My Lucky Day

I stopped in at the local op shop the other day and saw this lovely faded, hand-stitched, hand-quilted patchwork quilt for sale for $2. I was a bit worried they had stuck the wrong price on it as I expected to pay more.

When I took it to the counter the lovely lady said that because it was bit faded and tattered, she would give it to me for free. I guess the idea of shabby chic hasn't arrived in my town yet. I walked away very happy and have been spending a few relaxing hours patching the patches. What could be a better way to pass the day!

Great Exhibitions

You know when you have those days when you surf the net finding lots of places you'd rather be and things you'd rather be doing? I had one of those yesterday. I happened across the website of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. There is an exhibition of quilts there until 4th July. I'm particularly interested in Tracey Emin's contribution below:



Here are some more:

If you can't make it to the exhibition, you can order quilting squares online, made from reproductions of fabrics from the quilts in the exhibition:


If that isn't enough, there will be another exhibition from 17 April - 26 September entitled "Grace Kelly: Style Icon". Here's what it says about it on the website:

"The spectacular wardrobe of Grace Kelly will be on display at the V&A. Tracing the evolution of her style from her days as one of Hollywoods most popular actresses in the 1950s and as Princess Grace of Monaco, the display will present over 50 of Grace Kelly's outfits together with hats, jewellery and the original Hermès Kelly bag. Dresses from her films, including High Society, will be shown as well as the gown she wore to accept her Oscar award in 1955. These will be accompanied by film clips and posters, photographs and her Oscar statuette. The display will also include the lace ensemble worn by Grace Kelly for her civil marriage ceremony to Prince Rainier in 1956 and 35 haute couture gowns from the 1960s and 70s by her favourite couturiers Dior, Balenciaga, Givenchy, and Yves St Laurent".

Also, from 3rd July till 8th January 2010, there will be an exhibition of illustrations from the "Peter Rabbit" books by Beatrix Potter. I think Londoners are pretty lucky. Meanwhile here in the colonies, people are queuing for two and a half hours at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra to see the last week of the Collection from the Musee D'Orsay. I've chosen to avoid that one. It doesn't seem quite fair does it?

All images courtesy of Victoria and Albert Museum website.

Amazing New Stuff

Something quite amazing happened today. I walked into an op shop that I haven't been to for a while and found some very cool stuff. In fact I'd given up going because all I kept finding was hideous nineties bric-a-brac that was horrible the first time around. But there was this art deco mirror in the shape of a scallop shell for $15:

And this quilt for $6:

And I fell in love with this quilt for $4 which I'm sure is from the 40s. And the wheely thing - is it called a tray mobile? - I'm sure it's art deco as well. The dilemma for me was that, while I was happy to buy the quilts and the mirror, I drew the line at $40 for the tray-on-wheels. Then I got to the cash register and found out that everything was half price today. You fellow bloggers who frequent thrift shops/op shops/rummage sales etc will understand that I just had to run back through the store and grab the wheelie-tray. I apologetically told the sales lady that, while $40 was unthinkable, $20 was very doable indeed. How sweet is it?:

Here is a closeup of the fabric I fell in love with:

So I walked out of the shop with these four items for the grand total of $32. You gotta love that!

My Quilt

I'm finally able to show off my quilt. I hand-pieced it in 1985 and machine-sewed the panels together shortly afterwards. I then tacked this top layer together with some wadding to a piece of calico, and attempted to hand-quilt three of the panels. However, it all just became too difficult so I rolled it up and put it away for twenty years:

I must admit a couple of years ago I cheated by having someone finish off the quilting by machine. But it still wasn't finished. It needed to be edged:

So a couple of months ago, I took the strips that I had so carefully cut 24 years ago and edged the quilt with them.

It's so beautiful even after all this time. And definitely worth the wait.

My 100th Post

Well, I never thought I'd have enough to fill 100 posts, but it seems I've managed to do it, one way or another. My trips to the Op Shop have certainly been more frequent since I've become a blogger. Over the last two weeks, this is what a total of $20 has bought:

A pink Italian bedspread still in its wrapper and a previously unused afghan blanket:

A patchwork quilt and a green check travel rug:

A white marble vase and picture frame:

It's been fun collecting all these and other items since last October. Now, however, I'll be having a rest from Op Shops because on the 9th May, my husband and I are house-swapping in Europe for three months. We'll be swapping for a week in each location: Paris, the Costa del Sol, Barcelona, Provence, Umbria, Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm and London. I was originally planning to give my blog a rest while I'm gone, but I've decided to attempt to post from the cities I'll be in. Not too sure how easy this will be, but I'll give it a go. So, from May 9th till August 2nd, my posts may become a little infrequent.But hopefully, I'll be able to offer some insights into the world of house-swapping. Thanks to everyone who's been kind enough to read my blog so far. Some of you have been really regular with your lovely comments. Hopefully I'll find something interesting to say from May 9.

A Quiltful of Memories

Contrary to the image of the boatshed that's apparent in most of the photos on this blog, the weather over the last few days has been abysmal. This has resulted in a) a boatshed cleanup and b) an unwillingness to venture outside into the torrential rain. This combination proved quite serendipitous, because in cleaning out the small amount of storage here, I found my bag of old fabrics and decided to make a (small) patchwork quilt for a throw. I call it my 'op shop' quilt, because it's almost entirely made up of patches cut from old dresses and tablecloths from the local op shop, such as the blue Liberty tana lawn and pinkish faux-Liberty floral. The 70s blue and white is from a tablecloth and the olive and orange print from a child's dress. You can also make out a faded green satiny stripe and a pale rose pink satin. These are quite old and come from the two under layers of one of the chairs I restored a few weeks ago. I pulled it all together with the rhubarb-pink leftovers from a cushion I made recently.