Yesterday I went to Berwick market (in Victoria, Australia) and discovered the most gorgeous jewellery stall there! It's all made using vintage hewellery and bits and bobs, by a lovely lady who's name I did not get. Sorry! But I did go back and get her card. You can find her here at madeit. The pictures don't do justice to the reality.
It's really just the mood I want at the moment. Old fashioned, Daggy in a funky kind of a way... Colourful without being bright... and looks lovely with my lovely new jacket, which, by the way, is so comfortable and sturdy and solid. I love wearing it, even if when I get a geek at myself in a shop window (something I try to avoid) my bum is so huge as to be demoralising. Not the jackets fault and hopefully I'll be starting gym soon. But, I will henceforth always reinforce the panels of a jacket with interfacing and I will employ pad-stitching.
I read yesterday that the style has been referred to as Librarian Chic.

My New Jacket That Wasn't Meant To Be At All Like The Old Jacket, But Is.

Not quite finished. I've had to change the back pleat because it sat badly over my lusciously ample bottom. I'll show you the back when it's done. Every panel is interfaced. The front and collar pieces are with horse-hair for solidity.
It's a proper, solid, warm jacket. Way more curvy on than on the hanger. The pattern is a mixture with a bit of fudging as well. I'm over raglan jackets for now though. Two is enough.



Breast pocket




Pad stitching on under collar.




This lining could not be more perfect. It's silk and all. From Vic Market in Melbourne.




I quilted the sleeve lining, using an iron-on vellum. The reason being that I decided to interface all of the pieces, but had already made up the sleeve pockets. So this seemed a good solution. I had an amazing German, leather coat which had quilted lining in the sleeves so...




The cuffs are quite long. Don't tell me you're not impressed with the bound buttonholes! And self-covered buttons to boot! It was going to be very busy if I wasn't careful. Loads of pockets and buttons. It had to be and I admit to Nerd-dom when it comes to fussing with detail. I used Buttonmania to do the buttons, in the darling favourite Nicholas Building in Swanson Street Melbourne.



Look at that shot lining! It's Gorgeous!

There's more to show. An inside ticket-slash-secret pocket... also secret sleeve pockets with LUVVERLY linings... and the back almost resplendant with band and pleat. Gotta figure out how to sew the lining down to the pleat area, but I'm hoping it will reveal itself when I get there (and posting this is stopping me).
The fabric was a steal from the now defunct Job Warehouse in Bourke Street. R.I.P. you old buggers! Thanks for the memories!

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More of the One True's amazing rock work.

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Hubby's painting and my lace. Peek of a gorgeous green vase my Grandma lay-byed in the 50's.

 A few of my favourite things: Damian Meehan Little Man in a Box, Mum's Weight Lifter doll, Boxes by Katherine Hepburn lookalike (sorry, I've forgotten your name), vintage millinary flowers from the family inheritance (i.e. from Mum via Grandma via her Mum Nanna), Op-Shop grave ornament ceramic flower, embossing stamps from Paris and old old doiley's from goodness knows where.

Deborah Klein Linocut Print. Bought with a gift from Jean Goldberg, given for that purpose.

Sneak Peek

I've been working on a few new designs. I do spend a lot of time with tracing paper these days, trying it this way... trying it that way... Something I never used to do and how silly was that? This is a new Japanese silk available at l'uccello. I dampen it as I go along with a moist cloth rather than running it past my dampened lips after imagining the amount of accumulated spit. Eew!).It's very fine and, as with rayons, wetting it a bit makes it 100% more managable. 200%.

Oh, and go check out the new class dates!

I Just Never Get To The Camera

 But I keep busy... Claire's Birthday Pants Man. Finished at last! I was pretty happy with it and so was she! xoxoxox My little girl all grown up...

Trousers in Ceylon stitch.

I'm So Excited!

There is an article in the latest Quilter's Newsletter, about my quilt! It's very exciting as, I (alone in the whole Pacific!) discovered this magazine in the late 70's before the quilting craze made it all available here (in Oz). Pretty sure I was the first in my neck of the woods at least!
That's what comes of growing up with 'McCall's Needlework & Craft Magazine', you see all of this great stuff. The ads were as good as the articles, with all of that modern American bling you could buy.
So when I came to putting my crazy patches together with the fans, and saw it to be way too busy, I dug out the old QNM's and saw one with a border that I employed to seperate the two sections. In fact the whole of this quilt is familiar, even though I came at mine (in the beginning) as a Grandmother's Fans quilt and added the crazy centre. It's an appealing medium, the crazy.
Thank You, wonderful anonymous embroiderer extroirdinaire of 1884!
The article on the link is great too, and all of the pictures. My copy is old and tattered and extremely well loved.

AND:

So, Kim at l'uccello's is putting my new classes up on her blog on Wednesday or Thursday (16th-17th May), so if you're interested in being terribly pampered while taking some classes, have a look at her blog or pop into the shop. luccello's a pure hit of visual and tactile delight and I'm really pleased as punch to be teaching there. It's great fun.
I'll post more too. There will be a few options...

Details of Claire's Ceylon Stitch Pants Man, a secret birthday pressie.

Onward & Upward With The Finishing Off Thing

I am adding this text to Claire's drawing. It needed something other, and this will work well.

My eldest daughter wrote this note for her grandparents, maybe aged 8-10? I realised the other day, that I would NEVER EVER have presumed my grandparents, or parents, or anyone else for that matter, to be wrong and then magnanimously forgiven them and not held it against them like this! I would have forgiven them of course, being tender hearted, but it would not have occured to me to see any wrongness! Such a self-aware little girl!