Wednesday, February 29, 2012

A Bit of This and a Bit of That

Some time ago one of the ladies from our Sweet Peas quilting group gave me a box containing oddments of lace and included was this lovely little piece of vintage embroidered lace. It measured just 8cm (3.5inches).

Not much to be done with a piece of lace that size, I guess but I did think it might be nice, incorporated into one of my miniature one of a kind embroidery pieces.

Today I finished the piece - lovely soft pink silk dupioni for the background and bits and pieces of silk ribbon and thread.

So nice to think that a little bit of left over vintage lace could be repurposed into a new work or art.

I have just listed it on Trade Me.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Another Quilt for Christchurch

On the 18th January I wrote about a quilt in progress.

Although some time has passed this quilt was actually completed within 2 weeks which I think was pretty good as far as quilting projects go.

Through my sales on the New Zealand auction site, Trade Me, I am often surprised by the percentage of sales that go to the South Island of our country and in particular to Christchurch.

Since the earthquakes and the many, many after shocks the percentage of buyers from Christchurch (especially in the earthquake affected suburbs) remains high and I often wonder if people are seeking to do craft as an outlet to help them through difficult times.

One lady who buys from me from time to time, often buys pansy prints to use in the making of greeting cards for family of friends. I asked her at one time how she had fared during the earthquakes and she had suffered personal injury and was keen to get better so she could resume her craft interests.

I often think of her, especially when we hear of another round of earthquakes and so I decided to make this quilt for her. Linda and I got together and raided our stashes to make a bright and cheery quilt. I took a punt on her liking the pansy theme due to her purchases of pansy silk prints.

I did the machine piecing and Linda added her quilting magic to finish off the work. Linda has written about this project as well on her blog and there is an image of the whole quilt there.

I did not know it but purple and orange were two of the recipients favourite colours. She said that she had been going through a particularly difficult time and the quilt was a real boost to her morale.

February 22 is the 1st anniversary of the 2nd major quake but the trauma has been such she said the first six months were just a blur.

One can only imagine there must still be many more people in Christchurch who have ongoing needs for our encouragement.