A thank you, genealolgy and a quilt

Hello, how are you?  I would like to say a big thank you to Louise of Ramblings of a Roachling for sending me two books and the most beautiful card for my birthday.

I love the two books Louise selected for me. In this post Louise talks about reading "The Uninvited", a true story about a family living on a farm in Wales being visited by creatures/aliens not of this world.  I'm quite fascinated by the whole UFO thing and made a passing comment that I would like to read the book one day.  So Louise went to the trouble of tracking down a copy for me for which I'm most appreciative.  I read the book in one sitting and must say that parts of it were a little scary but compelling reading, for me anyway.  :)  The book about the interesting and at time weird exploits of some Brits is so much fun to read.  I love it when people can go out and do something difference and have a lot of fun.

And just how cute is this card?!!  You have the most beautiful cards in England.

 I've been kept very busy this past week continuing to delve into the intriguing world of genealogy.  I met two second cousins for the first time and it just happened to be the 60th birthday of one of them so I decided to have a little fun and bake her a cake.  Decorating this cake with silver ball things and butterflies was most interesting.  I ended up with silver balls all over the kitchen bench top and floor with very few on the cake and the butterflies wanted to fly away. 

I also made her a card from one of my sketches.  Very handy to have a stash of little sketches to make into cards.

I had a very nice visit with my new found cousins and was able to scan some old photos of family members, some of which I had never seen including my great grandmother Annie Ashby.  My granny is the baby and my great aunt standing.

About a month ago I discovered Annie's grave in an old part of a Melbourne cemetery posted about here.

Here is a photo of her grave, in the middle front of the photo without any markings.

It is a very special thing to have a photo of my great grandmother.

When I can tear myself away from my genealogy projects I have a quilt to complete.  Some months ago I put these squares together.

I found this cotton quilt on sale, it's a summer weight at a bargain price and had the bright idea to use this instead of the normal insert batting.

I need some advice from all the quilt making ladies out there.  The bought quilt is a Queen size and the squares I've sewn cover the top of a Queen size mattress so there is some extra fabric that needs to be joined to the edges to make wide enough.  Can I also have some suggestions as to what I could use for the backing fabric?  I was thinking maybe a quilting fabric but it would have to be joined down the centre to make it wide enough.  I'm also wondering what would be the best method of quilting the layers together? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read this long post.  I hope you are all having a wonderful day/evening.

Anne  xx

Letter writing and card set

While I was out and about yesterday I found this lovely letter writing and card set.  I don't write many letters these days as most of my correspondence is by email but as it was so pretty and inexpensive (only $7.00 in Kmart), I bought it.

It contained two sets of cards large and small with envelopes, two writing pads large and small, a memo note pad, pen and some pretty stickers.  Aren't they lovely!

While catching upon my blog reading list last night, I read a delightful post by Marigold Jam

about communication and the demise of the good old fashioned letter delivered to the mailbox.  After reading her post I was doubly glad I bought my pretty writing set and thought it would be nice to correspond with friends now and again by letter.  I must say I really enjoy receiving and sending Christmas cards in the mail, perhaps it's because you know someone has taken the time to hand write them that makes it so special.  Emailed Christmas cards aren't quite the same, you can't display them around the house adding to the Christmas cheer that's for sure.

 Think of all the times we send a card and imagine if it were an email, it just wouldn't be the same.  Get well soon, Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, Congratulations on the birth of your new baby, With Sympathy, Happy Fathers/Mothers Day (I have been guilty of sending one by email tch tch), Congratulations on your new job, new home, retirement, Bon Voyage etc.  

Letter writing almost use to be a ritual in the olden days.  Doesn't that sound funny, the olden days, relative to one's age I suppose.  Sorry, I digress.  I've been doing a little research into how the old fashioned quill pens

were made and thankfully only the flight feathers discarded during a bird's moult were used.  Apparently goose feathers were most commonly used, swan feathers being somewhat more expensive.  Then there is the use of  ink.  It use to be a very complicated process to make ink, something I'm sure we wouldn't have the patience with today.  Can you imagine how long it must have taken to write a letter?  First acquiring a quill from a quill maker or perhaps make one yourself, a skill that probably took quite a while to master and then the continual dipping of the pen in the ink.  Then there was the problem of the ink smudging  and the need for blotting paper and before that, the blotting sand to help overcome this problem.  If it was sand you were using, a little box would sit on the desk.  Goodness only what happened if it got knocked on the floor. And let's not forget way back, there was sealing wax.
It seems such a romantic thing to seal a letter, envelope or document.  Apparently the Romans used bitumen for this purpose before sealing wax was available or invented. 

Of course no writing experience would have been complete without a writing desk perhaps something like these below might have been used.  How lovely to have a special place for writing and storing writing essentials.

Source:  http://www.housetohome.co.uk/home-office/picture/vintage-style-home-office

Source:    http://blog.builddirect.com/9-back-to-school-inspired-home-decor-ideas/

This is an old writing set that belonged to my Great Grandmother and sits on my dressing table.

 The illustration on the front of the writing pad is quite gorgeous. 

In the photo below you can see a label that would have been wrapped around the envelopes and below that,  a sample of my Great Grandmother's writing.  The word is graciously and I'm wondering if she was writing it out to see if it was spelt correctly or was perhaps sending me a message.  :) My name does mean grace.

 
It's lovely to have a sample of her handwriting.  I suspect she would have used a fountain pen rather than a quill though.  Here is a photo of some of her used blotting paper.

My Great Grandmother use to be a parlour maid in a Manor House in England before she came to Australia, something I can't begin to imagine how different and difficult it must have been for her.  Whether or not the writing set was something she brought with her from England, I don't know.  I do know her hand writing is lovely though.

Hubby and I find that we don't hand write as well as we use to because we type mostly for communicating now.  Have you found your handwriting skills have diminished with the use of computers?

Have a wonderful day everyone.  I hope the sun is shining wherever you are.

Anne  xx

P.S. Mum, if you can shed any light on the details of Great Grandma's writing set, could you add a comment.  Thanks. :)

Colourful snail

Did you know that bright, colourful and glittery snails really do exist?  Well they do in my imagination.  When you have a birthday card to make for Miss G.'s friend and you know the friend loves snails, this is what happens.

I hope it brings a smile to the birthday girl's face, she could do with some light hearted nonsense in her life.

Anne  xx