Archive for the 'Update' Category

Leather Jacket and Thrift Thursday

magikquilter April 11th, 2008

This week I hunted for a Salvation Army store I was sure I had seen sometime last year. It was raining and cold and gloomy, making it hard to see where I was going, then I found it tucked in next to the back of a nursery [plant shop not childrens centre] up a back street which is used more for offices and real estate agents etc.

I tried to look relaxed as I walked in but wondered what I had let myself in for. It is a rambling old building which by the look of it used to be a house. The rooms are all knocked through but the layout of them is still there, it was like going into someone’s dining room, lounge room, then bedrooms and finally working back to the old kitchen area. It probably had been used as offices or something but it didn’t feel like it as it is such a rambling old place. I started looking for fabric…no chance and worked my way through various rooms until I found myself back in one of the middle areas…..a lot of mens coats and on the other side of the hallway formal womenswear. After looking for some time and getting dead itchy I had a half hearted look through the mens jackets in case something was there that I could cut up for my throws. I spotted a vinyl jacket in a turquoise colour and after checking realised it was a woman’s swing jacket from the…. wait for it ….the 50s. I found a changing room with a door, unlike the vinnie’s ones with curtains that people can see around as you change. It fitted really well as it was meant to be a swing coat and would therefore have been really roomy anyway.

I paid for it and started talking to a gorgeous young chap about some blue Spodelike dishes on a sideboard. It was like being in my grandmother’s house except no doors! We established that it was Spode and a divine shade of blue and I showed him my coat and he said “but that is kid leather”. So I went outside into the light to check and there it was, in all its glory, a sort of hand dyed swirly kid leather. Not a thing wrong with it and doesn’t even smell after all that time and what with the company it was keeping in that store!

So I skipped along…I wish…..hurry up damn knee replacements…. to Westfield and smiled my way through coffee and banana bread and everyone smiled back…..it is like being in love, everyone picks up on it! I had better be careful in case this feeling becomes addictive but there is really no fear of that as it is so rare that I find anything in my size and for my sort of age bracket. Okay I hear all you women screaming in rage…what is she talking about …we can wear whatever we desire…well maybe but it doesn’t mean we should!

I try to wear quality clothes of rich colours and textures in natural fibres and they are not readily donated to charity shops in my size I find. Okay I am a size 16/18 Australian….see Sulz it is not too hard to tell people your dress size, if I can admit to that then how difficult is it to tell all you are a size 8? [ Sorry, that's a whole other story! ]Last week you may remember I did not actually shop at all so this week I allowed myself $50 and the jacket was $25 can you believe it? Can you?

Speaking of value, Melissa of tinyhappy fame sent me some fabric in exchange for the embroidered linen that I found her and the floral fabrics are wonderful, thanks so much Melissa. It isn’t easy giving people who have particular tastes and needs fabric etc but we seem to have done it! Also a huge success was the Melly and Me swap that Dawn in Durham, England and I are doing together. Her swap arrived here the day before Melissa’s and I truly feel that I have let her down as she did not want too many florals [and me the floral queen] so I sent hand dyed and batiks and now am really really worried. Her fabrics are different to my usual though, bright and quite gorgeous so maybe we will both be moving out of our comfort zone. Perhaps that is why swap challenges are so successful.

Speaking of moving out of my comfort zone, after the thing with flickr and being banned by the administrator I decided after encouragement from several ladies to start a different group and since Monday we have over 150 contributers and over 650 photos. I have chatted with many artisans and been really astounded that the more talented these people are, the more humble. Most are truly delighted to have a new platform to share their work and to also share in the work of others. I have assured them that they will always be informed if there are any problems and that there will be no banning with no recourse here. Of course that has led to a few emails this week trading horror stories of being kicked out of quilting guilds or being asked to leave because their baby gurgling with delight was such a distraction to some of the members. The thing I love about our new group is that there are no rules apart from not flooding the pool with too many photos and I am really enjoying seeing the sheer quantity and quality and range of some of the work on offer. The generosity of the contributors is heartening and their support of the group has been overwhelming. Sally who offered to resign from the other group has been a huge support and her experience as a fabric rep, quilt shop worker and artisan is really appreciated. Some of us are trying to stylise our photo shoots more in future ….to show the quilts and artworks as they are meant to be used.

So this week has been really rewarding and interesting how sometimes painful experiences can be turned around, and an even better outcome develops…all I need now is for my son to start feeling a little better after he had a setback this week healthwise. But he turned things around bless him by writing the funniest post which had his core readers crying with laughter instead of the usual sadness his work evokes. He also fixed my google reader which is wonderful and means I should always be up to date on all your goings on!

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Japan and Thrift Thursday

magikquilter April 5th, 2008

Well here it is Friday and no thrift shopping done. Feeling really tired so decided to skip shopping for this week, instead I took some photos of some of the things thrifted before I discovered Thrift Thursday. The ginger jars are a real find as have not seen them anywhere new and love the design on them and the colours are just wonderful. Like everything in my home this week though they could have used a dusting, especially before photographing them. I tend to put things up high where I cannot see the dust…. my husband is 6′5″ and son 6′2″ but my husband just does not see dust, it is invisible to him!

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Am really enjoying taking pictures of all my fabrics and shoes and bags and sharing them with other mad collectors on flickr. Funny thing with flickr suddenly most of the offending people who have business links under their blogs have taken them down so am pretty sure my benign link to my blog was the cause of my being banned. Looks like the others were warned or word got around and it snowballed but still naturally no confirmation from anyone….flickr said my blog was okay but some zealous administrator obviously thought I was abusing the system.

Still looking for the fabric for little Ollie who lives opposite, I told them to give me two weeks then to go ahead and buy some and I will make him one anyway. Can’t have him without one the first real winter of his life, that he will understand anyway, he is about 9 months old I think and crazy about animals. Bumped into my friend Daniel the one of the Bar Mitzvah quilt today and I swear that in the month since I saw him his voice has broken! Time moves on for us all. My flickr friend Sally was asking today could it really be 40 years since their daughter was born?

Today I was awarded a couple of blog awards from Glassoffashion an amazing blog whereby GOF regularly lets us into her vast collection of vintage Vogue and other catalogues and patterns and by vintage I mean 1920’s and 1930’s, absolutely fabulous. She is currently creating a lovely bridesmaid’s dress for her upcoming wedding, flapper style of course for her cousin to wear.

I will take this opportunity actually to apologise to everyone if I appear not to be commenting as regularly as usual but after going to GOF’s blog I realised my blog surfer has more than the not unsubscribing of blogs problem going on, it is not showing all of my subscribed blog entries either. I fear that I have missed huge chunks of peoples blogs and that is not acceptable so am going with the something or other feeder or rather my son is when he has time to set me up with it. Hope you have a great weekend doing whatever it is that warms your hearts, see you next week.

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New policy on comments.

magikquilter March 24th, 2008

Just to let you know I am instituting a policy on comments. After my last post I received one rather abusive comment and checked back to the website to see if any dialogue could ensue only to find it was a porn site…so maybe I should not be surprised at the comment left. However should I receive any more in that vein I will delete them. If they are just expressing a strong differing opinion then fine but any that provide a link to porn or offensive sites I shall not enable the link back.

Things I deem offensive:

Women who are in compromising sexual positions…even though it may be their choice

Any site that calls women sluts…speaks for itself

Any comment that implies that I am bigoted…the reverse is probably true

Any rant of any kind that is not relevant to my post

I was accused of thinking I was some kind of authority and hey guess what on my blog I am…if not here then where?

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What’s the deal with these thrift store primadonnas?

magikquilter March 14th, 2008

This week did not do much vintage shopping as had a big problem over the donations that were being given away from that store. Some of them were quite good and silk at that, not to mention new from Lincraft! Was told I did not know what sold and that they were basically unsaleable, this in front of a shop full of people. Well thems fighting words and had been really concerned for some time since I bought a large shopping bag of embroidered items for about $40 and was then given two bigger bags full of goods of better quality than I had bought.

So I contacted the area manager who said no donations should ever be given away as if they had no value and that anything that is not paid for cannot leave the store. So there has obviously been a mix up somewhere along the line between policy and implementing that policy. I should say here that I did ask the manager if they were throwing away any damaged embroidered goods if I could have a look at them to see if any could be used by cutting them up etc. Thank goodness I was able to rescue so much embroidery which I gave to another branch of the same charity. One pair of crochet gloves that were rescued sold for $25! I just hope that they do not decide that some of the type of things I rescued are unsaleable and throw them out. The reason I asked was because there were no stained tablecloths etc going out that could be cut up and restyled. And I did suggest that scrap bags could be a money spinner as you only have to look on etsy and ebay to see what sells. I know some of the larger stores have older volunteers who are there to price the manchester. I had offered to go in but honestly after the hostility I faced when I tried to explain the situation to a staff member I just cannot be bothered inflicting more abuse on myself.

They do get inundated with donations at times but these vintage linens may well be from deceased estates and the attitude of staff or volunteers at the many charity organizations sometimes increases the impact of the grief if they perceive that their loved ones donations have no value. It is ironic that in trying to save these items for future generations that I may be inadvertently the cause of their destruction. I have to trust that the area manager somehow managed to instill into the staff the true value of these items. I feel that they are blessed in this particular person as she has suffered loss of an unimaginable kind and is in the very real position of knowing what the impact of tossing items out would have on remaining loved ones.

Neither my husband nor my son thought apparently that it was worth the trouble involved to pursue this matter. Even knowing the sheer mortification of having staff turn their backs on me when entering the store does not make me question my decision as cannot stand by while these things go on. My son after much discussion said that the biggest problem with the world today is apathy, I believe it is selfishness. In the incident that I next detail for you both of these “virtues” ensued.

In the same store I witnessed a previous manager run downstairs to tell the fifty odd year old gentleman that she did not want his donations. He was putting them into the donations bin at the time so have no idea how she knew what he had put in there. As she ran downstairs she was saying “I have had it with this”. She had a heated argument with him and he then said he would take the donations back and would never again set foot in or have anything to do with the charity. I was appalled as who knew what these donations meant to him? Could they have been books from a dead child or a broken marriage or an aged parent who has been placed against their will in an old persons home? That is just it we do not know and it behoves the staff to graciously accept those donations in the spirit they were offered. Not the “people like nice things” whine that came out of the manager’s mouth when she realised she had gone too far. And all this in front of a shop full of people who were too intent on not missing a deal to even consider speaking out.

You may ask what did I do then? I followed him outside the store after shaking my head in disbelief at the manager,who knew me quite well, and told him I was mortified by that outburst and that I personally knew that it was not the policy of the store to refuse donations and that they would be appalled at the verbal abuse and victimization. He was shaking with rage and who knows what other emotions and repeated that neither he, nor if he had anything to do with it would anyone else he knows after this, darken the door of that particular charity again. I do not know if he reported the incident, I think he made a good case himself anyway and that is another thing that the manager should have been aware of…we live in a highly skilled area with a large university presence and he was able to run rings around the manager verbally once he got started, all this without being abusive back. What a remarkable thing to take that kind of victimization and not get down and dirty with it…he certainly left the store with his pride in place whereas nobody else in the store that day could say the same.

I did phone the area manager as was concerned as this was the fill in manager for two weeks and thought that the stress of the position was obviously getting to them. I do not know what ensued as do not have the same confidence that I do with the current person in the position but I do know that I could not go in the store for over two weeks as felt really sick about it. The fill in manager saw me shopping in our mall one day and asked me to come back as she had missed me.

So that was in contrast to this week when I did try to explain to a staff member why I had spoken to the ‘boss’ and to assure her that I had in fact put in a good word for her. She would not talk and turned and walked away from me, leaving me standing in front of a store full of customers. This is also a person that I had done free alterations for as knew money was tight with her. I shall wait a few weeks until I feel that I can handle whatever may be dished at me …as I said to a friend I have enough angst in my life I do not need to add more!

Here’s hoping I have some stuff to show you next week, I am intending to do a little trading myself so keep posted if you are looking for luscious jewellery etc

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Vera Wang and Thrifted Thursday

magikquilter February 22nd, 2008

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!”

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