Supposed to be on De stashing page!

What is the point of setting up a special sub-site for selling stash if Blogger won't post the write up to the right site?  Oh well, you'd probably never find it anyway....

Cross Stitch and embroidery kits going cheap!

I will send these anywhere in Australia in a prepaid satchel which I think is about $5, but if it works out cheaper in another envelope, I'll do that instead.  Postage overseas will have to be calculated individually.  The prices I have put on all these kits is negotiable.  Please make me an offer if you want to buy more than one, or if you think I've over priced any of them!
You can leave a comment here, or email me direct at gandkwil@hotmail.com if you have any questions, or want to purchase anything. I will accept Paypal or direct deposit, or pick up in person if you are in Melbourne.

Anchor stamped linen table runner kit.  Second picture shows one section of the design.  Threads included.  $10

Four Seasons cats, click on the picture for a closeup.  I'd love to do this, but I know I never will now..
Originally cost over $40, I'm selling it for $15.  Threads included as shown.

I thought I'd do this one day too, but time is running out for me!  $15.

This Jubilee kit is for the previous jubilee, not the current year Diamond one.  I took one look at all those threads and thought no way!  $15.

Bought this kit years ago, and still think it is cute, but I don't like cross stitching on printed linen.  Prefer counted thread cross stitch.   As you can see in the second picture, the printing on the linen (cotton?) is very faded, but still visible enough to stitch on.  Cottons included as shown.  $6.

The phot on the front of the packet shows four frogs in frames, but the pattern and threads are for only one frog (with green sticker on packet to indicate).  $8.

Two book mark kits complete with threads.   $2 each.

Old stamped linen sampler which has been glued on to a wooden frame.  No threads.  $8.

Anchor embroidery cushion cover kit, threads included.  $15.

Beautiful example of Tatting.

I saw some exquisite tatting on Jane's blog a while ago, and left a comment saying how lucky she was to have someone do that for her.  About a week later I received an email from Nancy in the USA  -  she was the person who sent Jane her Tatting.  She offered to do some for me as I'd sounded so enthusiastic about it in my post to Jane's blog.  So we agreed on an exchange -her tatting for one of my mug rugs.
A parcel arrived today from Nancy, and typical of so many bloggers, not only did she send the design I requested (teapot and teacup), she'd added extra goodies! A dear little heart, and some tiny hooks to hang the tattings on.
Aren't these just darling??  I'm not sure if I'd hang them up; I'm thinking of mounting the tatting on to a piece of fabric and framing them.  I don't want them to collect dust!

Two note pads with an American flavor, and a gorgeous card, which she has embellished with tatting - how clever is that!  Thank you so much, dear Nancy :-)

Coffee with another Blog Friend!

I've been reading Lyn's blog Moore Patchwork and Quilting for a while now, and as happens so often with bloggers, we have become good friends. Lyn was down in Melbourne for a conference this past weekend, and as she had Monday morning free before she flew back to Brisbane, we arranged to meet up for a quick coffee and chat. We met at one of the many delightful cafes in The Block Arcade in Melbourne CBD.   Lyn is at the table looking at my album of fabric postcards.

A friendly waiter was happy to take our photo outside his cafe.

Lyn had visited L'ucellos during her stay, and bought me a little gift of notepad and vintage buttons - lovely!

In return I gave her a fabric postcard that I'd bought at our Guild on Saturday.

Lyn loves fabric postcards, and is currently involved in exchanging them on a forum. She makes some beautiful cards herself - check them out on her blog!

Paddy's Market at the Embroiderers Guild.

I should have posted a reminder here for my Melbourne readers;  our Guild's Paddy's Market just gets better and better!  It is usually once a year, but sometimes they skip a year.  Today I took a lot of my stash to sell, and did well, selling nearly all the vintage unworked or partly worked linens to one lady who came down from Bendigo to look for me, after buying some of my linens two years ago!  We share a love of vintage linens, so I have invited her to view my collection next time she is in Melbourne.  Ken said I have to be more careful about who I invite into our home.  I said that I didn't think middle aged ladies were going to make off with the proverbial family silver.
I know what he means though; people might quite innocently talk about where they saw all this fabulous linen, and it only takes one person with evil intent to ask where I live....But I trust all the ladies I invite here and I doubt very much if any of them are going to give out our address!

Once I'd sold enough of my own stash to have a bit of spending money, I wandered around everybody else's tables.  We all do the same thing every year, and have a laugh over it.  Often heard during the morning is "How much have you sold, and how much have you bought?!"  Here is what I brought home:
A small quilt hanger for $10, which is a bit more than what I would expect to pay at Paddy's, but I really loved this hanger with the rooster.

 Another rooster - this one cross stitched by someone who obviously didn't know what to do with it once they'd completed it.  I've got plans for it!

The ladies at the table next to me had stacks of upholstery offcuts, and I bought these pieces to use in my Christmas table runner patchworks.  $8 was better than $27 a metre over at Lincraft, and once it is made up, I don't think anyone will know it is upholstery fabric.

 I know, I know, I KNOW!  I've just sold a heap of vintage UFO doilies, and I go and buy another one??  Well, I really love the design on this  (and only $3), and I didn't like the design on the ones I sold, so there.

 Couldn't resist this dear little Christmassy doiley for $5.

 Very cute kit for a computer mousemat - cat asking  "Have you seen my mouse?"

 Christmas fabric postcards, $5 each.

Rare vintage table cloth.

First off, thank you to everyone who has left such lovely comments on my blog about my Lilydale Show wins, and the mug rug - your words are greatly appreciated as always!

My new friend N. allowed me to take photos of the cloth she brought over to show me this week. Some friends of hers also have this cloth, but unworked, and they brought theirs in to show me at my exhibition at Bundoora. N. said at the time she also had one, but hadn't looked at it for ages, and thought hers was also unworked. But when she unearthed it from a bag of cloths, she found it was completely finished. It was produced by Womens Weekly magazine at the time when decimal currency was introduced into Australia (1966). I have never seen this design before - on eBay or any other source online or otherwise, so I don't think there will be many around. I would almost cut off my arm to get one of these cloths for my collection! So if anyone reading this knows where I can find one, please let me know!

I omitted to photograph one corner of the cloth, with the one cent piece. What makes this cloth even more historically interesting is that the one and two cent coins are no longer in circulation. And the 50c coin has changed it's face many many times since 1966.

Another mug rug.

I whipped this little rug up tonight for a friend who is coming to lunch tomorrow, to see my linen collection. She has promised to bring a very rare cloth to show me, and I am quite excited about it, as I didn't even know such a design existed.

At the Lilydale Show I won....

First Prize for my Family Memories wall hanging.

Second Prize for the Rainbow Kittens wall hanging.

Third Prize for the Jars of Preserves mini quilt,

And a Commended ribbon for the Xmas Tree mini quilt!

I was chuffed to say the least, as I didn't really expect to win anything, knowing the quality of the other entries. I'll post photos of the others later on, so you can see why I was so surprised to win anything. I am NOT putting myself down when I say this; I just know that my projects are easy, and only take a few weeks to do (or even less with a smaller project), whereas some of the other quilts in the show obviously have much more work put into them, which I greatly admire, but don't aspire to those heights myself!

Found in our opshop today!

I haven't seen any really lovely embroidered cloths in opshops for ages, but I was in the right place at the right time today. I work in the local Brotherhood Of St Lawrence opshop on Friday mornings, in the front of the shop at the till, while two others are in the back room, sorting donations as they come in. One of them came up to me with a bag and whispered 'have a look at these, they were just brought in, and you might be interested'. Understatement! Interested is not the word - over the moon might be more apt!

At first glance I thought this one was machine embroidered, but no, it is definitely hand done. 

There are some other pieces that I haven't photographed yet; it was such a windy day I had trouble getting these photos, so I'll do the rest tomorrow.  There were other items in the bag as well, but I only bought the best ones ;-)

Mug Rugs

I've got a ' to do' list as long as the proverbial arm, but have been so tired lately, the thought of measuring and cutting out fabrics for a quilt top leaves me cold. I feel that I'm letting people down, as I did commit myself to several people, but it's no use trying to do something when I don't feel up to doing it, as I will just make a mess. But to keep myself crafting in a small way, I made two mug rugs. One for an American lady who is doing a little Tatting project for me. I made one side of the mug rug with Australian icons fabric, and the other side with farmyard animals fabric, as she had admired one of my chooks patchworks.

The other mug rug is for a friend's son. My friend G. is an American married to an Aussie, and she has one son back in the USA who stayed with his father when G came here to live. They have always enjoyed a close relationship, and G loves to send him all kinds of Australian stuff, as well as other things that she finds. She found a coffee mug to send him for his birthday, and I offered to make her a rug for her son to put it on. She was delighted, and when I asked what he likes, she said "Dogs", so this is what I came up with:

Happy visitors

I love to share my linens with anybody who is remotely interested in needlecrafts of any kind, and I met many such people at the exhibition of my linens at Bundoora Homestead.  Some of these people indicated that they would love to see the rest of my collection, and we swapped phone numbers etc. to keep in touch.  Two of these ladies were Melody from The House On The Side Of The Hill, and Christine from MacDonald's Patch, both of whom live not far from me, so it was easy to arrange a visit.  Most people ask me which is more convenient - morning or afternoon, not wanting to impose themselves on me for lunch.
But I always tell anyone who wants to see my collection that it will take more than just a morning or an afternoon, so they should be prepared to have lunch with me!

Mel and Christine arrived just after 10 am, and as every good hostess does, I offered them a drink first.
So we sat at the kitchen table with cups of tea and talked.  And talked, and talked!   They liked my kitchen with all the chook things and pretty cloth on the table, and took some photos.  About noon, I suggested that if they want to see anything of my collection, we need to start viewing NOW, so off to my linen room we went.  I took them through a run down of my collection, and where each category is stored, and then we stopped for lunch.  More talking, until 1.45 pm when I said we had better start looking at stuff!  They decided to look at the table cloths first, and by 2.45 pm they had seen about 20 cloths (I have about 200).  They had to leave then, and I also had to go out - to deliver my entries for the Lilydale show this weekend.  It is nearly an hour's drive each way, and I didn't want to leave it too late, so Mel and Christine's departure at that time was well timed.

They both took heaps of photos and apparently plan to post them on their respective blogs, so if you want to see what they saw today, just click on the above links in a day or two!  We plan to get together again soon (but they may have to stay overnight for a week to see everything, lol), and in the meantime they hope to catch up with me at our Guild's Paddy's Market on Saturday week. 

Quilt shows.

I've visited two shows in the past week but am not posting photos from either of them.   Ken and I spent Saturday 3rd November at the Whittlesea Show, and of course I spent a lot of time in the Homecrafts Pavilion looking at the Needlecrafts.  I hadn't entered anything this year after my disappointment with the messy display last year, but it seems that someone got the message, because there was a vast improvement in the display of entries this year.   I did take a lot of photos, not only of the quilts and embroideries, but the rest of the showgrounds as well, including the animal nursery and other attractions.  And I just haven't got the energy to post any of them on to my blogs with the appropriate descriptions - sorry!

The second show was the Blue Gum Quilters bi annual exhibition in Thornbury yesterday.  I emailed Sharon about it and we met up there and thoroughly enjoyed the show which was in a church hall.  Again I took a lot of photos, but Elyte from Tea, Fabric And Other Things, who is one of the members, took a lot of photos which are much better than mine.  So I suggest you hop across to her blog and have a peep - they are worth seeing!

Next week (17th and 18th November) is the weekend of the Lilydale Show, and I am entering four of my patchwork projects this year.

One more item for this post - and two photos to accompany it. One of Ken's cousins celebrated his 10th wedding anniversary last week. His wife was born in India, and they were married in a Hindu temple here. The ceremony was fascinating to those of us born in Australia. As Yaso still retains much of her culture, I decided to make her a table runner using a piece of Kalamkari that Laksmhi sent me some time ago. I appliqued it on to a plain back ground, and then added side borders using some Batik from my stash that matched the Kalamkari icon nicely. The back is another Batik fabric.

Message to my American friends.

I've been having a look at some of the American blogs I visit, and so far nobody has mentioned Hurricane Sandy, so I'm hoping that means you are all okay.  I know that many of my American readers don't live anywhere near the USA east coast, but nevertheless, the devastating consquences of that storm will have far reaching effects, so I ask those of you in the States to leave a comment here if you can, so I know my cyberspace buddies are okay.

I had a little spend up today while I was at the Guild.  I went across the road to the Lincraft Store looking for a storage box for machine threads.  They didn't have one, but they did have some nice Christmas fabric, and I also found a nifty little item I'd been looking for.   The suction holds the handle to quilting rulers so if the rotary cutter slips, it reduces the chances of your fingers being sliced off.  I've had a couple of near misses!

 I must have had the camera on the wrong setting - these colours aren't right, and it looks blurred.  The fabric is much nicer than what it looks here.

Then I dropped into the opshop next door, and found this charming little tray cloth for $3.  I might not have bothered buying it as I have dozens just like it, but none with an edge of tatting!  Really sets it off.