A Sojourn

This week I went with my sister for a little day trip to the Southern Highlands. We stopped at Mittagong firstly and perused the local antique and quilt shops. We then headed for Bowral in the most casual of fashions - after all, we were sans husbands and childrens! So to some lunch at Elephant Boy and then a meander along Bong Bong Street. We found the very gorgeous My Place, spent quite some time admiring fabrics and beautiful things until we realised that time was really getting away from us and we needed to cover more ground.

Our last stop of the day was Peppergreen Antiques. Even after numerous visits to this amazing store, I am still very overwhelmed by it. It is an antique store with department store proportions. Huger than huge. I delight in the extensive haberdashery collections, the linen - sheets, pillowcases, tablecloths, that cover a huge space, the teacups, the cutlery, the jewel, the vintage magazines. The above photos are from there.

More Houston

At Quilt Market there were quite a few traders of vintage treasures. We spent long periods of time at all of them, time well spent as they had great stuff.

Bad photo. Amazing quilt. Gorgeous chaise.

Quilting hall of fame? Stars in the pavement? No, just Kaffe and Lynn checking out Lynn's, just purchased vintage beauty. Full of eclectic glory this quilt will be treasured for many a year to come.

Deb talking the talk with Brandon.

Houston

From Napa, it was down to Houston, Texas to meet up with Deb. We wagged Schoolhouse and went shopping instead. Anthropologie again, plus all the other all American places we could fit in. Saturday was the start of Quilt Market. It's big! Here are some of the things we saw.


Amy Butler's new range - Love. A quilt at the Westminster stand.

Amy Butler's stand. Too shy to ask her to pose for me - although, being the all American, sweet as pie gal she is, she would have.

More Amy.

Heather Bailey's pretty stand. Must have got over my shyness, because I did ask her for a photo - it's just too blurry!

Anna Maria Horner's stand featuring her new gorgeous line of voile fabrics. Her oh, so cute babe was there too! But back to the fabrics - can't wait to have a play with these, they are super pretty.

The Trip

Few would know that I've recently returned from a recent trip to the U. S of A. Few are waiting patiently for some photos, so here they are. It would be very easy to start at the end in NYC, however, I'll start at the very beginning....in San Francisco.

My first stop, Britex Fabrics. A San Francisco institution from what I can gather. Four floors of goodness and oh so overwhelming. I managed to find some vintage lace, some Liberty and the directions to Anthropologie.

A quick stop at Union Square to look up.

Favourite Things

Things. These are some of my treasures that were accidentally placed together, away from little mischievous hands. Funnily enough, I like them all together. Perle cottons and coral, chandelier drops and little red car, matryoshka doll from when I was little - split and only one half of a piece inside and a wee wonderful postcard. A little bit of whimsy, carefree placements that make me happy.

And then, just when you least expect it ........a new fabric to add to my "most favourite fabric of all time"collection. This is one of Kaffe's Big Bloom fabrics - I used the soft pink to make up the squares in my last quilt. This one my friends, is the pièce de résistance, the fabric to rival all fabric, this fabric is the bomb! I have 1 metre, but I'm beginning to think that this could be one versatile baby and maybe more is best. Yes, no, anyone? Being greedy? It comes in a couple of other colours too, check them out here.

For Comfortable Days

On my last visit to Sydney, I fell in love with this book that my sister had. I kept dreaming of two of the bags in it. Dreaming so much of these bags, I just had to have a rummage through my stash and make one. Shock horror - yes, I used my stash! I ditched trying to make out the pattern and made up my own based on the photos in the book. I quite like my first attempt. I will do my best to fill it up (it's quite big) with all my stuffs and love it tenderly. I've used a blue linen fabric for the outer - I've either got this from a Designer's Guild sale or my brother in laws factory (he's an upholsterer). The interior is a couple of years old - Fruit Cocktail by Chloe's Closet for Moda.

Stripped Spiderswebs

Last year I was chatting to a lady at the Kaffe Fassett lecture in Perth. She was a knitter and I was a quilter and we were chatting back and forth about our respective passions. She mentioned that she once had thought she would one day like to do some patchwork, but on looking at the fabric decided against it as the fabric was beautiful as it was and she really couldn't understand why you would cut up something and sew it together again. I sort of understand her thinking - especially when you think of the process of knitting. But I love to cut the fabric up, the more the better I think. So I'll stick to patchwork I think. I've had so much fun creating these octagons. Here are my strips cut with the Marti Michell Kaleidoscope ruler and sewn together again.





This is my favourite one.

A bit of Liberty of London thrown. All you die hard Liberty fans will know which one it is - anyone who's not sure, it's the white one with knitting needles and yarn on it.

Below, is a gorgeous gift of Liberty for my birthday from a gorgeous gal - Danielle. Thanks so much, I just love it.