Tag Archives: Handcrafts

Tim’s quilt

10/01/2011 1:29 am \ 9 Comments \

I’m a bit embarrassed putting a picture of this up here now, because it’s quite old and worn now and has really seen better days, but that is the nature of quilts, right?  That they are supposed to age gracefully and naturally, like fine wine (and women) and take on a character and story all of their own with each little rip and patch?
And I did set out to document as much as I could, even things that have had a rough life…
This was my first effort at a full bed-sized quilt.  I hadn’t really done any quilting prior to this, apart from a little baby floor quilt which was done totally on my machine, posted here.  
So,  in my usual way, I rocked up to Calico House (as it was called then, now Calico and Ivy), just bought a selection of boy-ish type of fabrics and went home to nut it out for myself.  I can recall the ladies in the store were a bit scandalised that I wasn’t going to take any lessons, or even buy a book.   How hard could it be, I reasoned?  Patchwork and quilting is hardly rocket science.  Me being a bit gung-ho, I inwardly scoffed at the idea of needing instructions…  I just did up a rough mud map of what I wanted and then made some measurements of numbers of squares times dimensions, added all up, to work out how much fabric I would need.  The backing is a single sized navy blue flat sheet.
It’s a very simple design.  The edging is very amateurish, I turned under the edges and overstitched by hand all around the edge.  I only quilted around the edges of the quilt; both in the ditch and a few stars, moons, suns and swirls in the border by hand, the middle part of the quilt is knotted at the corners of each square with surgeon’s knots.  Right now I will confess that this is an inferior method to traditional quilting; it looked nice but did not make for a robust quilt.  As a toddler Tim used to love to sit on the side of his bed and slide himself along with the quilt on to the floor… yeah… Activities like this, coupled with the flimsy knotting do make for a short life-span… and as you can tell, some of the fabrics in the middle have worn and ripped with use and been patched with other fabrics.  
And, early in its life I used to carefully handwash in the bath tub, but nowadays I just toss it in the washing machine.
C’est la vie.  I’m a big one for believing things should be used and loved on a daily basis and not tucked away preciously for special occasions, and this quilt has definitely been much loved and used, and still is to this day.  That’s all that counts for me.

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Green quilt

29/11/2010 1:45 am \ 7 Comments \

Sometimes I forget that I set out to document all my handmade stuff here.  Including the old stuff.
This is a quilt I made a few years ago.  The fabrics are all green based, and all “floral” in the sense they all are leafy, fruity, and/or vegetable-y  (I do like to make up words when I feel like it)  I collected fabrics over about six months until I had found enough to satisfy my criteria, in both the quantity and in the prints.  There was almost NO leftovers when I had finished, making the quilt “green” in a colloquial sense too…  That’s the beauty of quilts based upon basic square shapes, you can plan them to be very economical with fabric.
The patch arrangement is based upon a Kaffe Fasset design from his quilt book.  The edges are hand bound with bias binding, made using two of the fabrics.  The top is all machine pieced, and I started hand-quilting the three layers together before I lost enthusiasm and finished the quilting on the machine.
Purists will shudder, but… meh.
It measures approximately 210cmx240cm (7ftx8ft)  perhaps a little smaller, but not by much.

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Thoughts on coat-hangers

26/11/2010 5:15 am \ 12 Comments \
A smocked dress for a coat-hanger…?
A friend was telling me recently about a local woman whose business is to come out and assesses one’s wardrobe.  Yes, apparently there are some women out there who do not do this simple and very personal task for themselves… but I digress… this lady visits you in your own home and helps you go through your wardrobe and decides for you what does and doesn’t suit you; sorts out what to keep and what to cull and “enables” you to fill gaps in your wardrobe (translation; goes shopping with you to spend even more of your money)
The particular lady we were discussing has a firm belief that one’s coat-hangers must be all matching, and definitely not the old wire variety either.  She recommends white and plastic.  She tosses out every single coat-hanger you own that doesn’t conform to this strict rule and makes you buy all new identical white plastic coat hangers … apparently one simply cannot be a well dressed woman if one’s coat-hangers do not match… I know, how ridiculous.  Some of my most treasured possessions are the coat-hangers that have crocheted, smocked, knitted (or whatever) covers; made by my great-aunties and great grandmothers who are now gone…
And not only are these a sentimental memento of my female role model relatives, but they make the best, bar none, hangers for delicate slippery tops and dresses…
I have covered only one coat-hanger to pass on to my daughter… this is it.  So while it makes me cringe a bit to look at it, hopefully she might feel some nostalgic attachment to it some day.
Disclaimer: as well as my inherited hand-crafted beauties, the rest of my coat-hanger collection is a veritable zoo of different varieties, including lots of old wire-ys…
Below; a daily outfit photo.  Looking back over my blog; the days over the past year that are clearest to me are the days in which I have a photo of myself.  Seeing me in that day’s outfit really helps jog my memory of the events of the day and my feelings…  So if I get the time to take a photo, I am going to put one in.
(On another note; I was surprised yesterday at the number of (albeit nicely worded) comments telling me I was just showing off.  I didn’t think I was showing off, just trying something different.  And seriously I’ve heard of ladies in their eighties who can still do hand-stands.  I really admire those ladies who don’t let age get in the way of their fitness routine, or anything else in their lives for that matter, and would like to hope I could be one of those ladies)
Details:
Skirt; Vogue 7303, cotton velveteen
Top; Aztec Rose, from an op shop
Cardigan; Country Road

Thongs (flipflops); Mountain Design

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Autumn rain cross-stitch

08/11/2010 6:12 am \ 7 Comments \

This cross-stitch design I worked as a teenager was part of a Danish calendar, there was a different design to stitch for each month and all were inspired by a natural seasonal feature of that month in some way.  Mum and Dad have it hanging in their house because it matches the other five or so that Mum worked (hehe, in my teenage self-centredness I thought I was being pretty awesome doing my one…!).  I took this picture while I was there last weekend…  This autumn one was immediately my favourite on first perusing the booklet, the warm rich earthy colours, the silvery raindrops, all spoke to me back then of the sort of colourful and misty autumn that was unknown but known to me, that I had read about in English storybooks.  The other designs were all similarly European; involving crocuses in May, thrushes, rooks, robin-redbreasts and snow at Christmas and other scenes that Australians often do feel a strange affinity for, but are actually foreign to us.  
The raindrops and the inner border are worked in a metallic silver thread that I can still remember was a nightmare to use…  Although some of the rain-drops top right look gold they really are silver, using a different type of thread from the others, which has unfortunately tarnished a little  🙁

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Cross-stitch initial cushions

18/08/2010 2:57 am \ 6 Comments \

These are some cushions I embroidered with my parents’ initials a few years ago (hehe, when I was into cross-stitch a while back…)  and sewed up the cushion covers with some gathered broderie anglaise edging.  I think on the backs I sewed proper little fold-over closures with buttonholes and cute pearly buttons; but I forgot to turn over the cushions when I was taking this photo to refresh my memory…  Mum and Dad pay me the honour of having them permanently sitting on their bed, and I love the all-white embroidered and belgian lace bedlinen they have here… but then the all-white look is my favourite decorating style.  As well as in clothing… but I’m told white doesn’t suit me so I shouldn’t wear it so much.  Apparently I should stick to ivory or beige.

On my walk this morning; below, the first signs of spring?  Seems incredible but there it is.
Truthfully I am sick of winter.  More accurately, I’m sick of the cold, we are still so desperate for rain.  My friend J was telling me how they may turn their sheep loose into the crops because the growth has been so pathetic they may as well utilise it for sheep feed… a bad situation.  She’s measured that they’ve had all of 127mm of rain this winter (non-metric people, that’s about 5 inches) and everything is as dry as a bone, keeping fingers crossed for a wetter spring…

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Flower patch tapestry cushion

11/08/2010 4:26 am \ 4 Comments \

Out of all the tapestry cushions I’ve worked, this is my favourite.  (well, since the others were all for the chapel and given away, to see the others click on the “tapestry” link in the “labels” below)  And no, this doesn’t live on an outside chair as pictured, but in pride of position on our bed.  If the house was burning down I would probably grab this cushion…
I stitched this one from a design in a Kaffe Fassett book, borrowed from Mum.  At the time I just bought some canvas and some threads in colours I liked and just started happily stitching away, as is my wont.  It wasn’t long before I realised that the canvas he had used for his design must have had a much bigger grid, and that my resulting cushion would be tiny.  His original design was for a four flower by four flower cushion, each unique.  Well, once I had completed this part of the design I ad-libbed a few more flowers, based on his designs and tweaking the petals and whatnot to get some extra flowers in the same style, until my design was an acceptable size for a cushion, five flowers by five flowers as it turned out.  Grr, so much extra stitching, if only I’d checked the canvas requirements would have finished so much quicker…!
I also changed the border design a little, on his cushion design the little border motifs weren’t meeting up in a nice neat order which was distressing to me; so on my cushion I altered and fudged them so they met up in each corner in a kind of “mitred” fashion (see close-up below)…

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Desiccated art

31/07/2010 6:20 am \ 6 Comments \

The art of dried flower arrangements.  Did a few once (a few years ago now).  This is one made for my parents, and they are obviously much gentler in their housekeeping than me since this is the only one left out of several.  It has yellow, apricot and ivory flowers (these have faded a bit) against a soft background of blue/grey and sage green foliage.  I had also made a lovely one out of blue and red flowers and a background of soft grey green leaves on eucalyptus boughs and had it hanging in our lounge room.  One day I took it down for cleaning, accidentally dropped it and it was sadly no more; disintegrated into a million pieces.
There is an art to drying flowers in order that they retain a. their shape, and b. their colour, or their colour in at least some degree of intensity.  Some colour is essential in order for the arrangement to avoid looking like so much kindling…  The pieces done well can have a desiccated melancholy about them that can be charming.  The lifeless tissues of once blossoming things have a sadness clinging about them; the opposite reaction that a living flower arrangement incites, the optimism and freshness and glorious fruitfulness inherent in the beauty of a living thing…
Mum and Dad have managed to preserve it so well and I’m so glad it still suits the rustic charm of their cottage.

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Australiana Alphabet cross-stitch

24/07/2010 9:14 am \ 12 Comments \

I stitched this during the year of 1993.  It was the year we were living in Adelaide, my eldest two were tiny, Craig was away a lot and I spent many evenings alone in the lounge room with this on my lap and a very strong lamp positioned to beam over my shoulder, concentrating on these tiny stitches.  I can remember I set myself a goal of completing one letter each week, and managed to stick to this schedule successfully; I find I always work better to a deadline than to any other motivation…
I had a good friend over there doing one of these same cross-stitches for herself at the same time I was doing mine.  I can still remember it took me over an hour to sort out the embroidery threads that came with the kit; to give you an idea the colours included brown, light brown, very light brown and very very light brown, dark brown, very dark brown and black/brown, and very light mushroom brown, dark tan, tan, light tan and very light tan.  Not to mention grey brown, light grey brown, very light grey brown and very very light grey brown!  Laugh!  And that is just the browns!  I’m not even going to start on the greens…  I still have the thread cards on which I’ve carefully printed out all the colours and also copied the letters needing each one alongside.
It has a different native animal/bird/flower for each letter.  I’ve included a couple of close-ups of some of my favourite letters; I always loved the colours of the Urchin and the Goanna, my husband favoured the Numbat and Tim like the Australian flag.
Gee, it’s been a long time since I did any cross-stitch, and I once enjoyed doing it but now I’m completely over it. Still I’m pretty happy I’ve got this concrete reminder of what was a very content time for me, when I had a very domesticated life at home with my kiddies.

 

For those interested in what the letters stand for, here goes:
A; the Australian flag, B; Brolga, C; Cockatoo, D; Dainty Field Mouse, E; Echidna, F; Flannel Flower, G; Goanna, H; Honeyeater, I; Ibis, J; Jabiru, K; Koala, L; Lorikeet, M; Magpie, N; Numbat, O; Orchid, P; Platypus, Q; Quokka, R; Rosella, S; Swan, T; Tawny Frogmouth, U; Urchin, V; Violet (native); W; Wallaby, X; (e)Xtraordinary frill-necked lizard (bit of a stretch, that one!) Y; Yabbie, Z; Zebra Finch
Later edit: Sorry, should have looked this out before, the design is copyright (1984) by Allura Design, PO Box 533, Artarmon NSW 2064, Australia

 

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