I used to be Very Rude about Suffolk puffs/yo-yos. And then I found a way to use them in a quilt so they were something else entirely. And changed my mind.
I recently acquired one of the Clover yo-yo makers, and by gum it makes yo-yo making easy...so they've reappeared in my work, on this quilt. And have worked out rather well, representing something other than Suffolk puffs. Or yo-yos.
Candy's been making a rather nice Suffolk puff quilt in brights with black and white, over at Not A Walking Encyclopedia (link over there in my blogroll).
(Quilt to be published in Australian Patchwork and Quilting vol 17 no 3, about five issues away, which is four to five months, so all I can show here is a detail).
Monday, May 05, 2008
Sunday, May 04, 2008
Miniature sampler
Another purchase from yesterday's miniatures fair. I bought a cushion from this maker last year, and admired her samplers, so here is this year's investment. The gauze on which she stitches these is 40 count (standard aida cloth is 14 or 16 count and while linen is very often 28 or 30 count, it's stitched over two threads). Incredibly fine (and definitely requiring a magnifying glass). Just wonderful work.
Saturday, May 03, 2008
Miniature meat safe
At the AMEA Sydney miniatures fair last year, I saw this wonderful woodwork. It stuck in my mind, so when I saw it this year, it came home with me. Apart from the superb craftsmanship, I love that it represents a vintage type of Australian furniture, the meat safe.
Apparently they could have sold it many times over if it hadn't been painted wood. I'm so glad - love the worn aqua paintwork. I won't mention the maker's name, as she does this as a craft, not a business, but she's brilliant. The doors open (the catches are so small!) and the drawer opens. Such fine, exact work.
I knew which doll's house room it was for, and it fits in so well (I'm still completing that room, so I haven't photographed it in situ).
It's only the second time I've been to the Sydney miniatures fair, and just like last year, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing the multifarious ways in which people are creating and crafting in this particular arena, on the sale tables and in the exhibition houses and displays. Fascinating. I bought a few pieces, and came home inspired with plans to work on my own ideas/rooms and get them closer to being finished.
Friday, May 02, 2008
The blocks that came back
So there I was earlier this year, sorting out the sewing room and among the good things I took to the Crowle Foundation was a set of blocks. I'd made them a while ago, and they hadn't become anything more than blocks, so I sent them off to find a new home.
It was hilarious, after having said farewell to them, to have a friend show me the lovely blocks she'd bought from the Crowle May fair. Very very familiar, they were...
It's win win win. I've decluttered, Crowle's made some money and my friend is happy with her purchase. It's all good!
The Crowle Foundation is a charity organisation supporting adults with intellectual disabilities. The foundation has an annual needlecraft fair in May, selling second-hand craft goods, and also shops that are open throughout the year, with good quality second hand books, craft goods and fabrics. Click here (and scroll down) to find out about their fabric cave, book stall and plant nursery. If you're decluttering craft items in good conditions, then it's such a worthwhile cause; and you know they'll sell them as craft goods, not 'rags'.
It was hilarious, after having said farewell to them, to have a friend show me the lovely blocks she'd bought from the Crowle May fair. Very very familiar, they were...
It's win win win. I've decluttered, Crowle's made some money and my friend is happy with her purchase. It's all good!
The Crowle Foundation is a charity organisation supporting adults with intellectual disabilities. The foundation has an annual needlecraft fair in May, selling second-hand craft goods, and also shops that are open throughout the year, with good quality second hand books, craft goods and fabrics. Click here (and scroll down) to find out about their fabric cave, book stall and plant nursery. If you're decluttering craft items in good conditions, then it's such a worthwhile cause; and you know they'll sell them as craft goods, not 'rags'.
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Portrait
One of those delightful self portraits children draw. Just love them.
This is from the Recycled Threads project I handed in this week (due for publication in a few months in Australian Country Threads vol 8 no 9) - I was so pleased to find the item featuring this, which I reworked.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Reading: Saving Francesca
Looking for Alibrandi is such a brilliant novel; Melina Marchetta writes a first person narrative of tremendous immediacy, immensely engaging.
In her second novel, Saving Francesca, she does the same, with a different character in different circumstances. Wonderful prose. Great rereading it this week (I read it when it first came out - I know people who can't read books again, but I'm not one of them).
In her second novel, Saving Francesca, she does the same, with a different character in different circumstances. Wonderful prose. Great rereading it this week (I read it when it first came out - I know people who can't read books again, but I'm not one of them).
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Ugg boots
Along with the brussels sprouts, another sign of winter. It's cooled off this week, and the uggs have emerged from hibernation.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Current reading: home magazines
Still working my way through these three. I've been finding a lot of quilt/design inspiration in these - colour combinations, interesting shapes and patternings. Maybe the gridded design on the back of a chair that mutates and translates as I play with it, so you'd be hard-pressed with the final result to know where it began. Ideas are everywhere.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Brussels sprouts
It's winter.
And the world is divided into those who will eat brussels sprouts, and those who WILL NOT (they're usually emphatic).
Buy the tender little ones. Don't overboil them. Combine them with a sweet contrasting flavour, like carrots, or a complementary sauce (maybe a cheesy white sauce) with something like bacon, to balance them.
And the world is divided into those who will eat brussels sprouts, and those who WILL NOT (they're usually emphatic).
Buy the tender little ones. Don't overboil them. Combine them with a sweet contrasting flavour, like carrots, or a complementary sauce (maybe a cheesy white sauce) with something like bacon, to balance them.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Benches
After the ANZAC Day march, and the morning tea at the village hall, the benches put out for those watchers who needed a seat were still there, soon to be put back in the hall for other times and occasions.
Or maybe I just took the photo because I like the aqua and vintage style of them. Could be.
Or maybe I just took the photo because I like the aqua and vintage style of them. Could be.
Friday, April 25, 2008
ANZAC Day
The alarm clock, darkness, a warm scarf because before dawn in April is chill air, and it's been damp, rainy this week. Scramble into the clothes prepared last night and drive to the local war memorial. More cars parked in the carpark and along the road than you ever see at any other time of year, and certainly not before 6 in the morning.
A defence forces honour guard, a catafalque guard, the utter stillness of each of the ones in uniform. The stooped, grey-haired man who moves around the edges of the growing crowd to give us the sheets with the order of service, the words of the hymns and prayers and sacred texts of this one day of the year. He wears his medals and is still, in this way, serving.
In 1915, Australian and New Zealand forces were part of the attack on Gallipoli - a costly, heroic failure that has made ANZAC Day, 25 April, an unambiguous national day with a different, deeper resonance than Australia Day in January.
Dawn services - large ones in cities, smaller ones in towns and villages across the country, and across the world where Australians may be - are an integral part of this day. In the suburban area where I live, it's a gathering that draws many people into a quiet, respectful crowd, single people, couples, families, small children held by their parents, babies bundled against the cold and held close.
It begins at 6am in the half-light. The flags at full mast, the local concert band leading us in singing "Abide With Me", the voices quiet, almost reedy, not a rousing chorus, but a union in music, unity expressed. We sing, bow our heads for prayer, then listen to a member of the local clergy, who quotes from Les Carlyon's magnificent history of Gallipoli, prose that puts you there in sight and sound and smell and hearing, amid the heat and flies and the scent of thyme, the lice you hoped would drown when you swam on the beaches, the tumbled, twisted, irretrievable bodies of no-man's land, the newspaper pages blowing across this landscape from trench to trench, the bugles sounding advances, retreats.
We sing "God Save the Queen" and quietly repeat, at the end of the ode, "Lest we forget", a murmur that binds the crowd in common purpose, the reason we're here, as the dawn light comes across the sky, even on a grey morning such as this one.
The bugler sounds the Last Post, the flags are lowered to half mast and the silence is utter, even with such a crowd, so many people. Reveille sounds, and there is a shifting and settling, and the voices unite to sing "Advance Australia Fair".
And we all return to our own lives for another year.
Except this year was a double. My father was marching in a morning ceremony. Theirs isn't a large village, and the small group of marchers, less than a dozen of them, came around the oval/cricket ground, followed at a respectful distance by a large group of local school children and other people. Leading them, uniformed Lancers on horseback.
It was still grey, and thinking of rain. The ground was muddy, and among the crowd were raincoats, and wellington boots (gumboots), and had furled umbrellas at the ready. Not a large village, but a very respectable crowd. We sang a hymn, and listened to a medalled older man talk about the dreadful, brave roulette of Bomber Command. Wreaths laid, and the ceremony over, the village hall filled with people eating morning tea, home made sandwiches and cupcakes and Anzac biscuits.
On ANZAC Day, I think of my father and uncles, who are still with us, all of whom were in the defence forces during World War II, and my Uncle Willie, who was a pilot who was lost over France in that war. The first time, he came back, smuggled by the resistance. The second time, he didn't.
Lest we forget.
The saluting soldier in the top left photo, turned, at the end of the dawn service, into the crowd and was clutched by his toddler child, who reached over from his mother's arms to his father's, hugged him and then sat up to gently play with the medals pinned on his father's uniformed chest. It was a quiet moment in the crowd, but emblematic of what war is about: duty and family.
The RSL had a proposal, this year, that only returned soldiers should march within the main groups, with relatives wearing medals, and other non-soldiers, at the end of the march. I'm so glad they didn't enforce this. The village march here was short, and the soldiers marched alone, but in the city marches across the country, it's heartwarming, and moving, and somehow very right to see the people marching who are either side by side with their father or grandmother, or marching wearing medals to stand there for someone who can no longer march, or is no longer here to march. Sometimes they carry photos. of the soldiers in whose place they have come. And that is the future, so the medals are aired, the memories refreshed, thanks regiven, year by year, onward, always.
Lest we forget.
A defence forces honour guard, a catafalque guard, the utter stillness of each of the ones in uniform. The stooped, grey-haired man who moves around the edges of the growing crowd to give us the sheets with the order of service, the words of the hymns and prayers and sacred texts of this one day of the year. He wears his medals and is still, in this way, serving.
In 1915, Australian and New Zealand forces were part of the attack on Gallipoli - a costly, heroic failure that has made ANZAC Day, 25 April, an unambiguous national day with a different, deeper resonance than Australia Day in January.
Dawn services - large ones in cities, smaller ones in towns and villages across the country, and across the world where Australians may be - are an integral part of this day. In the suburban area where I live, it's a gathering that draws many people into a quiet, respectful crowd, single people, couples, families, small children held by their parents, babies bundled against the cold and held close.
It begins at 6am in the half-light. The flags at full mast, the local concert band leading us in singing "Abide With Me", the voices quiet, almost reedy, not a rousing chorus, but a union in music, unity expressed. We sing, bow our heads for prayer, then listen to a member of the local clergy, who quotes from Les Carlyon's magnificent history of Gallipoli, prose that puts you there in sight and sound and smell and hearing, amid the heat and flies and the scent of thyme, the lice you hoped would drown when you swam on the beaches, the tumbled, twisted, irretrievable bodies of no-man's land, the newspaper pages blowing across this landscape from trench to trench, the bugles sounding advances, retreats.
We sing "God Save the Queen" and quietly repeat, at the end of the ode, "Lest we forget", a murmur that binds the crowd in common purpose, the reason we're here, as the dawn light comes across the sky, even on a grey morning such as this one.
The bugler sounds the Last Post, the flags are lowered to half mast and the silence is utter, even with such a crowd, so many people. Reveille sounds, and there is a shifting and settling, and the voices unite to sing "Advance Australia Fair".
And we all return to our own lives for another year.
Except this year was a double. My father was marching in a morning ceremony. Theirs isn't a large village, and the small group of marchers, less than a dozen of them, came around the oval/cricket ground, followed at a respectful distance by a large group of local school children and other people. Leading them, uniformed Lancers on horseback.
It was still grey, and thinking of rain. The ground was muddy, and among the crowd were raincoats, and wellington boots (gumboots), and had furled umbrellas at the ready. Not a large village, but a very respectable crowd. We sang a hymn, and listened to a medalled older man talk about the dreadful, brave roulette of Bomber Command. Wreaths laid, and the ceremony over, the village hall filled with people eating morning tea, home made sandwiches and cupcakes and Anzac biscuits.
On ANZAC Day, I think of my father and uncles, who are still with us, all of whom were in the defence forces during World War II, and my Uncle Willie, who was a pilot who was lost over France in that war. The first time, he came back, smuggled by the resistance. The second time, he didn't.
Lest we forget.
The saluting soldier in the top left photo, turned, at the end of the dawn service, into the crowd and was clutched by his toddler child, who reached over from his mother's arms to his father's, hugged him and then sat up to gently play with the medals pinned on his father's uniformed chest. It was a quiet moment in the crowd, but emblematic of what war is about: duty and family.
The RSL had a proposal, this year, that only returned soldiers should march within the main groups, with relatives wearing medals, and other non-soldiers, at the end of the march. I'm so glad they didn't enforce this. The village march here was short, and the soldiers marched alone, but in the city marches across the country, it's heartwarming, and moving, and somehow very right to see the people marching who are either side by side with their father or grandmother, or marching wearing medals to stand there for someone who can no longer march, or is no longer here to march. Sometimes they carry photos. of the soldiers in whose place they have come. And that is the future, so the medals are aired, the memories refreshed, thanks regiven, year by year, onward, always.
Lest we forget.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Quilt detail/Further comment
Can't show this any bigger, because it's going to be published later in the year* but I did enjoy these fabrics, esp. the aqua/chartreuse one. Yum. Great colour combination. Clearly, it inspired me, because there is evidence of handquilting here, there is indeed. Not my usual thing, since I generally find it daunting and slow and something that gets in the way of me playing with the next lot of fabrics.
Further to my Amazon comment (read: rant!) from earlier in April: the first shipment from my order of 8 April, which shipped on 11 April and was estimated to arrive (by standard international shipping) by 17 May, has come, on 24 April.
I am happy that it's faster than the estimate, and await the second shipment (sent three days later) with interest...Maybe I was lucky. Maybe they cover their behinds, by estimating such a long duration. Maybe they did retire the Amazonian mules for more modern transport...
I finished Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, and liked it, so am glad that Wicked has now arrived to read. The composer was on Spicks and Specks this week (Stephen Schwartz), and I felt fraffly up to date, knowing about Wicked-the-musical and its source. A production is planned for Oz (Australia) from July 2008 in (sigh) Melbourne.
*(look for it in Australian Patchwork and Quilting magazine Vol 17 no 2) (current issue in Australia is vol 16 no 9, so it's five issues away).
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Op shopping
Some finds from Saturday's op shopping/thrifting expedition. Background is a tapestry cushion cover ($2) that will probably become a bag - it's nice quality. Several reels of Gutermann thread for $1 each (for applique), and bags of buttons/threads for up to $2 each.
Particularly happy with the vintage green cotton ricrac (60c I think), the little silver jug (I already have one for pens etc, they're good and solid - this one was $3) and the little artist's figure ($2). Not sure what I'll do with the latter, but I've got an idea or two. New green bead necklace $4. Not bad going for an investment of $25 or so.
The traffic goes the other way too - the Salvos van came by this morning and collected a bunch of stuff. I happened to be going by their local store later in the afternoon and took a quick look. It was startling to see, already on the floor and for sale, stuff they'd only picked up that morning. That's fast! And no, I didn't buy anything back. I wasn't checking for it either - hadn't occurred to me to do so - I was after something else.
My sandpaper board has vanished, and I need to write on some fabric. The Salvos yielded a wooden teapot stand with a flat back (I was looking for a wooden chopping board or similar) and Big W (Walmartish store) some sandpaper, so a bit of glueing, set overnight, will give me another sandpaper board. Otherwise I would have checked the local hardware store that does, sometimes, have cheap/free offcuts. But the teapot stand was only a dollar or two.
(Sandpaper board: if you haven't come across one of these. If you want to write on fabric with a Pigma pen or other fine pen, a sandpaper board will hold the fabric stlil and prevent pulling. You can buy them made, but fine sandpaper glued to a board backing does the trick.)
The biggest luck-out at an op shop today was an unplanned buy that just shows the value you can find. A quality Australian brand coat/jacket (peacoat length?), for a mere $10. 70% wool, poly, cashmere (feels lovely) in useful black, well made, classic style and a great fit in great condition. I got it drycleaned, just to spruce it, and one button needs resewing (it's not gone, just almost off). It seems barely worn - the sleeve label is still sewn on, and there are no signs of wear. In this climate, a coat isn't necessarily an everyday wear thing in winter (I don't stand around on chilly train platforms much), but it's going to be handy. It's warm and comfortable, and a Find! (Certainly I know other op shops which would have had a much higher price on it).
Particularly happy with the vintage green cotton ricrac (60c I think), the little silver jug (I already have one for pens etc, they're good and solid - this one was $3) and the little artist's figure ($2). Not sure what I'll do with the latter, but I've got an idea or two. New green bead necklace $4. Not bad going for an investment of $25 or so.
The traffic goes the other way too - the Salvos van came by this morning and collected a bunch of stuff. I happened to be going by their local store later in the afternoon and took a quick look. It was startling to see, already on the floor and for sale, stuff they'd only picked up that morning. That's fast! And no, I didn't buy anything back. I wasn't checking for it either - hadn't occurred to me to do so - I was after something else.
My sandpaper board has vanished, and I need to write on some fabric. The Salvos yielded a wooden teapot stand with a flat back (I was looking for a wooden chopping board or similar) and Big W (Walmartish store) some sandpaper, so a bit of glueing, set overnight, will give me another sandpaper board. Otherwise I would have checked the local hardware store that does, sometimes, have cheap/free offcuts. But the teapot stand was only a dollar or two.
(Sandpaper board: if you haven't come across one of these. If you want to write on fabric with a Pigma pen or other fine pen, a sandpaper board will hold the fabric stlil and prevent pulling. You can buy them made, but fine sandpaper glued to a board backing does the trick.)
The biggest luck-out at an op shop today was an unplanned buy that just shows the value you can find. A quality Australian brand coat/jacket (peacoat length?), for a mere $10. 70% wool, poly, cashmere (feels lovely) in useful black, well made, classic style and a great fit in great condition. I got it drycleaned, just to spruce it, and one button needs resewing (it's not gone, just almost off). It seems barely worn - the sleeve label is still sewn on, and there are no signs of wear. In this climate, a coat isn't necessarily an everyday wear thing in winter (I don't stand around on chilly train platforms much), but it's going to be handy. It's warm and comfortable, and a Find! (Certainly I know other op shops which would have had a much higher price on it).
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Not a rant: Penny Foolish
Osbert Sitwell's wonderful volume found me in an op shop on the weekend for only a couple of dollars. When I'm in the mood for a rant, I must remember the possibility of a tirade, not to mention the balancing effect of a panegyric (a formal expression of praise, I checked).
I flicked through this in the op shop. The contents pages (click on one of the photos, they're over in my Flickr photostream) looked promising. Both sides. My library has previously lacked any volumes particularly dealing with prigs and snobs, and I'm looking forward to reading about the delights of foreign colonies. As you would.
What's not to like????
Aren't words wonderful? They may be slothful, or lazy, but I am merely indolent, and it turns out to be useful...
If you pine for your own copy, they start under $US5 plus postage on abebooks.com.
Monday, April 21, 2008
The price of petrol
The petrol tank (gas tank) of the car was almost empty, and this is how much it cost to fill...
It's the first time it's cost over $50 for a tank of petrol for a medium-sized 4 cylinder car.
In July 2006 I thought prices were high, and blogged it here:
http://rooruu.blogspot.com/search?q=price+of+petrol
and that time it was $45 to fill. Prices went down after that, but they're back up. Cheap day of the week petrol here has been around $1.34/litre for the green Vortex one (which is usually about 7c/litre more expensive than plain unleaded, but which goes a bit further).
Translations:
$51 Australian is about 47.50 in US dollars , or 23 UK pounds.
31 litres is 8.2 US gallons
This fuel cost approx, in US dollars, $5.79c/gallon, or in UK pounds, 75p a litre. How does that compare with petrol for you?
It was amazing that the moment barrel prices went up on the world market, this was reflected at our pumps, even if that fuel hadn't made it to Australia yet.
Now to wait for the flow-on effect on prices for goods, since so much is transported by road.
Still, cars are very handy. I drove to visit a design wall I could use to lay out those chain pieced blocks from the other day. It would have been way too far to walk, and it was my reward for working virtuously for much of the day (when I didn't have to!).
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Chain piecing
See, you design a modest, simple quilt, and of course you don't count up the number of seams. Until you sit chain-piecing at the sewing machine and it seems to be all whirring, whirring, pressing, more whirring and, on the one hand, you're happy to see the work coming together. On the other hand - and this happens with lots of quilts, or other big projects - there's always that point somewhere in the middle where it seems rather endless, as you cut more fabric, seat yourself at the sewing machine, plod back to the iron...
Maybe that's the point where some projects lose their energy and focus, get put aside and maybe don't ever get finished.
This one will. I took a break from it, read some more of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (rich prose, a plum pudding of prose with the sharp acid catch of lemon peel - Maguire has great imagination, the way he's playing with Cinderella and other stuff to make something new).
And I guess this quilt has some of those qualities, combining old and new. I'm a bit over those seams. But when I get them finished, I can play with a cornucopia of blocks on a design wall, and feel the energy of the next step in construction. And it's also how you look at it, without process there is no product, it's the effort and time that make something happen.
Mostly, I enjoy process, the rhythm of it, the zone in which you can find yourself. And I am happy with how this quilt is coming together.
Maybe that's the point where some projects lose their energy and focus, get put aside and maybe don't ever get finished.
This one will. I took a break from it, read some more of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister (rich prose, a plum pudding of prose with the sharp acid catch of lemon peel - Maguire has great imagination, the way he's playing with Cinderella and other stuff to make something new).
And I guess this quilt has some of those qualities, combining old and new. I'm a bit over those seams. But when I get them finished, I can play with a cornucopia of blocks on a design wall, and feel the energy of the next step in construction. And it's also how you look at it, without process there is no product, it's the effort and time that make something happen.
Mostly, I enjoy process, the rhythm of it, the zone in which you can find yourself. And I am happy with how this quilt is coming together.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Charming
Isn't this watercolour print charming? Reminds me of pictures from my childhood (although it might be a bit earlier last century...). It was in an op shop (thrift shop). Do you think I should have bought it? It wasn't vastly expensive, but I dithered and put it back...
A lady nearby said, "It's a great picture of a chicken, I love chicken things," and I thought, gee, I didn't even particularly register the chicken, certainly not from the point of view of seeing it as the major part of the picture...ah, our different ways of seeing.
Any clues about artist etc? I'd love to know. Should I have put it back or taken it home??? (I left the op shop without it). The frame's not great (and seemed original, judging by the back, which I didn't photograph). But that rosy-apple-cheeked little girl...
A lady nearby said, "It's a great picture of a chicken, I love chicken things," and I thought, gee, I didn't even particularly register the chicken, certainly not from the point of view of seeing it as the major part of the picture...ah, our different ways of seeing.
Any clues about artist etc? I'd love to know. Should I have put it back or taken it home??? (I left the op shop without it). The frame's not great (and seemed original, judging by the back, which I didn't photograph). But that rosy-apple-cheeked little girl...
Friday, April 18, 2008
Reading: People of the Book
I read, and loved, Year of Wonders - and have lent it to others, who also enjoyed it. March, her different-angle take on the Alcotts (the one for which she won the Pulitzer), is somewhere in the house, I think it needs to be given a slab of time to get me going and get me in. But I've started this one, her latest, and Geraldine Brooks' prose is so engaging. I want to give this one a slab of time, too.
(I've been doing more dreaming of reading, and writing about reading, than reading itself, this week - and more quilting than anything else, some for magazines and today, something that's just for me. It's so good to play without having to stay aware of explaining a technique or skill, but just play and design as you go, be in that good creative process.)
Tomorrow there's an adventure planned, should be fun...
(I've been doing more dreaming of reading, and writing about reading, than reading itself, this week - and more quilting than anything else, some for magazines and today, something that's just for me. It's so good to play without having to stay aware of explaining a technique or skill, but just play and design as you go, be in that good creative process.)
Tomorrow there's an adventure planned, should be fun...
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Today was a good day because....
- I made a small quilt from scraps and my own design, which mutated as I sewed and pondered, and the final result worked rather nicely
- I had a lovely lunch seasoned with quilting conversation
- I got to talk quilting more with other aficionados, and saw some lovely magazines, and planned an op shop tour in new territories...
- Ikea still had the curtains I couldn't get out of my mind.... I hope they don't disappear with the next catalogue
- Angus and Robertson had a couple of promising books at 75% off - a Watership Downish but they're magpies story, and Chic Modern (inspiring photos of modern home design ideas)
- While helping with some advice about a quilt guild newsletter, I got to have yet more quilting conversation and see a spectacularly graphic antique quilt
- The art supply shop had some pencils which might work for another quilt idea I have, and I found three different possibilities for stabilising/lightly padding the fabric
- eBay provided me with a couple of winter wardrobe ideas and a sweet (and not bank-breakingly expensive) vintage quilt which might become a Recycled Threads idea
- While driving about on all these adventures, I listened to my still-favourite audiobook, The Time Traveler's Wife (yes, I know, I've listened to it more than once, but the other ones aren't here yet...). William Hope and Laurel Lefkow, I kowtow and bow in obeisance and admiration for your work on this - just marvellous.
It's too dark for decent non-flash photography, so maybe I'll illustrate this tomorrow. Hope you all had a good day too!
Reading: Eat, Pray, Love
I've read mixed reviews on this one - those who love it (and it's certainly been selling well), those who definitely don't. I'm prepared to give it a go, and see how I find it.
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