Scraps and naughty acts with the good scissors

One of the local patchwork shops has a scrap basket. They sell the scraps for $1 a pop. Every time I go in there I have a bit of a forage around in the basket and usually manage to come away with something. So far I've came away with these. I think they are leftover from classes that they run at the shop and women leave them there rather than take them home. It kind of strikes me as odd that you would do that as a quilter - but each to their own. However I'm glad they do, and I wish I wish more patchwork shops would gerry onto this notion of having a scrap basket............ hmmmmmmmmmm.

The initial plan is to use some of these in Mum and Granma's quilt. I figure they are scraps from SOMEONE'S quilt, so it's kind of in keeping with what they intended. But looking at what I've got so far, I wonder if I could just make a quilt top out of the scraps.

Melbourne is trialling the 2am lockout at nightclubs over the next few months. The other half is suggesting that the patchwork shops instigate a similar approach with me. Well not exactly similar -he's just hoping they may lock me out permanently!!!!

It's a long weekend here and we had lunch with my niece and her family yesterday. My 9 year old great niece embarked on series of 'trivia questions' over lunch (or that's what she called it - interrogation would be a more apt term). The "TQ's" basically revolved around the behavioural traits of myself and my siblings (one of whom is her Grandad). Questions like "what was the worst thing you ever did?" " Who was the naughtiest in your family?" "What was the naughtiest thing Grandad ever did?" ** I may or may not have told her that Granpa had stolen a police car when he was young and nearly had to go to jail. Not true, but I saw an opportunity and went for it.
Where's this going? I hear you ask - Well, I struggled to come up with an appropriate response to the question 'what was the naughtiest thing you ever did?". When I say struggled, it's not for want of examples of naughty behaviour - Ha! there is an abundance of those. I just needed to exercise some editorial discretion given my audience was a 9 year old and mentally absorbent 4 year old.
I pondered this question on the way home and it wasn't long before I had my answer. My cousin came over last night and we went through a big box of old photo's and stuff that had come from my grandparents. And that's when I found these.


These were sent by my grandfather to my great Aunt Rae when he was serving in France during World War 1. They were some of mum's cherished posessions.

The one on the top is hand embroidered silk organza and it was a fabric post card intended to store little snap shots. It used to have a little embroidered sleeve on the top. That is, until some busy little fingers took to it with some scissors. The aim was to use the top sleeve as a hat for dolly.

The one underneath used to be attached (apparently) to a beautiful silk card. Hmmmm not sure what I'd intended for that, but I took to that with the scissors as well.

So, while it's not a hangable offence, I still have awful guilty cringey moments when I come across them. I know Mum wanted to 'crown' me when she'd discovered what I'd done to her postcards, but I guess that's the risk you run when you teach your little one's early how to use the good scissors!
I think I might put them out on view, maybe as a reminder of my heinous past and because they are still beautiful.