Knitted Coat Hangers 2

I can't believe how quickly the month of March has flown by. Mum has spent this month with me so I have not worked that much. Sadly she is going home on Sunday after Narelle's wedding on Saturday.
We will all be sorry to see her go and hope to have her back in another few months.
Mum never has nothing in her hands, so among other things she has been making covered coat hangers, once I would have hated these but now I love them, there is something about the individuality of each one. They are the best thing to hang clothing on as nothing slips off, and no marks left on your clothing. Wool has been found at the market and donated by Kate and Frankie.
Thanks girls.
We still have a few more to sew up but you can never have too many.

Cover Girl

Congratulations Effie! Her gorgeous quilt made the cover of the latest Quilters Companion. This is a faithful reproduction of a very old quilt in the book "Georgia Quilts".
Effie's version is wonderful she even used two different red's to make sure it had the right feel.

New Japanese Books

Effiie had her kids sihouettes done by Narelle too, so I had to show and tell, she had them done with white gold, rose gold, and normal gold in a mat finish with a long white gold chain.
Effie has also made up a top in shot cotton from one of the books we have in stock and was wearing it today, so I thought you may like to see how it comes out.

Narelle's Blog

Many of you know my daughter Narelle from working at Patchwork but her real job is a Jeweller.
She has been a Jeweller for 15 years, and works part time for Holdsworth Bros Jewellers and has a studio she works in for two days.
She has started a blog and I have linked it onto my sidebar. Some of her jewellery she has done recently is featured. Including the silhouettes she did of Kate's gorgeous little ones.

Tea Cloth's

I don't know about you but I have a cupboard full of Tea Cloths too small to do anything with.
So have been setting about making them into something useful.
By adding a length of linen onto the sides and top the become either a table cloth or a bed cover.
They even look good patched as many of them are a little holey.
After attaching the linen i usually dye them using Rit.

The Lost Art of Making Jam

One of the things that I love about Autumn is my large Fig Tree is usually covered with Fig's. There is plenty for the birds,possum's and some left over for me.
Yesterday after risking life and limb I succumbed to allowing Geoff to climb onto the roof to harvest the ripest of the fruit that is always just out of reach.
I then set to and made some jam, using the recipe below.

My Mum's Fig Jam.
Cut up the fruit, and put in large heavy based pot. Add 1 lemon cut into 4 and half a pack of ginger.
Place it on the hotplate on half heat and boil about a quarter of the liquid down. Stir minimally.
(Just enough to stop it sticking to bottom)
Tip fruit mix into bowl. Measure back into pot and count how many cups of fruit liquid.
Put the same amount of cups of sugar into pot as there is fruit (cup for cup)
Put back on stovetop and boil on about half heat, stir regularly, to make sure it does not burn on the bottom.
After quite a while, (mine took about three quarters of an hour, don't forget to keep lightly stiring fruit from bottom) test jam by putting a teaspoon of jam onto a plate and see if when it cools it is thick. (set) Remove Lemon pieces.
Spoon Jam into clean jars or glasses. Enjoy!
p.s. you can use any fruit, maybe lose the Ginger.

Crochet Liberty Flowers

As I have said Mum has to keep busy. At the moment she is making these flowers from 1/2" liberty strips that I have torn. we have the strips for sale at the shop and they have been used for many other things, jewellery, wrist wraps and hair ribbons.

New Kokka Prints

Just arrived last week the fabulous Melody Miller prints from Kokka, I have addedher blog to my blogroll, she is very talented. I intend making some pincushions from the transistor radio's and the Audrey portraits.
I have also been cutting half lengths for scarves out of the wonderful voiles I have in the shop.
They are the perfect length and are fine hemmed or not.

Portraits

This colourful lady was so charming I just had to have her.
She was for sale on a stall at Camberwell Market for $5, the other one was from the Paris flea market still a bargain at 50 Euro.

My Mother My Inspiration

I am a very lucky person as I still have my dear mother at 90, and she is still able to travel from Perth to stay with me.
Mum is the most positive person you would ever meet and is an inspiration to me every day.
She never complains or is negative, she has always put a positive spin to her life, and given excellent advice. I know it was far from easy bringing up nine children.
She is a great believer in keeping busy and there is always something in her hands that she is busy with. Whether it is patchwork or crochet.
These are a few photo's of my mum. I especially like the street one and the one my brother snapped in our kitchen in the 60's.

Le Petite Atelier

Two different people told me to check out this cute shop on a recent trip to Paris, unfortunately it was closed when we got there. The windows alone were worth the trip.
Hopefully if I go again I will check the opening hours.