Bohemian Purple Rhapsody

A lovely welcome to all you lovely lovelies♥ I was revisiting some of my posts this past week and found that I had never really chatted about a hexagon quilt which I designed and fashioned about ten years ago. Oh, this quilt has popped up in a few of my posts through the years and is pinned on Pinterest by someone every other day, but it has never been showcased up close and personal. It never has been the subject of it's own post and I think perhaps is worthy of being prattled on about (just a little) and enjoy a little showtime. =) "Which quilt??" I hear you ask. Why, it is my lusciously scrumptious, purple hexie quilt, which I named 'Bohemian Purple Rhapsody' many, many moons ago.

When we first landed in Tassie and settled into our humble abode, a local cafe owner visited us in our home; looked around the 'parlour' whilst she was sipping tea in a pretty teacup and asked me if I would like to set up a little shop in a room of her cafe, with the idea of flogging my pretties to the unsuspecting public. I thought why not, as I am always up for new adventures. So setting up my 'Sarah Lizzies Handmade' little shop, I did. Tourists from all over the globe crossed the threshold of my little room. Ladies that is, as their partners took one look at all the pretties and fled for their lives, perhaps fearing they would get entangled in all things textile. It is amazing how the look of fear comes into a man's eyes when he sees a room burgeoning with lace and fabric pretties. They truly do run for their lives! Many ladies purchased any number of my 'wares' to take home with them......to many, many countries. I sold many handmade pretties; quilts, cushions, bags, dolls; whatever my muddly brain could conjure up. There was a lady who was a companion to a famous British actress of the stage who bought one of my little embellished, lavender hearts as a gift to this unnamed thespian. Apparently my little pretty hangs alongside coutured gowns, in a three story Victorian home sitting along the Thames. Whom....I don't really know as the older thespian's companion wouldn't divulge her name. The thought that others liked my pretties enough to take them home with them is always  humbling to me.

 As I sat each day in my little shop I was always working on some pretty or other. It is amazing the conversations I enjoyed with people as I stitched. I cannot tell you how many times ladies opened up their hearts and more often than not I would ask them if they would like a coffee. Over a cappuccino, stories spilled out of their mothers, aunts.....grandmothers who sewed, who loved lace, who collected buttons and so on. Why, some of the ladies would go home and post me their great grandmother's embroidery and lace collections, just because they knew I would fashion something from their exquisite pretties; I would give these treasures another life. Indeed, I look back at that period in my life as a wonderful experience. My little shop's existence lasted for a couple of years but then an opportunity arose for me to teach children the delights of all things stitching, so a new fun-filled door opened.

But about Bohemian Purple Rhapsody?? I started this quilt with the notion of using up my stash of vintage fabrics and many of the gorgeous french laces; my dowry of cloth that I had collected over the years. Five years previously I had designed a QAYG pastel hexie quilt brimming with vintage embroideries and laces and other such pretties. To my knowledge a QAYG hexie where each hexie danced with embroidered linens, lace and oodles of embellishments had never been imagined before. Indeed there are a lot of these hexie quilts in cyberspace these days but when I designed this type of quilt there was nothing of this ilke around. Why, a lady whose name is Rhonda Dort discovered my pastel pretty on Pinterest and  it sparked her imagination to create her amazing quilt which apparently took 2nd prize at the Houston Quilt Show. To this day every time I go into my blog my pastel pretty has been pinned. It always amazes me how people find a pretty that one has fashioned; inspiring them to perhaps make a similar quilt. 'Tis such a pity I didn't write THAT book all those years ago prattling on about my  QAYG embellished hexie pretties.......I could have perhaps retired.....that is of course if anyone bought the book. =)

BUT.....I digress......again. My 'little' quilt was imagined with the thought of  a rainbow of jewel-like fabrics all swirling and twirling around in an exotic, colourful, gypsy dance, falling wherever they will. I wanted to design and fashion a bohemian rhapsodic quilt. Every fabric is vintage....silks, velvets, flock velvets, Italian coverlets, Indian silk beaded saris, satins....all sumptuous and gorgeous. Then to spice it up even more, every lace was to be even more colourful and even more exotic. I tell you, I have a serious stash of exquisite French laces which I happened upon quite by accident, and for a proverbial song! The acquisition of these glorious laces is perhaps a story for another day.

I wanted this quilt to effuse enthusiasm and ecstatic expression of a bohemian aesthetic. Also, I wanted this quilt to be unconventional, breaking all the 'so-called' quilting rules of colour and design. I really didn't give a hoot about what goes with what or indeed what doesn't. I just wanted to splash colour onto colour; with the need to play. I wanted to pay homage to those crazy patchwork quilts of yesteryear, but with a modern twist. I wanted a lush, sumptuous quilt of blues, pinks, purples, browns, greens, reds, lavenders...even a touch of tangerines and burnished oranges. Bohemian Purple Rhapsody took me eight months of six hour days to stitch. Each stitch lovingly and slowly hand stitched. As I sat and stitched in my little shop, or on the verandah of the cafe, many people saw the gradual unfolding of my bohemian pretty.

I wanted ruched flowers, ribbon roses,  butterflies, trailing vines with pretty ribbon leaves, gloves, baskets and jardinierres overspilling with ribbon floral delight, beads, jewels, buttons, buckles, french laces kissing the border of each hexie. A scrumptious quilt embellished to an inch of it's life was what I desired. I just wanted more, more, more; because, well...........I am an over-the-top, more is never enough, kinda gal.

I look upon those days when I stitched in my little shop, with visitors all around the world entering my colourful and handmade little world and smile at those memories. I smile at the conversations we shared. I smile at how in a very small way I brought a little whimsy and perhaps sprinkled a touch of beauty to another's day. I smile when I think that something I imagined.......then fashioned, is in another's home in some other part of the world. I wonder if they remember that lady who was entangled in a muddly, colourful textile, lacey web. I hope so.

Until the next time...................

Linking up to Kathy's Slow Sunday Stitching.

Home is where our story begins

Imagine, if you will, heading off to work, just like any other day, and later that morning receiving news that a sea of fire had swept up a gully,  devouring everything in it's raging path, including your home and everything that you possessed. To me such a catastrophe is unimaginable, incomprehensible; but late last year a very dear friend and her family lost everything except the clothes they were wearing that day, as a result of a ravaging bushfire.

My friend and her husband designed and built their beautiful home  themselves. As a family, so much blood, sweat and tears....so much love and extraordinary amounts of time had been expended into the building and making of their home. I cannot begin to fathom the magnitude of  loss, the grief that they are experiencing.

Our homes are a place where we pen our family's narrative. A story, where page after page, depicts our family life, the toing and froing of daily life, the emotions, the love, the romance, the sadnesses, the arguments, the happy times, the ridiculous times, the quiet times, the celebratory times, all the wonderful memories. It is a story punctuated with illustrated pages of gloriously coloured pictures of personal collections that are assembled throughout each room; the letter that you wrote when you were ten, to your much-loved father who has passed on; the tchotchkes that each child has made and given you with so much child-like love on those special occasions.....Mother's Day, birthdays, Christmas. The presents that friends and family have made you; the funny sentimental things that your children have kept, bringing to mind special childhood memories of the holidays at the beach or the camping trips. The photos of your children, your mum and dad, your wedding; the special jewellery that once belonged to your grandmother, the precious and irreplaceable childish stories and drawings that each child wrote before they learnt 'proper grammar'; the list is endless. These are the things that are irreplaceable, that cannot be brought back. The turning of the pages goes on and on and on, telling the story of the home as a sanctuary from the rigors of the day, the haven where we go, to just breathe and find solace and rest, surrounded by the things, the million and one things, that maketh our homes, home. Our homes are the essence of us, they are in a sense who we are. Our homes are the 'magnum opus' of our family life.

A couple of years ago, before we moved to Tassie, I made a special quilt for my friend's 50th birthday. My friend loves country decor with a li'l bit of lace, a li'l bit of this and a li'l bit of that; so I fashioned a quilt that celebrated the special friendship that we shared. Of course this quilt is no more, it has gone up in smoke, so I thought that, I would stitch her another quilt  that perhaps would cheer her up just a little.

My friend's 50th birthday quilt, that is no more.

The new quilt is similar but different. It is fashioned from similar fabrics and bits and bobs.....lovely Italian vintage coverlets, damasks, satins, doilies, Swiss and French laces, buttons, swirls and swirls of ruched ribbons, the odd piece of vintage jewellery et cetera.

 This quilt does not lend itself to quilting. All the laces, ribbons, embellishments et cetera on the quilt, are stitched with tiny, invisible stitches through the top layers through to the batting without being visible at the back. To anchor the backing fabric to the batting, I have stitched doilies through to the batting and hand quilted stems and leaves to give the appearance of flowers randomly interspersed all over the back. So in essence, this quilt can be displayed either side. It is a quilt that could be displayed on a bed or perhaps as a throw on a chair.

Since that fateful day I often think of my friend and wonder how she is getting on each day and coping with the magnitude of what has happened and coming to terms with enormity of losing her home. She is a sentimental gal and loved her home. She must yearn to go back home. Her's and her family's life has been thrown into a hellish nightmare from which there is no waking up to the relief that it was all just a bad dream. No, for my friend the reality is trying to each day begin to put some semblance of order back into her family's life and try to make a fresh start. My friend and her family have received the most amazing and overwhelming community support, both from friends and to a large degree, people whom they have never met before. They will rebuild a lovely home and begin to make new memories......but the very thought of rebuilding must be an overwhelming burden and difficult to get one's head around. My friend is a lovely christian gal who has a deep, deep faith in God. I know without a doubt that His closeness in these awful days is precious to her. He and she have walked many a difficult path together. I have no doubt that my friend and her story will be an immense blessing to those whom she meets each day and shares her story.

I hope that my wee li'l gift, somehow in a very, very small way, will perhaps be a teeny, tiny paragraph, underscored with much love, in the re-writing of my friend's story; the story of her new home. I hope that my wee gift will help my friend  take a few lighter steps down that impossible path that she finds herself walking along.

I know my friend will rewrite a beautiful story. My friend will slowly begin to write many new chapters. Chapters filled with fresh hope, strength, faith, love, beauty, fun...and yes, even laughter. She will pen her story with many, many wonderful words, insightful words, words of understanding, words of compassion; and, she will begin to illustrate her story, collating the most glorious, coloured pictures, that only she, with her own inimitable style and grace, can do❣