Cartwheel Quilt

Another quilt that I made last year. The girls are screen-printed onto weird hexagon-dancing fabric I got in a Cheltenham op shop. It is machine stitched and hand quilted. The backing is a really crisp white cotton.
It is so hot in Melbourne at the moment, although I think today is meant to be about 30°C - cold compared to the last few days!
I love going to the beach every day- I am lapping it up while I can, as I have applied for about twenty-thousand jobs in the past week. In fact I had to step away from the computer for a second to organize a time for a job interview today.
I went swimming at the beach boxes the other day, and there was a fashion shoot on- for a Winter collection, evidently. I thought all of the clothes were so boring and sooo old news. They were sort of magenta and charcoal drapey knit fabrics with ugly nineties runners. It is so discouraging- the amount of boring designers that break through into the mainstream fashion world. I am very unimpressed with clothes in shops at the moment and it just makes me so happy to know that I can make my own clothes that are original and actually flattering to my figure. I shouldn't be so negative, because there really are some incredible designers and street fashion movements happening. I would LOVE to start a street style blog- maybe even turn this little blog into a part-time one.
I am proud that I have been writing so often- I am such a natural piker that I seem to flake away from everything- even things that are self-made and fun!

St. Flora

This is a quilt I made last year. I built it around an embroidery that I had done the year before that, gosh- 2006! I sewed the entire thing by hand. The backing is a beautiful pink silk. It was so wonderful to watch it grow so slowly. I felt just like a pioneer in America, trapped by snow in a tiny one room cottage in New England.
St. Flora is my favourite saint- not that I am religious. Although I did attend a small Catholic girls school from the age of twelve to sixteen. In year eight we had to do this project on saints, I remember my friend Molly took Saint Elmo because he was the patron saint of stomach ulcers or something obscure like that.
But Saint Flora was really amazing. She lived in 14th century France. Basically she rebelled against her parents and refused to be married. At the age of fifteen, she entered the Priory of Beaulieu of the Hospitaller nuns of St. John of Jerusalem and was bullied by all of the sisters in the convent. She fell into a depression and began to have mystical and out-of-body experiences.
On the Feast of All saints, she fell into an ecstasy and fasted for three weeks- taking no nourishment until the feast of St. Cecilia.
The best mysticism that she experienced was rising four feet from the ground while meditating on the Holy Spirit and bleeding freely from the mouth and stigmata on her wrists and feet while all of the bully nuns watched enviously (think Sissy Spacek in Carrie).
She was also prophetic, sometimes having visions of major events that were still to occur. She died in 1347 and many miracles were worked at the site of her tomb.
I also really loved this other saint for a while- I can't remember her name- she was detained by authorities who believed her to be practicing witchcraft and during her imprisonment, she bit through the veins in her wrists and bled to death. There was another "witch" in the cell who wrote down what she said as she was dying. It was this amazing disjointed poetry- with visions of Satan and "blooming beastie beards" that was the best line that I remember clearly.
Most saints were people living on the borders of society, most of them were probably mentally ill, and experiencing a sort of distortion of the world that many people could never imagine. Without explanation for the way these people lived and interacted with others (if they did at all), they were revered and seen as having special divine powers. I think there is such a contrast in the way that people with severe mental illness are treated in society today, and to the way that they were treated in the years before psychological studies were advanced universally. I think that in a way, the sheer amount of reverence shown to people living alternatively like Saint Flora, is probably lost to us forever due to modern skepticism.

Bon Anniversaire! (trés tard)

So I am an absent blogger most of the time, and and I only just realised that I forgot to say "Happy Birthday little blog!"
But as I always say, better late than never and I have a really nice birthday card...





This is the Front Cover for the New Ships Piano album. It is an embroidery- the dress is made up of more chain stitch than you can wave an ironing board at... and as nobody reads this thing anyway, I will keep it in this clean, quiet corner of cyberspace for a while.

love Ruby

Tougher than a 65 cent steak

Right now, I am sitting in a salmon housecoat with a chandelier crystal hanging from a ribbon on my neck, and my hair is wrapped in a silk magenta turban. And heavy sheets of rain are falling on the road outside, making the cars swoosh. Oh domestic bliss!
I am so ecstatic about school being over, and the fact that jobs are falling from the sky like shiny red apples. I just finished making a belly dancing costume and up until christmas I am making dresses all of my baby cousins.
Also, I am doing the artwork for the new Ships Piano album.
This summer I have been to Torquay, Fairhaven, Meredith Music Festival (!) and I just got back from a short stint in a little suburb called Hartwell where I was house-sitting. This place was so green and leafy, I couldn't believe it. The people of Hartwell are solely fueling the drought in Australia.
Agh! I'm waiting for this bloody image to upload, but if it won't by the time I finish typing this post, I'll just throw a tantrum. Well at least I'm dressed for it.
Because all of my friends are going to uni next year and getting full-time jobs, I think I might just run away to a place where I can "plant potatoes and dream" as Moominpapa so fittingly put it.
Maybe I could sell salmon housecoats and become a billionaire next year!
Until then, I'll have the tantrum I promised you all because this picture isn't going anywhere.

Flora's First Smock

This is a dress that I began to make a very long time ago. It is for my art theme 'The link between folklore and imagination and the manifestation in children and their possessions'. I hand-sewed (as in without a machine) nearly all of it except for the boring old straight-seams! It took AGES but was definitely worth it. I think it would be a little too small for a Real-Life baby, but maybe I'll make a doll to fit.



xxx Pinky Pink Ruby xxx

holidays!

This is what Milly Molly Mandy would look like if she had ever met a snail.
&hearts RUBY

Yelling at Snails

baby bunting

This is me, baking as usual at our old house in Richmond. Check out the fancy moccasins and crumply jarmies. I can assure you dear reader, nothing has changed.
The painting in the background is an early one, by my dad. It is still "hanging" around. hahaha... ah
In fact, this photograph represents me so well that I have sent it in to be part of the next Meet Me At Mike's shop window display.
Now that I look at the clock, it appears that I have spent my entire day doing nothing. Oh no! Oh dear! Oh mercy! Oh Snail!

Brightest Flamingo Face

Inspired by Meet Me At Mike's post about a certain somebody, I decided to make my own.
This is Molly, of whom I am very proud, wearing a shining blue ballgown that was found in a secret place. It is her seventeenth birthday present.
Somebody has hand-worked this dress, probably for their daughter to wear to a dance... but not a hop. It fits Molly like a glove, and right now it is hanging in my wardrobe because it is too precious to be transported by train. We are waiting for my Dad to drive us around in his rusty pink wagon.
&hearts

blowing bubbles...

Hallo old chums! I've been a long time, but I won't apologise. If I write things when I don't want to, they are not usually worth reading! So there you have it!
Today I woke up at 5:30 am- by accident of course! I wanted to go to the Camberwell market, so I made sure I was out of the house by 7:30. But I didn't realise that it was the end of daylight savings, so I was an hour ahead. I wandered down the deserted station ramp and lucky me! The very first tram of the day rolled by me! I got on the tram, hoping to kill 45 minutes or so. It was surprisingly full- I guess a lot of people hadn't been home. I listened to my brother's band The Ships Piano all the way along St Kilda Rd.
Then I wandered around the city- it was cold and only beginning to become light. I walked toward Flinders Street Station and suddenly I heard "RUBYYY!!!" -I looked up, only to see my good friend Tessa! She had been out all night and was waiting for the trains to start up again. By the time I got to Camberwell, it was around 8 o'clock. I began scavenging straight away.
I bought some swap cards- my Dad and I have begun to collect them after a lucky find in Burwood. The two above, I plucked out hungrily after seeing pages and pages of bronzed nineties footballers grinning out from their plastic sleeves.
And then I found the gilded bird (below) inside a really expensive tin that I was going to buy- until I found out how much it cost. I think my disappointment must have been obvious, for the woman gave me the card as a condolence.



And! These fantastic little things! Oh they are such fun to play with! I found this game- "Tops And Tails" perched on a card table, shining in the sun. The only thing is, that there is only ONE piece missing in the whole set. Which really gets me. Nevertheless, they are really a good lot of fun!



This is a tin that I had previously had the lid to, but not the bottom. I found the lid a few years ago at Hard Rubbish, and I always wanted to know what the bottom looked like. When I saw it on the table, I just flipped! I must say, it lives up to its expectations. There are pictures of labeled wildflowers around the sides, and when you turn it, there is a map of all the different kinds of sweet-things that had been packed away in the tin.

Fate had brought me to this golden strawberry apron, for I did not find it at the market! My train home was not coming for 38 minutes- so I decided to walk all the way home from South Yarra (about an hour away). The opp shop was open, and I figured that I should go in for a little look. I found this little gem after a while- I was about to give up. It cost six dollars- the exact amount in my purse and for good measure, my LUCKY number.



I also got some other very good and bloggable items, but I'm sure that I can spread them over this week. Which happily is the last week of school before Autumn/Spring break.
Stay Snailey
Lots and Lots of Love From Ruby

Oh Hamburg!

Well guess what? This is what my dear friend Ricky Ray Ricardo sees every time he opens his bedroom curtains. He is in Germany on exchange and from what I hear, having a terrific time of it! I am so envious of that brilliant ice and snow- think of the layers upon layers of woolies! Speaking of wild and wooly weather, it has been rather nice recently here. Which is exactly my problem. I want rain and fog! I want cardigans and scarves! It IS Autumn after all, it's not too much to ask... but the sun continues to split through the clouds and dance around, gaily. P.S I don't really mean it- I'm just in need of some chilliness.
I have been rejuvenating my 'cyclops' brand children's pram and hopefully should be finished by tomorrow afternoon. I will show some pictures soon!
And just-then my Father walked through the door bearing gifties! Oh he brought me the most marvelous box of swap cards that I have ever seen and now I will go up to my room, which isn't tidy and gaze for a few minutes before nodding off. I don't fancy going into the kitchen to fetch the camera, because there is a sinister-looking spider pressed against the wall, and when I go for a glass of milk I am reminded of her (or him).
Goodnight Sillies!
xxlovexxrubyxx

hullo there!

It seems that I have a new new brand new friend! Her name is Wandering Wendy, because she follows me around! I really wished that I had found one of the longed for Betsy Wetsy Dolls of my mother's childhood (her baby sister had one, but she didn't) but I love Wendy AND her poly-plastic blend frock.

Here she is, perched on some bricks in my garden. I will have a splendid time making her lots of new dresses!
Molly and I had gone on an expedition to Nunawading and decided to drop in at Heather Shimmen's hometown on the way. It looked as though fate had spouted a golden stream of niceties down upon us on our routine-second-visit to the epilepsy opp shop in Blackburn. I found a wonderful bouquet of dolls dresses from mid-century Australian Suburbia and some little postcards from Geraldton. 1944.

But then! Molly and I had a little cherry tart from 'Bonjour Du Paris" *ahem* that's Hello Some Paris. And we waltzed past the opp shop window once more for good luck, and who was staring with candy-eyed intent? One Wandering Wendy!
I knew that she was something that I needed and to deny her to myself would be a form of self-harm.
And that's how she was welcomed into my family.
stay sweet!
lovefromrubymay