Heathen Quilter's Unite!

Sometimes you read a post on someone's blog and it just strikes such a chord with you. That happened to me the other week when I read Alison's post, "The Heathen Quilter, Part 1". I stood up to be counted as a heathen quilter and one day, I will show you why, but not today.

Part of the subsequent discussions I had with Alison, which were very funny, by the way, led to discussions regarding fabric/quilting/sewing/crafty type shops and the genre of people who frequent them. For the sake of political correctness, I will call them "traditionalist's".

We have a local shop and the lady in there has come to know me and my strange requests and she is now very helpful. She even lets my girls play with the buttons. Which I have come to be extremely appreciative of.
I had a visit there this morning and came home with the following little treasures.


I love these little buttons. The green one's remind me of depression glass, or uranium glass. Horrid name for something so pretty. My Mum has a footed cake plate that all our birthday cakes went on that looks exactly like the larger green buttons. Perhaps that's why I like them so much? More about what I am going to do with them later.



My next find was this pretty ric-rac. It's quite textured and I thought it would make a great trim for the remaining skirts I have to make.





This is the fabric for those skirts. Beth has a "free dress" day at school this week. The conversation went something like this. "Beth, you have free dress day on Thursday". "I'm wearing a skirt". Beth is very pro dresses and skirts. Which as much as I love, there are days where skirts are just not appropriate and trying to get her into a pair of jeans is a major battle. So guess what I am doing this week ?

Anyway, buttons and ric-rac. I was very happy with my purchase from my little shop that is more widely known for its ribbon embroidery and decorative folk art painting classes undertaken by the "traditionalists". I search high and low in there for fabric that I like, but never the twain shall meet.

However, I have had a fantastic find this week. Sew Mama Sew is an on-line store that opened for business last November. Kristin has been very helpful in giving me hints on how to sew oilcloth. I have never sewn with it before and am thinking of expanding on the make-up purses and lining them with oilcloth, for all those nasty make-up spillages. My only dilemma now is what to choose. And I'm sure Sew Mama Sew would welcome any Heathen Quilter's.

"Catty on a Swing" & "I Like to Sing" ...

Today is such a beautiful Autumn day. Crisp and a little cool in the morning and a glorious sunny afternoon. It was such a lovely morning that when Alice asked if she could wear "Catty on a Swing", I couldn't say no. "Catty on a Swing" is a t-shirt and if you ever ask Alice what she would like to wear, the answer is always "Catty on a Swing". So here she is, outside the cubby house, with her favourite "Catty on a Swing". She is holding our newest CD, "I Like to Sing" by Justine Clarke. Justine is one of our favourites on "Playschool". Although, I must admit I am a bit partial to Jay myself. We love the film clip for "I Like to Sing" so much that we bought the CD. Only disappointment being that Alice thinks that everything that is on CD is a DVD, and she wanted to watch Justine, not just listen. And she was tired, and she is two and need I say more? I am sitting here listening to it and enjoying every minute of it. If you are Wiggled out, I highly recommend Justine for a refreshing change.

If you are wondering why I would put a photo of Alice pulling a face like this in my post, then let me explain. This is her photo face. It is really very, very difficult to get anything other than a face like this. She automatically says "turkey" and scrunches up her nose. She is into sunglasses in a big way too, but these ones keep sliding down her face, another reason for the scrunched up nose.

But low and behold, she went inside the cubby house and I managed this one.












Still a little scrunchy, but a minor miracle nonetheless.

I finished something ....

Yesterday I finished all the little make-up purses for the school Mother's Day Stall. I was actually quite happy with how they looked. They are made entirely from my scraps of fabric and wading. It was fun co-ordinating the outer fabric with the lining and the tie.












Of course, I have my favourites.














And this is what they look like inside with the lining.
I hope they make some Mum's happy on Mother's Day.

Crafts from a time gone by ....

Last week Hamish bought home "MX" which is the free newspaper that is distributed at the train stations in the city in Melbourne. He used to catch the train to work every day when he worked in the city. Sadly, the highlight of my day was when he walked through the door of an evening and casually tossed me my "MX" which I grabbed like a child scrambling for lollies. He had to go into town for a meeting last Thursday and as a very special treat, he came home and handed me the "MX". It's the little things in life that keep me happy.
Each day they have an interview column called "The Mad Minute". Being a Mum who really doesn't get out to trendy Brunswick for my shopping, I had never heard of Chitra Mangma and her boutique "Chitra's Closet". I may just be admitting that I am way out of things, I'm not sure. Nonetheless, the interview last Thursday was with Chitra and I just had to recount her answer to one of the questions:
MX - "What's next for you?"
Chitra - "A little fashion empire - I want an office building with a tea room and a room where women can learn to be creative. I'd like to build up and encourage a community where crafts like knitting and embroidery are learnt and practiced again. It's a pity we don't have much time for this any more".
I really loved this. I think of the things that my grandmother's and great aunts used to create and I wonder how they had the time to sit and do them. Was it because they lived in an era when these kind of crafts were valued? Not that they aren't valued now, maybe just looked upon in a different way. I am starting to notice though that things may be starting to come full circle. Perhaps my girls will sit in our drawing room embroidering supper cloths before going off to nightclubs?

Lazy Sunday Afternoon ...

Here is the famous skirt. I was originally looking for patterned pinwale cord, but couldn't find it, so settled on the pink and bought it. Later that day, I ended up finding four different patterned cords. So I bought a metre of each. As you do. Which reminds me that I should have added that to my list of unfinished projects. Four more skirts. Anyway, because it was so plain, I wanted to jazz it up with some trim. Which ended up costing more than the fabric, but made what would have been a very ordinary skirt, something a little less ordinary.


Beth and I sat down this afternoon and put together her first letter for her pen friend. Otilija is Kath's daughter. Kath posted about wanting a girl about six years old for Otilija to swap letters and bits and pieces with. Beth is six in July and I thought that she would really like this. It was lovely to sit down with her this afternoon and put her letter together. I asked her if there was anything else she would like to make. She has in the past taken pieces of my scraps and asked if she could sew pictures onto them. So, this is what she said she would like to do. And here is the finished product, entitled "Tree". The little package will be winging it's way off to Canberra as soon as I can manage the enormous task of buying a stamp.

A ray of sunshine, or two...

I really wanted to take some photos of Beth's new skirt today, but, yet again, it was so dark and gloomy that I just couldn't get a decent photo. There was one point though in the day when the girls were drawing when the sun broke through and I just had to take shots of these.











The first one is Beth's. It is a drawing of a princess in her house. Note the purple walls, the princess bed, the apple mobile hanging from the roof and the cupcakes on the little table. Beth loves to draw and her drawings often blow us away.
The second is Alice's. She is at the age where whatever Beth does, she must do too. When I was taking the photo of Beth's drawing she insisted that I take one of her's, and rightly so. I even managed to get her gorgeous little two year old hand in the shot.

Beth did wear her skirt to the birthday party today and not one person asked if I made it. Which I actually take as a good sign. That means it looks "like a bought one". On one hand, it does defeat the purpose of me having made it, but it on the other, it means that it could almost be looking hand made. As opposed to home made. Which is great for jam, not so great for skirts.

And, I managed to get the photo in the header. Only took me three hours. I took it over Easter last week at my mother-in-law's at Mossiface. In East Gippsland, Victoria, just out of Bruthen. Speaking of jam, Beth and I picked the basket of quinces to make some.

Starting with some unfinished business ...

First of all, I have to say that setting up this blog was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. So I am a little happier with "the look" but still not completely. I'll learn as I go.

Where to start? Well, seeing as I am doing this primarily because I enjoy making "things", I thought perhaps I should list all the projects I am currently working on. Then as I work on them and finish them, I can share all the triumphs and many tragedies. And as most of my crafting work is done late at night when my girls (and husband) have gone to bed, as a consequence, there will be lots and lots of tragedies. I also figure that if I actually document what I am doing, I will realise that, a. I need to stop starting so many things and b. if it has been documented, I have to finish it.

So here goes.

1. The quilt for Hamish and my bed. I fell in love with the Amy Butler "Ginger Bliss" range of fabric when it was first released. So I bought the fabric, looked at and played with it for six months, cut it out and arranged and rearranged it for three, sewed it up overnight, cheated and sent it off to be machine quilted and now I admire it, without it's binding. I have been doing this for seven months now. It is a labour of love.
   
   The photo is a bit dark (something else I am going to have to learn all about). It is such a dark day here today that I am going to blame my lack of photographic skill on the weather. But you can see the lovely frayed wadding edges beautifully. And, I just had to show that backing fabric. Now that was one of my triumphs. $1 a metre from Spotlight in a sale. Just standing in the line and waiting with my number 47 (they were calling 14 when I joined) for an hour and having people look at my giant bolt of fabric with a "What the hell is she going to do with that hideous 70's throwback fabric" was worth every cent of the dollar a metre I paid for it.
2. A cot quilt for Alice. The really sad part about this is that a few weeks ago, she went into a bed. Or as we call it around here, "a big girls bed". I am in the midst of hand quilting it. Seemed like a good idea at the time.
3. A quilt for Alice's "big girls bed". This is at the idea in my head stage. I think I will go for 30's repro/feedsack fabric in greens and purples.
4. 27 little make-up bags for Beth's school's Mother's Day Stall. You'll be pleased to know these are nearly finished. I might even get them done this weekend.
5. A scarf for Beth. Almost done, minus the embellishments. Every nearly six year old girl needs flowers with sparkly button centres on her scarf.
6. My latest and I must say, very exciting, project. A square for Nichola's "Wall of Yarn" gallery. Exciting, because it only has to measure 15 X 15cm and it shouldn't take me that long. Should it ? No, exciting because it will be great to take part in something so collaborative and in a small way, have my first piece of craft on show. Thank you Nichola for such an inspired idea.

On a positive note, which is always a good way to end, I did make a skirt for Beth this week. Yes, I started it and finished it all in 2 days. I will take a photo of that soon with her in it. She is off to a birthday party tomorrow and funnily enough, is quite keen to wear it. I haven't quite figured that one out yet. Could it be that she genuinely likes it?

OK, so I give in!

I have lurked for far too long. And increasingly it seems that I need a blog. For a crafty, internet loving woman of the 2000's, it's akin to not having a mobile phone, a DVD player and so on, to put it in lay man's terms. So here I am. Bear with me. I am trying to work this thing out, so if things go to plan, everytime you check back, this page will look different until I am happy with it. Which knowing me, could take a year.

So, I take a deep breath, and here I go ......