Friday 27 April 2012

The Beatles


Over the years – I’ve heard the theory that you’re either a Stones fan or a Beatles fan. I would have to say – the Beatles won my heart at a tender age.



One of my earliest childhood memories are of my Dad strumming the guitar and serenading me with ‘Eight days a week’. As I grew older and worked out how to use the record player – all the records my parents had collected in the years prior to children were tested out. 

Lucky for me there were a number of Beatles greats like Abbey Road and the White Album. In my early teens I took the limited edition A4 posters of the boys out of the White Album and blue tacked them to my bedroom wall (along with tear outs from Dolly magazine) – now all these years later, I have inherited the album but where o where are those posters! Deary me!

As an older teenager – a boyfriend I had, had perfected the art of singing and playing ‘Blackbird’ on his guitar and my love for those Beatle boys grew. It was only in later life that I learnt the true meaning of the lyrics to that song and that 'bird' is British slang for girl, making 'blackbird' a synonym for 'black girl’. Apparently McCartney was inspired to write it as a reaction to racial tensions escalating in the United States in the spring of 1968. There you go!

Over the years I have got to see lots of great musicians in concert – I only wish I could transport back in time to go to a Beatles concert (can you imagine all the screaming though!)….oh well, I’ll just have to console myself with singing along in the car and rocking out with the kids!

Monday 16 April 2012

Tea Towels


















I've been collecting souvenir tea towels for about 10 years now. I'm not sure what got me started...probably just the beautiful colours and images and the fact that there are just so many different ones out there!

I could always tell when an op shop had received somebodies collection as there would be a big stack all folded in the same way - straight out of the linen press. A collection gathered from here, there and everywhere on the holiday makers travels.

When I moved up to Ballarat just over a year a go now and I had to pack up my stash - the tea towel count was up around 400 - amazing really how it came to be that many...anyway as I packed them up and started to go through them I noticed that a part from my criteria of them being new and unused - there was a real assortment of designs - from stunning floral ones to kitsch animal ones and everything in between.

I'd had some ideas kicking around about some products I wanted to make with them under my Cast offs range but I new that I had collected more than I would ever use - so in the name of sharing the love I went through one by one and sorted out which ones I wanted to use for my new products, which ones I wanted to sell in the shop and which ones I would just hang on to and keep collecting for the moment (like calendar ones) when I had really decided what they were going to become (I think a quilt).

Today is a gloriously sunny day in downtown Ballarat and just the perfect day to haul out the next lot of gorgeous tea towels that are destined to become cushions. In order to get those super linen cupboard creases out I take them outside and swish them around in a big bucket of water - hang them on the giant clotheshorse I have and then whilst they are still damp, I iron them with the setting on linen. It seems to do the job pretty well and I don't  lose that stiff starchy quality that I like.

Stay tuned for the next batch of cushions - I know it's going to be hard to part with some of the tea towels especially the Australian native flora & fauna ones - they are my favourites. x

Thursday 5 April 2012

The Grand Easter Garage Sale

Finally - I have a chance to let you know about this fantastic sale that is happening on Easter Saturday - yep you heard right! This Saturday in the picturesque town of Daylesford...I am packing up shop and joining my friend Allison in having the biggest garage sale you have ever seen!

I have gone through the Crafty Squirrel shop, the shop store room, my office and sewing room, my studio and various other places I have stashed crafty bits and bobs away and have come up with the most amazing pile of vintage tea towels, aprons, table cloths, fabrics, sewing notions and of course lots of my very own Cast offs winter woollies like scarves, kilt pins, head bands and hats - samples and seconds. Plus lots of treasures from the shop at 50% off and lots of other cute stuff at great prices.

It feels so good to have such a big clean out and now I need your help to come and make it your own!
So...make a day of it and see me there! You won't be sorry - this is one sale you don't want to miss!!