New Christmas fabrics.

Lyn Moore recently posted a photo on her blog of a lovely mini quilt she had made using some new Christmas design fabrics.   She commented that her older fabrics looked shabby in comparison, and I know what she means.  I've been collecting scraps of Christmas fabrics from opshops and remnant bins for a few years, and they do look 'old' compared to these new light and pretty Moda fabrics.  As chance would have it, I was at the Eastern Palliative Care Quilt show last week, and one of the retailers had the exact same Moda Charm pack for $16.95, so I bought it.
As usual I couldn't wait to try some of it out, so I pulled out a pattern from my stash that I've had for a few years, and away I went.

This pattern uses a darker green fabric selection for the tree, and although I do like the effect, I wanted to play with my new fabrics, so my mini quilt is a lot lighter. All I have to do now is embellish it with some stars and candles; the original pattern has used machine embroidery, but I will have to hand stitch mine, or maybe I'll buy some Xmas buttons and bling instead.

Camberwell Market.

For years, friends have been telling me about the linens that can be found at Camberwell Market, but I haven't got around to going there until last weekend. I spent about $100 on various goodies, and although there was quite a lot of linen to be found, I only bought these two cloths.
This cloth is worked in tiny cross stitch, perfectly sewn on even weave fabric. It looks European in origin. It is a bit grubby, so I have to clean it before taking some close up photos, but I thought it was a bargain for $5. The stall holder had no idea where it came from.

The lady who sold me this charming suppercloth below had a heap of linens on her stall. We got chatting and she told me she had hundreds more at home; she loves vintage linens like I do, but had got to the stage where she just had to cull them. As much as I would have like to buy more, this one was my favourite and a good buy at $30.

Art quilts

Janet Mathews, a textile artist who used to live nearby, gave two of her hand worked art quilts to me before she moved house. She intended to give them to someone else, but apparently the person didn't want them, so she said they may as well go to the opshop. I said I would probably keep them myself rather than have them being sold for much less than what they are worth, and she didn't mind if I kept them. I don't know what I will do with them yet, but if ever I have enough wall space they will be hung up on display.

The centre of this one is sewn with gold sequins, which are a bit hard to see on the photo.  There is a huge amount of work in these quilts, which are both fully hand quilted.

Close up showing the hand quilting.

The back of the second quilt.

Annual Exhibition Embroiderers Guild Vic.

The annual members' exhibition at our Guild opened on Friday and will be open seven days a week until Sunday 21st October.
Photographs are not allowed, but I sneaked this photo of my wall hangings on display when we were setting up the exhibition.

I volunteered to be on duty all day today, and in the morning I looked after the Gift Boutique with another volunteer.  In the afternoon, I sat in the gallery doing cross stitch, supposedly to answer questions from the public and demonstrate how to do it.  I think most of the visitors already knew, or weren't interested, because apart from some friendly volunteers coming up to see what I was doing, nobody else approached me! I didn't get much stitching done, because I'd chosen an old UFO to take in, and subsequently remembered why it was a UFO...small, but a lot of colours used, so a lot of time is spent studying the pattern through a magnifying glass to see exactly where the stitches fit in. Maybe the scowl on my face scared people away!

But the day wasn't a complete failure. Far from it really - I do love sitting at the Guild stitching! I bought two pretties at the Gift Boutique - bookmark with cross stitched Rainbow Lorikeet, and a cloth bag with a cat motif. There were several different colours and cats to choose from, and as I'm going through a purple phase at the moment, Purple Pussy was my choice.

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This is nothing to do with the Guild, but rather than start a new post, I am tacking it on to this post. My dear friend Sylvia sent me this gorgeous hand made card, and some extra kitties to play with! I'd bought her a pair of socks in this cat design, just for a little surprise, so this was her thank you. Don't you just love 'em!