.
I have met some wonderful people through flickr …Ruth, Betty, Sally and Joan…who started a blog after meeting us crazed bloggers…and she now has more readers than moi! Trish is another, and several older ladies whose health is compromised and can no longer quilt but enjoy the companionship of fellow quilters. What I am finding though is that Facebook offers more immediate feedback and actually I have met more people who are willing to express themselves honestly through facebook in six months than I have in over two years of blogging and involvement in flickr.
I have decided to spend some of the time away from flickr to keep more up to date with blogging through quilterblogs.com and while I was there today I found [on the blogroll of another blogger] the blog of Michelle Hill whom I have long adored…she is an expert in the field of quilting using William Morris as inspiration…and I found her link to flickr.…oh my…this has all her fabulous published quilts. I cannot recommend this highly enough….Australian art quilting at its finest! I will be sending links to her from facebook soon so check it out there ….you will be mesmerised! She has a book available on Amazon.com which I have put on my wishlist!
Okay after a wonderful evening last night at Nida watching my friend’s grand daughter and the rest of the dance troupe I feel inspired to finish sewing one of my quilts. There was the most fabulous tribute to Michael Jackson last night….although it was a tad loud! The costumes were fabulous though…if I had my time over I would definitely have gone into costume design.
As I sit here….sweltering in post 41 degrees celcius heat I feel slightly cooler looking at these images. Quiltfinger on etsy has these as well as other fabulous cushions on sale now in her store. I just love the tones in those two cushions above…perfect for that little corner of the patio or sunroom. The Chinese Coin one below would be great here for our summer…it is only spring here at present!
This week I worked out that the reason I have so many WIPS isn’t as I thought because I can’t make up my mind about what I am making…it is purely mechanical! And not my creaky old body mechanical either…it was my stupid machine! I hadn’t realised just how poor a condition my twelve year old Janome was in! I spent one hundred and thirty five dollars last year on a service to be told there was nothing wrong with it! Maybe nothing wrong if you manually adjust the tension of the seams by stretching the fabric and the stitching in opposite directions!
I have had a fabulous time sewing with my new Brother Quilter’s Edition machine. It is so smooth and quiet and it adjusts the feeds to the fabric and it threads itself and it has wonder of wonders a one step buttonhole. Oh the delight that is this machine! I might even be able to bring this through and sew in the night …as you know I have insomnia and often am up until five am…prior to this I was concerned at the noise of the machine waking my husband and downstairs neighbours but this machine might just save my night time sanity and get lots of work finished too!
Presently I have almost finished auditioning the half hexagon blocks for one of my quilts which will accompany the basic half hex tutorial.
I seem to have hit on a nerve with the tutorial…most people seem to be nervous about the actual sewing together of the blocks and strips.
I have also been thrifting and have sold several of my finds this week….including an Anthea Crawford jacket
and two skirts to go with it…one was brand new with tags in silk by Ralph Lauren and the other one one is by the Smithsonian store and is also silk chiffon. My friend is so lucky that these are her size!
