Vintage Lace Needlebooks

OK so we have all been given a bit of grief

with Blogger in the last 24 hours

but hey life goes on

and no one has 

died

so

lets hope  we can now post articles and photos again!!!

I have been busy making a number of small needlebooks

for a shop in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

I have used some images from some vintage postcards in my collection

as well as vintage printed cotton, damask

and scrim

Remnants of an old embroidered tablecloth.

and the centre of this one below came as a gift from Pat Winter

one of our very best crazy quilters and who

publishes the most beautiful magazine called

Crazy Quilt Gatherings.

Check out Pats blog for details about the magazine at

http://www.gatherings100.blogspot.com/

Showing you here both front and back pages.

And finally here

Some gold organza, green velvet, printed cotton,

a silk suffolk puff, tied together with

a piece of torn gold sari ribbon.



I was also toying with the idea of putting some of these in my Etsy Shop!!!

Hope your weekend is going well, especially now that

Blogger is back.

Yeh!!!

A very big "thank you" to all my new blogging friends

too - I do hope that you find something inspiring

here to try.

Love and good wishes, Suzy.

Without much adoo.......a Birthday Card

These magnificent pinks, reds, oranges and browns

depict the autumnal colours surrounding us in our garden

here at home

 in Australia

at present.

and I decided to incorporate these beautiful

printed silks and taffeta into a

Birthday Card for one of the women in our small patchwork group that meet in my home once a week.

Aren't the colours just so amazingly rich

next to the Ornamental Grape Vine

leaves!

Hope you are all having a very creative week!

Love, Suzy......xxx

A Tribute to A Precious Woman - My Mother

It was MY MOTHER who:

- baked the most beautiful heart shaped sponges topped with pink icing

decorated with a freshly picked red rose,

- allowed me the pleasure of sitting up on the kitchen bench to watch and

stir and lick the spoon,

- knitted and sewed on the tredle sewing machine when she could fit it in,

- sewed the best hessian sleeping bag lined in red check cotton for me to

nap in the afternoon at kindergarten,

- pushed me in the pusher on my first day of school (how embarassing!)

- played tennis, made clay pots and who loved to square dance!

- would sacrifice her face cream so that we could have Easter eggs one year,

- made my first pretty dress for the teenage club,

- queed to buy 5 tickets for my friends to see the "Beatles" perform live

(and who came to the concert with us and loved it as much as we),

- never owned a car but walked long distances to shop,

- loved and played Bob Dylan on vinyl many times in my late teens,

- taught me how to LOVE, to SHARE, to SHOW COMPASSION, and

to FORGIVE

But tragically and sadly this faded all too suddenly after 18 quick years -

far too soon to be free of her abiding love for me!!!!

I will treasure her love always and always!!!! 

Happy Mothers Day to all my blogging friends!

xxx Suzy



            

Hearts and Hands

The Crazy Quilt International Group

is organising a project

called

Hearts to Hands for Sendai

asking for an 8 inch crazy patchwork square

from anyone wishing to participate

and this is my contribution.

The charter was to use jewel colours

and so I have engaged my sympathetic heart in using my hands

to include this heart as my centre

for the square.

It is not much to ask to help out to raise funds to help all the victims who have been

left homeless and injured

after the terrible earthquake and sunami in Japan.

The squares will be made into quilts and auctioned to raise money in aid

of this incredibly sad disaster.

Our hearts and hands go out as a little gesture

to bring just a little joy back

into their lives!