EmilyKate

first recesky tlr pictures

2012-01-28T18:08:00.001+11:00

I thought that just because I love putting together flatpack furniture, can (usually) decipher Burda magazine sewing pattern instructions and have already made the Recesky 3D camera, putting together the Recesky TLR would be quick and easy. It ended up being quite frustrating, took ages and gave me a surprisingly bad blister on my middle finger plus a bruised thumb. But its all good now and I would be keen to make another.

From a roll of twenty-four exposure film I ended up with only seventeen printable pics, and there's only really two that I like, where the blurtastic effect sort of works So. for now I've no tips on using it. I am just getting a feel for how it works. If you think you might like to make one I have outlined some things that are good to know before you start constructing it after the jump. It's not intended to be an exhaustive list of potential problems; I think making this camera will frustrate every individual in a unique way.

· If your plastic viewfinder supplied in the box is clear, you got stooged. If you use it you'll look down through the viewfinder and just see a round little reflection of the lens, and this image is no help for finding focus. If you replace the clear plastic with a piece of frosted translucent plastic stanley-knifed into the same shape, you will get a larger, rectangular image projected at you. What a fascinating discovery this was to a person with no knowledge of optics. I used some unshrunk shrinkydink plastic. If you're not the kind of person who keeps shrinkydink plastic on-hand (frankly, I'm never without it) then the easiest solution is to raid the stationery cupboard at work and grab a large Post-It flag; stick the frosted sticky end over the clear plastic, trim the edges and put in place. I found the solution to the problem in this flickr discussion.

· The lenses should both end up with the bulging part facing out. It's obvious when you think about it and if you've ever looked at any camera lens in the world, but the instructions explain it very poorly and the illustration of the lenses make them look like they bulge front and back. The (top) viewfinder lens has a tendency to pop out out of place and back into the body of the camera and you can't take any more photos till you've got it back in the right spot. You could use a little glue after you are CERTAIN you have got the lens facing the right way.

· I found the shutter assembly very difficult, the written instructions make no sense and the illustration is nearly useless. Can't blame them, I couldn’t tell you now how I did it, I'd have to show you. It's unlanguageable. When it was properly assembled I STILL thought it was wrong when I tested it because the shutter didn’t seem to be opening and I lost time phoning my sister to bitch about crappy twelve-dollar self-assembly cameras with dodgy parts. It WAS in fact opening properly, it was just (duh) too quick for my eyes to see. I went into a darkened room and held it up toward the light of the doorway, pulled the shutter trigger and saw the teeny little flash of light coming through and then knew it was working properly, like in this youtube video.

· Do your assembly on a pillowcase. Then when you drop screws and springs they will plop there instead of skittering off the table and disappearing between floorboards.

· Shut the cat and your fella in another room so you don't scare them.

· It'll take FAR longer than it says it will on the box, and there's NO WAY you are going to finish it by the time dinner's ready so do it after and then you won't have to move everything off the table.

· It's likely you will be supplied with too few screws… or you'll lose some. No screws at the hardware store will be tiny enough. BEFORE you start building the camera take the screws with you to a model-building shop and say can I buy ten of each of these please. If you don't end up needing them you can maybe use them to fix your sunglasses later down the track. But SUNGLASSES screws will NOT work for making the camera.

· Calm down, you will figure it out and anyway its not that important.

· The blue version is cuter and only four dollars more.

not so easy

2012-01-27T17:43:00.000+11:00

McCalls M6241

Do you like my new fitted tee shirt? Never mind that its made from a pattern for a floppy draped tunic.

Floppy swathes of draped knit fabric generally do a curvy, five-foot-two-inch girl no favours. But I thought I could finesse this pattern into something that was drapey in the right places and fitted in others, an optical illusion that would make me look svelte and lanky. I'd sort of achieved it, by running it in at the side seams in stages. I had it looking quite good, there was looseness around the upper arms and bust that made it easyfitting and slouchy, with the waist coming in a bit more but still loose. But then I washed it. And it shrunk up heaps. So now I have a perfectly ordinary long sleeve fitted tee very much like others I already own. Oh well, could have been worse, could have been a wadder!

Unrelated: this week I joined a circus. Well, a circus-skills-training class. I want to learn how to do those Cirque de Soleil aerial tricks. Its going to be a very long time before I am able to do anything even mildly impressive but I am super excited about it.

Ta-da! TheRecesky 3D pinhole film camera, made by me!

2012-01-15T15:09:00.001+11:00

Well, assembled by me! Quite easy and fun. It took about an hour and a half but I reckon if I had another one I could make it in twenty minutes. Gotta find film for it now! It just takes ordinary 35mm film but the supermarkets and pharmacies stopped selling it while I wasn't looking. I'm sure I'll be able to pick some up in the city tomorrow. I can't wait to start taking film photographs! In 3D!!!

making my own camera

2012-01-14T17:34:00.001+11:00

DIY-not? I've been intrigued by 3D stereograms and pinhole photography lately so when I was faffing around on ebay and found a 3D camera in kit form, I Bought-It-Now. Nineteen dollars delivered. I'm making it now and its fun! The instructions are in Chinese but a quick google also turned up this tutorial in English.

I'll have it finished by tomorrow and will share pictures.

2012s gotta dos

2012-01-04T20:00:00.001+11:00

How can anyone do resolutions?! The first week of January is always gone before you even realise its here. This year began with alpacas and a screaming red hangover among my best friends, and was NO time to be making plans to better myself.

I can, however, identify some stuff that is gonna get done cos it has gotta get done.

Number 1: I am going to be an aunt. Frankly, even if nothing else of any interest comes to pass this year, it is going to be the best ever, thanks to my little sis and her fella. It is, obviously, the talk of the fam and in the first week after the parents-to-be announced it Dad and I had a series of conversations that consisted of us both just babbling, "There's gonna be a bub bub bub bub bub bub bubBEH!!"

There is to be lots of maternity and baby-related sewing, starting with this completely awesome maternity romper and bathing suit. We spent our New Years alpaca farm holiday feeding my tiny sister up because we are really excited for her to start having a proper preggybelly shape. She had a teeeeeeny little belly to begin with and we think she did get bigger from the four days of feeding.

Number 2: Gotta get healthier, because I have a permanent foodbaby these days. Have started a tumblr blog to upload iPhone photos of everything I eat. This is supposed to give you pause before eating something unhealthy, or at least make you remember and savour what you have eaten, and be more satisfied by it. I am the sort of person who finds my jeans are inexplicably snug even though I hardly eat anything junky. I'm also the sort of person who finds Reese's Peanut Butter Cup pans in all the pockets of my clothes before I put them in the wash. Oooooh yeaaah, thooooooose. No I will not link to my tumblr because I'm embarrassed to have one plus noone wants to see anyone's tumblr unless there are Ryan Gosling pics on it.

Number 3: Gotta dress cuter. Despite loving to sew I am a terrible dresser. My workplace's wardrobe policy is so laissez-faire as to be negligent, and I have just given up. I have worn two versions of the exact same skirt Monday-thru-Friday for many, many months (Friday is jeans!) Simon's face has lit up in a heartbreaking way on the few occasions I've made a modicum of effort. And I do feel better when I dress cute. Can't keep this no-effort approach going, or I think I will slide into a miasma of despair.

Number 4: Sew more with simple patterns. Part of the reason I am sliding toward the miasma is I've got it in my head that I should make all the stuff I wear. But I seem to have trouble completing sewing projects. Because I choose things that I can't complete within just a couple of sewing sessions. I am going to Keep It Simple, Stupid and buy lovely fabrics and make them up with cute but dead-easy patterns. First up, some summer tees.

Number 5. Do yoga. This one really isn't even a choice. I started doing yoga, because I am a huncher, and I want to have graceful upright carriage and not keep getting told by people that I should stop hunching. And it works. If I keep up the yoga I stop hunching and people lay off. But that in itself is not reason enough for someone as congenitally lazy as me to keep it up. The reason I can't stop is that even though I had no back complaints or pains or stiffness before I started, now my back starts aching, and twisting and stretching involuntarily if I go longer than two days between classes. How insidious. My challenge will be to find the time for all this yoga my body now seems to think its entitled to.

I hope you all had a great New Years, and that if you've got anything you've gotta do, you are off to a good start in getting it done.

collective delusion

2011-12-09T14:57:00.001+11:00

I had the day off from work today, so I ambled across the neighbourhood to visit my friend Bec, her husband Josh, and their l'il baby Gus.

As we adults all sat burning under the backyard sun, Josh mentioned he'd seen a telephone pylon near the university that had knitting wrapped around it. Yes, Yarnbombing reached the apogee of its urban cultural moment about five years ago. The Craftivists have since moved onto other Statements. I was cheered to think that rather than petering out altogether, the practice has moved out to us here in South Caulfield.

"That's completely great," I said. "How cool would it be if South Caulfield became Melbourne's next vibrant street art scene, a rival for your Northcotes, your Fitzroys." Bec and Josh laughed; a reasonable response. There's not even really graffiti round here, nor can I recall having spotted any stencils. Hey, not hatin', we love the place, it's just not very... happening. Notwithstanding the historical record pointing us to the tendency for areas surrounding universities to foment countercultural movements, if I were asked to describe the zeitgeist here in 3162, I would NOT say, "It's artistically fecund." Not much in the way of Contemporary Visual Culture. And yet-

"That's it." I stood- too quickly, and had to wait for my vision to fade back in before continuing, "We're forming an Arts Collective, now. Go get sticks, and wool." Perhaps worn down from nine weeks of tending to brand-new-baby Gussie and the incredible heat, they complied.

I showed them how to make these... thingies... which I learned how to do at the summer day camps of my Canadian childhood and hadn't ever thought about again until today's flash of inspiration (brought on by mild sunstroke?)

"We're going to make heaps of them, and then tie them to trees in the neighbourhood," I instructed.

We made two. Josh said he was fine to just watch, and the rest of the Collective really respected that, we understand that sometimes some of us really need to go into that liminal, dormant space and let the ideas percolate. He said he'd hang them on the trees for us.

Well, I ended up being the one to hang them, on my way home. The rest of the Collective needed to nap. I thought I'd better not put them in trees on nature strips in front of people's houses because the homeowners might not like that. I know Art is all about provoking people but it was just too HOT for confrontation this afternoon! So I climbed this paperbark opposite the park, pulling a hamstring in the process (still so sore) and tied them on.

You can hardly see them. I didn't want to put them too far out on branches over the road in case they fell on someone's car or distracted drivers. And, because we used brown, green, red and pink-yarn-that-looks-white-from a distance, anyone who spots them will mistake them for Christmas ornaments instead of Statements. But that's cool. It may take our Artistic Collective awhile to really get moving, develop our ideas and philosophy, but I feel we've made a very strong start.

instant fun, indecently easy

2011-11-15T20:49:00.008+11:00

I am so not Miss App Technology Girl but the best. thing. ever. has found me. I think you already know about it of course, it is Instagram, where you take all the naff pictures that are in your iphone and turn them into beautiful arty amazing pictures instead, in under ten seconds. And then you can send them instantly to flickr, or facebook or followgram or all, in two seconds.

I need to know if you are on followgram so I can follow you. I want to see your pics. If you don't have the app you should get it- for free!- and you will never be bored on public transport again.

Everything around me is transformed. I can't stop taking pictures and trying out what the world looks like with all the different filters. Rose-coloured glasses have nothing on this!

Beauty should not be so and quick and easy to obtain I am sure... it has to be bad for us.

Saw this little guy on my way to work

You can make things look mini!

You can make things look lurid (well this scenario pretty much already was)

I am loving making huge monuments look tiny!

There are no effects in use here my legs really are that white.

These are the perfect penny loafers for a girl 5'2"

Sir Weary Dunlop

Simon in the sunlight... aaaaaaah!

Do join up and let me know so I can check out your pics, oh, this will be great fun :o)

at the beach, we don't mind Mondays

2011-11-14T20:43:00.003+11:00

We live so close to the beach, and how often do you think we go for walks along it? Shamefully seldom. So from now on we're decided we're going to do it every Monday to perk us up for the week, breathe the cleansing air and have a chat.

It'll be awhile before it warms up so we feel like getting in the water... actually, if you get in the water at St Kilda Beach I think you may be taking your life in your hands. I didn't take any pictures of it, but in lots of places at the shoreline where the waves break, the foam didn't pop! it stayed there in huge drifts of puffy grey suds! Yeesh.

When I saw this guy kitsesurfing I said offhand, like you do, I want to try that, and Simon said you should! and I thought oh yeah but not really but then well... actually why NOT? You should try anything once, right? So I think I'll look into it, maybe further down around the bay, away from the suds, at Blackrock.

Sweet uncanny Valley

2011-11-11T21:27:00.015+11:00

Went on a lovely mini-break last weekend at Latschky's holiday house, Rancho Relaxo. I dropped into a couple of the local oppys to see if they had any old Sweet Valley Highs (I'm re-collecting them so that I can pass them onto any future daughter/niece I might have- their Reaganistic values and appalling reverence for size-six blondes must not be lost to the next generation) and was lucky enough to find these three.

Once I got them home to the Ranch, Latschky fell upon The New Jessica as I melted into a tasteful leather lounger and immediately succumbed to an afternoon nap. I was awoken eighteen minutes later by a 136-page paperback to the gob and Latschky bellowing "Frak that was boring! (or did I mishear..?) Gimme the other ones!"

Whereupon we discovered Tarnished Victory was not of Pascal's ghostwritten oevre... a flip to the frontispiece revealed that the impostor imprint had been so seditious as to poach James Mathewuse for the cover art! We felt a slightly sickening yet exhilarating lurch as the poles of our planet shifted (though... it could have just been the aftershocks of the bottle of rosé we'd knocked over at lunch?) Could it be possible that there was an alternate-universe bizzarro-Sweet Valley? We began to imagine the equal-and-opposite fictive scenario necessary to keep the space-time continuum in equilibrium. Despite her childhood devotion to the series and knowledge of the Blonde Ones' progenitor's Semitic roots, Latschky, also of the blood pure, had always been disquieted by the pervasively Aryan overtones that surrounds the Wakefield clones.

We began to speculate on the possible adventures of Rachel and Ruthie, silkily brunette, identical size-six (but zaftig-with-it!) twin beauties in possession of matching gold Stars of David (gifts from their Savta on the occasion of their sixteenth birthday), who share ownership of a powder-blue MINI Cooper- but that's where the similarity ends! Rach spends her weekends cruising Miu Miu at Chadstone and ably juggling the affections of compelling badboys Jacob Schwartz and Josh Feingold. Meanwhile Ruthie's bent over schoolbooks with longtime main-mensch Abram Presser. Ruthie's a future Juris Doctor or MD, she can't decide- and with her marks the choice will be hers! Yet, in spite their differences, there is one thing both girls can always be relied on to show up for- Friday-night dinner!

Alas, turning the dried pages of Tarnished Victory revealed the little town of 'Laurel Heights' to be full of Arlenes and Lindas, Johns and Brians just as vapid and goyish as their California counterparts. But we're going to call Random House. This pair of Elizabeths has one hell of a pitch!

tissue-tizzied bulletin board

2011-11-07T18:24:00.003+11:00

So, the other day, the hairdryer hood wasn't the only thing I found. Somebody tossed this cork bulletin board too. The surface had some discoloration so to disguise that and make the whole thing a bit more interesting, I decided to tizzy it up with layer of decoupaged tissue paper.

About as low-key a craft as you can get, it takes about five minutes to coat the cork with decou-podge and then smooth out the tissue paper on top with more decou-podge. The longest part of the process is waiting for it to dry. I like the tailoring motif but I think it would be really cute to do this project with a floral or leaf-patterned tissue.

retro roadside rescue reveals roller recalcitrance

2011-11-01T17:30:00.004+11:00

I've always wanted one of these hairdryer hoods. A few years ago I found one for fifteen dollars in an opshop and gleefully took it to the counter and paid... then the salesgirl suggested we turn it on to be sure it worked before I left. It started to blow... and smell... and burn a hole right through its bottom and the formica counter top. I had no trouble getting a refund. I've always hoped to find another and though I do see them from time to time they've been too pricey for this cheapskate.

While cruising the backstreets of the burg a few hours ago, my heart leapt when I recognised the ovoid silhouette of a GE Portable Dome Hairdryer languishing amid melted Ikea shelving. I strapped it to my bike and pedalled home, trying not to get too excited. I knew I needed to a) manage my expectations, and b) make sure it was on a concrete surface when I plugged it in.

Well it works perfectly! Couldn't wait to do my own Wash & Set! How fun to spend twenty minutes setting my hair on rollers and then to sit unmoving under the dryer for half an hour... hmmm. Don't I own a curling iron that could get the job done in about ten minutes, assuming I could even be bothered with that? Most days my maintenance efforts amount to making sure there aren't more knots on one side of my head than the other...

"That thing's living in the shed, right?" said Simon.

"It's going on ebay" I replied.

"Even better!"

I had a lot of fun photographing it and readying it for sale, but a little bit of googling reveals that secondhand electricals can be a dicey ebay proposition and I've gone off the idea. I've given it a thorough running test and am confident its safe, but if there's even the slenderest chance anyone's head could burst into flame, best it should be my own.

a gleaner am i

2011-10-29T17:25:00.012+11:00

It's springtime and Hard Rubbish is blossoming on the nature strips of Melbourne. There are people who might observe this end-stage of the Materials Economy, this detritus from our culture's unending extraction-consumption-waste, and feel despair. They are better people than I, because I just feel a surge of unmitigated greed. I just want to cruise swankier nabes than my own to glean all the stuff people have decided they are sick of.

We found these mirrors while riding the Gardiner's Creek Trail. A Glen Iris street merged into the park and I spotted them glinting in the sun among pieces of furniture. We were biking to my parents' house to look in on it before they got home from an overseas trip, so I grabbed the mirrors and hid them under bushes in the park to come back to on the way home. After I'd left them I kept having visions of someone nicking off with them and I had a knot in my stomach all afternoon until I had them safely occy-strapped to my bike. A little dramatic, maybe, and Simon said they'd likely been there for a week before I spotted them. But they are fabulous, aren't they? I can't believe some of the stuff people throw out. Bless them, the wastrels!

They're plaster and at one point were gold, the white paint is chipping in lots of places. I'd thought I might get my design*sponge on and have a crack at painting them myself. Turquoise, or shocking pink, or one of each. But I showed pictures to a coworker who has an interior decorating business on the side and she says I'm not allowed, I have to leave them as is. She's probably right, they might look a bit janky in colours, instead of having the genteelly impoverished look we try to make work round here.

What do you think?

quilting bay-bee shower

2011-09-11T14:18:00.005+10:00

I guess baby showers can be a little twee and maybe even a bit trying. I remember in particular one friend's wary expression as twenty or so women cut streamers to a length they fancied would reach around her girth, and her horror when everyone overestimated. At another shower we were blindfolded, and nappies filled with various brown foods/liquids were passed around. We had to guess what they were by smell. Well that was quite funny actually. Somewhere on the internets I saw pictures of a hipster baby shower to which females and males had been invited, and they competed to chug beer from baby-bottles. I wanted to do that! But our pregnant friend Bec was a complete baby shower h8r, just was not having one. She had a better idea.

We went to Amitie and all helped make a baby quilt!

Our teacher Louise helped us complete the top in one afternoon. Bec took it home and quilted the layers together over a couple of weeks. Then last Sunday everyone came to my place and we did the edge binding.

Finally finished! Now the baby has to hurry up and arrive. Any day now, yay! Then we'll fill up some baby bottles with Carlton Draught and celebrate by sucking it down through rubber teats!

thrift addict on a winning streak

2011-09-03T17:58:00.008+10:00

I rode to five local oppies this morning, in two hours. It was a gorgeous day to be out on a bike. Now that spring is here I think I'll make it a standing Saturday-morning habit. Opshopping is addictive for the same reason pokie machines are addictive- you get a payoff only sometimes and you never know when it's going to be. You can have lucky streaks that make you reluctant to stop. I am on a streak now.

Vogue Living, March 1971. One dollar. But there'll be none of your harvest gold, avocado, mission brown or burnt orange... what we've got here are The Excitement Colours!

Fabric! On top is enough cotton seersucker for a sundress, in the middle is some wool that will make a cute little pencil skirt but will be salted away for winter, and on the bottom is some grey cotton drill. I've got a skirt pattern in mind for it.

A couple more designer patterns.

For when I make hotpants with a bib. Any day now.

Shoes! I'd seen these Sambag ones in another opshop but not in my size. I'd been all excited to find cute non-croc plastic shoes because I want something to wear to and from work in wet weather. Hunter make a chic pair of rubber ballet flats but they want over a hundred dollars for them. My heart leapt when I found these today, put them on and they fit!

More shoes. I had thought of buying these new quite awhile ago at the Country Road outlet.

I like them better from the opshop!

Books books books! I don't know what to read first. Never Let Me Go was a so-so movie, but it had such an interesting premise I made a note to seek out the book, which is supposed to be fantastic. I am really on the hunt for Michael Pollan's more recent books and hadn't heard of Botany of Desire. I like any book about food- I'm really keen to get stuck into the Julia Child book, I was so charmed by her portrayal in the Julie and Julia film. I want to write a novel but I have no idea what it could be about. Maybe the prolific Stephen King can help? Style Statement might actually be the first one I dig into. It's full of questionnaires to help you find your aesthetic. I feel like I have too many aesthetics and could benefit from some refining of taste. Bad Baby Names is for my pregnant friend Bec to help her out with some ideas. A very nice if stonerish neighbour once tried to lend me None Dare Call it Conspiracy, but at the time I begged off. I opened it up just now to a random page and found a diagram detailing the various arms of the World Supra-Government; the inclusion of Lehmann Brothers, Goldman Sachs, Rand Corporation and Standard Oil are unsurprising, but I wouldn't have tipped Kodak or the Book of The Month Club to be part of the New World Order.

thrifty kitsch, bobo glitz

2011-08-27T19:02:00.009+10:00

Ballarat opshopping was fun! We got to five of the ten shops on our map, so we'll have to make another trip at some point. While it's always interesting to check out other neighbourhoods, and regional opshops turn up some fun things, I do sometimes think the best bargains are found at the shops that are near your own house, which you can pop into really regularly. Still, I did find some really great stuff.

Kittieeeeeeeeeees! I'll have to find some latch-hooking yarn and finish up the corner... I hope you can still get that stuff!

What do you do when you want to contrive a reason to incur upon others' personal space but are too clever for Twister?

It's the mind that boggles.

Ruby glass sugar bowl.

Linen tablecloth showing the beautiful landmarks of Melbourne...

...with the puzzling inclusion of Tullamarine airport.

Milk glass comport. I had seen one exactly like it on a style blog a few weeks ago and was stoked to find it at Ballarat.

Cute patterns. The one in the centre has a sweet little jacket with a tie-detail on the sleeves. It's sized too small for me but I figured I could look at how it was done and use the sleeve idea on another pattern sometime. The Project Runway one seems to have about twenty different variations.

Who knew Avon used to do craft kits!?

Back in Melbourne, I had some great luck with books. These two in particular I was really pleased with as I'd been planning to order them at full price soon. I got them for only eight dollars each.

I would like kitschy potter Jonathan Adler and his windowdressing husband, Simon Doonan, to adopt me as their long-lost niece...

Fleur Wood's spirit is intimidatingly free, her book is about silken sequined yurts on the beach, rooftop bull terriers boogying to ghetto-blasters, fishtail braids, lace picnic blankets, redheaded children riding heirloom cattle, green-apple macarons, chaise longues perched on riverbanks, sheep with bedroom eyes, clavicles, horses in crocheted pyjama bottoms, wicker rowboats lined with swansdown, chandeliers made of pink marshmallows and mardigras necklaces. Okay I'm kidding, but only a little. It's your basic bourgeois-bohemian nightmare. Leafing through it's pages feels like being pelted with copies of frankie, Australian Country Style and Anthropologie catalogues. Sienna Miller is lobbing them at you. Don't think I don't love it! I haven't been able to stop poring over her gorgeous food, gorgeous tablesettings and gorgeous moddlepals.

More book luck! Clockwise from top left: I really enjoyed Julian Fellowes' Snobs; squealed when I discovered PG Wodehouse wrote a book about a gal; have been meaning to read Guns, Germs and Steel for years; I've been getting interested in fabric dyeing and printing techniques lately; loved the book and movie of Notes on a Scandal by this author; can't tell you WHY I bought this one, it's full of horribly bad news which is more than evident from the title. I want a donut.

paddling

2011-08-19T21:37:00.005+10:00

Mum sent me this picture today, of her aunty and pals. I keep looking at it and smiling. And wishing for weather warm enough for paddling.

My sister and I have commanded our menfolk to drive us to Ballarat for an opshopping odyssey tomorrow. We're so excited, emails back and forth all week!! There are about ten opshops and The Jen and I have made a googlemap so as not to miss any and to be most efficient. The boys aren't as excited.

new favourite breakfast

2011-08-13T09:20:00.006+10:00

I'm late to the quinoa party, but I'm loving it now I'm here... and I'm stoked to discover that you can make it in the rice cooker. I soaked it overnight, then it took about twenty minutes in the cooker this morning. I added butter, a teeny drop of vanilla, chopped almonds and blueberries.

Definitely a winner. By the way, how CRAZY is the price of fresh blueberries!? The supermarket wants seven dollars for a half-punnet, yeesh! The frozen kind will do for the likes of us. Tomorrow I think I'll try it with shredded apple and cinnamon.

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions on my last post. I know what to do now- after I've washed the dress in vinegar I'm sending it to Mary Nanna to look after in her magic wardrobe for a few weeks :o)

they say you shouldn't make garments out of quilting fabric...

2011-08-06T08:54:00.003+10:00

...and this is why:

I don't really know what I was thinking with this fabric. I started with a cute seventies pattern, and ended up with what looks like the uniform for a children's hospital staff in a lost Elvis movie: Nurses Curses!

Or an Easter dress maybe. Why didn't I notice that the little motifs look like stylised eggs?

It's been stuffed in a drawer, waiting for the day I can be bothered cutting it up putting it to its intended purpose in a quilt. But I got it out an ironed it so it can have at least one outing, at Oona's birthday party.

little boy blue

2011-07-31T12:19:00.002+10:00

I found Little Boy Blue at the Camberwell Market in a bin of $2 bargains.

He was actually more like Little Boy Grey because the poor love was covered in a thick layer of grime. A little water and a cotton pad cleaned him up nicely and a lightbulb swiped from my sewing machine now illuminates him.

I'd wanted one of these children's nightlights for awhile. They are often really expensive (well, to my skinflint sensibilites anyway). I'm keeping my eyes peeled for an affordably-priced one shaped like a maniacally grinning bear or like Mother Hubbard's shoe-house.

opshopping finds

2011-07-30T19:28:00.002+10:00

The nights are so cold lately that all we've been good for when we get home from work is arseparking in front the telly, peeping from under woollen blankets at Sons of Anarchy and Game of Thrones while trying to keep the hands holding our wineglasses from turning blue and snapping off. Our heater isn't worthy of the name but our landlady is about as likely to replace it for us as she is to take down the sheets draped inside of all her windows and remove the rotting boat in her driveway. We've been crawling into bed at not much later than nine-thirty every night, throats emanating gusts of vapour as we chant "Aaaah! Lectric blanky! Lectric blanky!"

I haven't felt like going into my walk-in refrigerator of a sewing room lately so I haven't made any more clothes. I'm a bit frustrated at not being able to work on something. But I did take some pictures of some of my opshop finds of the last two months or so.

Mail organiser thingy. The paint is peeling just a little in places so I'm going to try and find some paint suitable for metal. I was thinking a pastel turquoise. It is for now storing these greeting cards of grotesque cuteness.

I had a feeling I was going to find some Burda magazines. For years I have wanted to find Burda's, and I always look for them, but I have never experienced a particular sense that I was going to find them. But over the past few months they have started coming to me. I even found some in the street not far from our house. They were dumped in a box outside an abandoned burnt-out corner shop.

Milk glass tea set.

More patterns. Mocking me with their suitability to warmer climes.

Standard Textbook of Cosmetology.

So I've got lots of project inspiration for when the weather changes and the house thaws out.

drape drape top

2011-07-10T17:41:00.004+10:00

I have been wanting to make this top for ages, it's all over blogland. I finally bought the Drape Drape Two pattern book a couple of weeks ago and have made 'drape top number four' four times. This is the best one.

On my first attempt I forgot to trace off the bottom third of the pattern and ended up with a shortened, flashdance version. I'll save that one for summertime, over bathers.

It is sooooooo incredibly comfy! Gotta love a batwing sleeve. The top is cut out from one pattern piece. Cutting out and marking are the tedious bits of sewing and I felt like making this top took barely any effort at all. I made a little bit of an alteration; I raised the neckline four inches. I'm not a huge fan of off-the-shoulder knit tops and I was sure it would slide off my shoulders. Now that I look at these pictures I think it could stand to be a little lower , maybe two inches, so I might try that next.

For the neckline I used some six millimetre black cotton twill tape. This is my favourite way to finish necklines and armholes on knits because it's very easy, very neat and stops the fabric stretching out of shape with wear. Rib knit bands are really fiddly and it's especially hard to keep them an even width if you like a really narrow band.

I'm feeling rather proud of finally getting a project made and photographed, it's been awhile. Cupcakes and alpacas are all very well but it's nice to to have a bit of sewing to show again.

it's daggy but I love

2011-07-04T14:22:00.002+10:00

lens flare.

Apparently you can fake it with Photoshop.... which makes me glad I don't own that program as I'd only abuse it.

We had such a great time at the alpaca farm! Lots of great food and wine, and loungeroom dancing. I also took a few pictures that aren't suffused with sunbeams. We hit some opshops and were pretty pleased with what we came away with! Here are a couple of my finds...

I thought I'd found a super-long belt, meant to be looped around your waist twice. But then I found another two, and they all had the identical name written on the back. Turns out they're luggage straps. I bought them thinking I'd make some handbags and use them for the shoulder-straps.

I always need more containers to store my sewing stuff. I'm going to put thread spools in this cookie jar.

If there is a cuter ruminant than the alpaca, I don't know what it is! They always have this expression, like they're thinking, "Now come 'ere and gimme a kiss!"

Oh! Everybody LOVED the cupcakes-in-jars- turns out the ratio of frosting/cake/topping was spot-on.

cupcakes remain ascendant

2011-06-30T20:56:00.002+10:00

For awhile now there have been predictions of the cupcake's demise; apparently their usurpation by the macaroon is imminent. Some sniffy people are quite ticked off that cupcakes haven't died by now. Personally, I don't see cupcakes disappearing anytime soon, and I doubt we need fear any incipient macaroon uprising. Macaroons are far too labour-intensive and the only thing you can do with them decoratively is fool around with different coloured food dyes.

Cupcakes have morphed a bit to hold our interest. They've gone huge, they've gone mini, and now they are in jars.

There's no real reason they are now going into jars. It's a pretty silly idea. There are more reasons NOT to put cupcakes in jars. But it's fun.

edited to add: Donne let me know in comments that the cupcakes-in-jars started as a way for people to send treats to servicemen and women stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan, so its a rather more practical application than I had cynically assumed .

This weekend the gang are going off to the alpaca farm again. I said I'd bring dessert for tomorrow night. So I put cupcakes in jars. Chocolate cupcakes with buttercream filling and peanut-butter-chocolate-chip topping.

I think they really are a bit full on. And I say this as someone who ate a third of the batch of buttercream. The cake-to-frosting ratio here is near half-and-half.

The idea is to eat them with a spoon. But my jars are a bit tall and narrow. I think it's going to be difficult to get a good ratio of cake/buttercream/topping with each spoonful.

It could go either way. People will either not be able to finish them or will want to know why I didn't make more.

daylesford days

2011-06-23T20:20:00.002+10:00

Simon starts a new job next week. He got a week off between so we nicked off to Daylesford for a few days.

We loved the cottage we stayed at so much! So cute and comfy. We could have sat in front of the wood fire for weeks. And we NEED to find a sideboard like this one.

We went to the famous Lake House for dinner. I was NOT game to sneak a camera in there, but I wish I could have taken pictures of the food. The dishes were beautiful, and I could be looking at them now and remembering all the tastes better. Meals at home were pretty great too. The cottage had a very awesome stove. The garden had rosemary and silverbeet growing, and the owners left us some free-range eggs from their own chooks. We made spag bol one night and huevos rancheros in the morning. I think I'm going to try and get some silverbeet growing here at home.

David Sedaris wrote a little bit about his impressions of Daylesford and the Lake House for the New Yorker. Definitely a giggle.

Here's a picture of Simon, just because I think he looks spunky :o)

latshky and gnocchi

2011-06-19T17:36:00.000+10:00

Latschky has been my best friend for fourteen years. She's the reason I can't speak Spanish. We met at uni in a twice-weekly two-hour language lab that was really about an hour too long. When they let us go for lunch at halftime we'd drift off to the uni bar balcony and stay there downing cervesas into the late afternoon.

Latsch frequents this blog and thinks its a pretty good read overall but that it lacks a certain something. That something being rhapsodic meditations on her awesomeness. She came over today for a fresh gnocchi making lesson, so herewith find a peek at our methods and a couple fabulous Latshky facts. Simon and I had carbovers from scoffing pintxos at this place till the wee hours of last night, so we cut our gnocchi with sauteed zucchini 'noodles'.

Latsch always knows what time it is, to within five minutes, without aid of any timepiece. Whenever we go on group vacays, its a game to try to catch her out. Doesn't matter if she's just woken up from a vodka and karaoke bender, or if she's changed timezones. 'Whassatime Latsch?!" Her eyes narrow, focus on the middle distance; her chin lifts, mouth purses oh-so-slightly to one side. "I reckon it'ssssssss... bout eleven oooooooh.... eight. BANG." Iphones are checked and sure enough, Latsch the human sundial has nailed it with only slightly less than perfect accuracy. It's uncanny.

I let Latsch do the actual gnocchi making today. I just got out of her way, directing from the sidelines, Sangiovese at the ready. This kinaesthetic method is very effective because it means the student is given the crucial opportunity to develop a muscle memory for the techniques.

Speaking of kinaesthetic techniques, Latsch is the only friend of mine woman enough to choreograph and perform dance routines with me. Our Spinning Around, if I say it myself, is a sight to behold. What we lack in formal training and we make up for with enthusiasm and vodka. People love to watch, but noone is game to be taught.

She did a delicious job on the gnocchi. In a few weeks we're going up to the farm again with our bunch, where we all take turns making meals. So Team Em/Simey/Latsch are going to do pan-fried sweet potato gnocchi with browned butter and sage. I cannot wait.

look what followed me home

2011-06-18T12:13:00.002+10:00

My newest acquisition has turned my sewing machine collection up to eleven. I went on an op shop odyssey yesterday, a multi-burban quest by bicycle. Murphy's Law of Op Shopping: the fabulousness of your finds will be inversely proportional to your ability to transport them home.

She's a Singer 760 Touch and Sew. Not by any means collectable or a White Whale that anyone dreams of stumbling upon. In fact, the line has attracted nicknames like Touch and Throw or Touch and Swear. She was sitting just inside the door of the opshop, almost as though someone had dropped her and run away. She didn't look very promising, being covered in black dust but I never can resist opening up a cover. I got really excited when I saw she was a slant shank machine.

I've been looking for one of these for ages, ever since I found out Singer made a buttonholer-like attachment for embroidering twee little cursive monograms back in the seventies. They only made it for the slant shank. There is a distinct lack of twee little cursive monograms in my life, and I feel their absence keenly.

The Touch and Sews are mechanically fascinating. You can rig them up to do a single-thread chain stitch, and you wind the thread on to the bobbin while it's still inside the machine. They also have kinky rubber feed dogs for no reason I can discern.

The opshop manager ended up saying he wasn't comfortable selling an untested electrical, noone in the shop would ever bother fixing it, but if I knew someone who liked fiddling about with old machines and getting them to work, did I want to just take it off their hands? I replied that I was that very fiddler, and the deal was struck.

I can't believe I was able to get her home on my bike. It even started raining. And, I had glassware finds too.

She sorta-kinda-maybe works. There's a lot of fiddling to be done before she's ready to sew anything properly. But it will be lots of fun figuring out how to fix her up!

bars and jars

2011-06-04T18:10:00.004+10:00

I got a schmicko new camera on Sunday, and have spent the last week taking truly horrible pictures with it. I blamed my photofails on the light: after and before work have been the only times I've had a chance to make any shots and the winter sun only peeps out while I'm droning away under fluorescents. Today was going to be the day of gorgeous light-dappled still-lifes (...lives?), but I fiddled about with the wrong something in the wrong menu under some wacky mode and seemed to give myself the choice of either bleached-out or unexposed. And now the battery has conked out. I managed to get one passable picture of my most recent batches of experimental soap and preserves. Even then I had to punch it up with the photo editor.

The soap was made back in February, and has only now become hard enough to use. Bit of a fail. It certainly works, but it goes really sloppy in the shower after a only a few days. The preserves seem to be a little more of a success. My Nanna was a fiend for jam-making and every once in awhile I think it'd be nice to try it myself; we have her recipes still. But I am always put off by the mess and potential danger of all that boiling and pouring. Writing this, it strikes me that it's totally ridiculous to be spooked by boiling sugar and fruit when I'm a-ok with using lye for my soap. Anyway, a few weeks ago I found four Le Parfait jars at the opshop and grabbed them because I thought they were cute, and could store sewing bits and bobs even if I never worked up the courage to make any jam. Then in one of those wonderful opshop-serendipity moments, when I got to the counter they had twenty cent lemons, so I knew what to do. Lemons and limes are a far less intense preservation project because they're only packed in salt, juice and some spices, then you just wait a few weeks. Haven't tried them in any recipes yet but they smell amazing.

I'll try again with the camera tomorrow. I really don't want to have to read the manual but it might come to that.

inner sanctum

2011-06-01T20:37:00.002+10:00

Couple Saturdays ago, my pal Bec and I were supposed to go get manicures at our nail place. But our nails were really gross and we were too embarrassed. So instead we went opshopping.

I was a pretty successful day, I haven't photographed everything yet but I will soon. I've been wanting a birdie wall vase for ages. They have holes in the back so you can hang them on a wall, or just put on a shelf. I spotted this one just as we were leaving one tiny, crowded opshop. It was up on a high shelf behind the counter, where they put the Special Things.

I asked the opshop lady if I could see it, and she got it down for me, as well as a glass candy jar and a purple vase. She looked at me appraisingly and said. "You like Pretty things. I like pretty things too. I like people who like pretty things. Wait-" and she scurried out to the back of the shop and brought out some other fancies. I didn't end up buying those, but we chatted for awhile about how nice it was to like nice things. She said she had to keep some things hidden out the back, because the men who work there would put them anywhere and they'd get broken, or they'd just sell them for nothing. We all shook our heads and looked to the ceiling. Men! and their ignorance of pretty things! Then the lady exclaimed, "Oh you know you've GOT to come and see this." And she led us past the STAFF ONLY sign, into the back of the opshop!

She showed us all the things she was fixing up before putting them on the shop floor. She knew how to restore ceramics, building up broken pieces layer by layer. There was a toby jug in the shape of a moose's head and she was in the process of restoring his antlers. He was amazing. But he won't be ready for quite a while. I'm going to have to pop back and try my luck.

I ended buying the purple vase too. But it won't photograph. I don't know what that's about.

frilly knickers pattern and video tutorial

2011-05-04T21:55:00.002+10:00

Finally, I have managed to get together the pattern for the underwear I posted about over a year ago and promised to share! These frilly knickers can be made out of woven fabric rather than stretch knit- so you can use fun printed cottons. Silk would be nice too.

It's a beta version because although I have graded the pattern up, I haven't yet sewn up the larger sizes for people to try on. The feedback has been good for 36-38 but for sizes above that I can't yet be sure on the fit.

The pattern pdf is eight A4 pages. There are also some brief sewing and sizing notes, but the main instructions are in this video I put together.

Frilly Knickers pattern pdf.

Frilly Knickers Sizing and sewing notes.

I'm working on a little bra pattern as well. When I've got it finished I'll share it too. It takes me a long time though. Doing the grading (sizing) all by hand and then scanning it into pdf so it can be printed out is quite a process. Can anyone recommend any affordable, easy to use patternmaking software they have tried?

If you try the pattern please let me know what you think of it.

morning walk

2011-05-03T20:46:00.001+10:00

I've been getting off the train a stop early so I can take a walk through the gardens before work each morning.

The light was really beautiful this morning. I didn't really capture it, but the buildings glittered so much among the green, futuristic skyscrapers in a sci-fi city. Almost made me excited to be going to work in one of them. But not quite.

vintage vogue

2011-05-01T16:44:00.000+10:00

Found a new (to me) op shop on Thursday! Scored these Vogue Pattern Book International magazines, published 1969.

I'm in love with these illustrations. It's an interesting fashion moment. This isn't the Mad Men sixties; the fit is getting more relaxed, there's a much more casual vibe and you can see that transition in style that would develop through the seventies- the brighter colours and louder prints, and more options for a looser-fitting, flowing silhouette.

belt up

2011-04-29T16:49:00.001+10:00

I always look for leather belts at the op shop. If you can find one with a nice style, old belts are better than new because they have that nice patina from being used. They're not always terrifically plentiful- mostly you just find cheap, cracked and scuffed plastic ones, or else those thick straps with the heavy, gaudy silver buckles. Or chain-linky ones with the silver or gold rubbing off. If the shop is one that chucks all the belts in a bucket you can be ages sorting through, and frequently not find anything for your trouble.

But I never forgo looking, and yesterday I got lucky and found these two!

Just in time, really- I have two pairs of jeans that have reached an advanced stage of waistband stretched-outiness and wearing them unbelted was looking a bit sloppy. Like Marky Mark except with Bonds Cottontails.

I think they must be bloke's belts. Both the same size, 36. They fit me at hipster-jeans level which is great, but I wish one of them was smaller- I think a winter dress in some kind of dark chambray would look good with a brown leather belt at the waist. Sorta like this.

I wish!!

I just remembered I have about five other op shop belts that fit around my waist that I have wished were bigger. I just need to be happy with what I've scored and belt up!

jaws 2

2011-04-28T18:42:00.000+10:00

This Easter break we didn't go away. We've just had fun pottering around the house, going for walks, watching movies. And yesterday and today we went op shopping.

At least twice a week, Simon will shout FRAK! at the top of his lungs because he has got something out of the oven using a folded-up tea towel and burnt himself. Except he doesn't say frak. I've suggested we buy oven gloves but he keeps insisting they're stupid and don't work (?) and are just a waste of money. This pair was a dollar so he can't object on price grounds at least.

Sharks! They've got fins and everything, and you can see a little swimmer in the jaws!

He's been told he has to use them, and that he better not use my new favorite tea towel to get anything out of the oven.

I got lots more great stuff! I'll take photos and post them in the next couple of days.

iaat

2011-04-27T09:26:00.004+10:00

Fun! Miss oona gave me a meme to play...

1. what size shoe do you wear? if you wear a size 7, can i borrow your shoes?

Mmmm, dunno- I'm a seven-and-a-half. And my feet are almost as wide as they are long. Plus I have bunions. Or specifically, bunionettes. On the outside of my feet by the little toes. Now, nobody wants any kind of a bunion but I was tickled to learn that my type are also known as Tailor's Bunions. Because tailors used to sit on the floor with their legs crossed and sew for hours, and it pushed their little toes in and messed the bones up. So I take this to mean that I am a sewer through and through, down to my very skeleton.

I'm better at buying shoes than wearing them. I have five pairs of different ballet flats and they're my only footwear that gets any play. My bunionettes, you see.

These Marc Jacobs knockoffs are cute but soooo uncomfortable. My punishment for buying counterfeit fashion?

I bought these for my cousin's wedding. He married a Sikh Indian girl so they had bhangra dancers- that's like Bollywood dancing- girls performing at the reception. And these shoes actually matched the silver sequinned tops the bhangra girls were wearing. They got us all dancing and my sister and I went nuts dancing along with them, best wedding ever. Even though these are flats I'm too scared of wrecking them to wear them out of the house.

These have never left the house. I saw them in a shoe catalogue on a model who was wearing a boho-floaty dress and a cardigan. I wanted to be like the model, all boho and cardigany. So I ordered the shoes, but when I got them... I don't know how it happened, but they morphed into the sort of shoes that don't go with anything except a black rubber jumpsuit.

2. 30's or 60's?

I'm finding this really hard to answer... can I say neither? I think I like the seventies, or the twenties.

3. have you ever kissed someone you shouldn't have?

Spose so. Ten years ago on a summer eve my sister and I went to see a novelty cabaret singer at a bar, where I drank Malibu and pineapple until it occurred to me that what this bar really needed was a conga line. The other patrons agreed, and I led everyone out the back door, along the street outside and back in the front door. On one of our circuits, I ran smack into a guy in the street wearing a shiny white polyester shirt who shouted "AWESOME!" and started dancing. He was tall and cute, so I grabbed him for the conga. After a few more circuits I decided to see if this cute boy was a good kisser. He was. I had a dim awareness of my sister scowling at me and then shouting in my ear "YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW THIS PERSON!" I could see her logic up to a point... snog snog. Suddenly, I had a brilliant idea, and shouted to the boy "Hey we should go on a date, and see if we like eachother!" So we exchanged numbers and my sister dragged me home. Andy turned out to live round the corner from me. We went on a date. We did really like eachother! But in the end a romance wasn't to be. I was a bit hung up on a boy who worked at my bookshop who didn't really speak to me but who kept giving me random presents... so instead Andy and I became great friends and since then have shared a love of homebrew and gleefully running amok. Andy was devastated about us not being boyfriend and girlfriend for about six, even seven minutes. The white polyester shirt-which came to be known to all of his friends as the Love Shirt- went on to make Andy a girl magnet all that summer and many beyond. You shouldn't kiss random boys you find in the street, and it was totally out of character, but the Love Shirt made me do it.

4. have you ever been poisoned? was it by the girlfriend of the person you kissed? that is awesomely "knot's landing."

No! After the retirement of the Love Shirt, Andy met Lisa, and now she and I are friends too. She's an awesome, gorgeous lady and loves to run gleefully amok. You know I don't think Knot's Landing ever screened here. Poisoning eachother, that was their thing? We did get Dynasty, with all the ladies face-slapping, pitching vases at eachother, pushing eachother downstairs and into ponds and pools, shoulderpads, clip-on earrings and all. A few summers ago Andy and Lisa put one of those huge inflatable wading pools in their backyard and everyone pushed or was pushed into it at some stage. That's all I got!

5. who's on your "celebrity free pass" list (top 5)?

Jon Hamm is everybody's free pass, right, you can have him and he doesn't have to count toward the total. So my other five are: Gosling, Clive Owen, Daniel Craig, Ewan McGregor, Russell Brand.

So... I hereby pass the IAAT to:

Cherri, JenniferElizabeth, Mary Nanna, and Natsu. I can't wait to read your answers!

too much?

2011-04-03T10:58:00.002+10:00

Crafternoon at my place today! Bec, Latschky and The Jen are coming over.

I'm making them lunch. Pizzas! And they all read this blog and said it was time I baked them a giant cupcake.

The cake mold has two parts- cupcake bottom, cupcake top- and when the cakes are cooked you stack them. This time I changed brands of box mix and ended up with more batter than the manufacturer recommends be used. But I just filled the molds up to the top anyway. The cakes puffed up and overflowed but I just stacked them anyway. So this cake is about a third taller than the others. And there's quite a bit of a gap between the cakes at their edges.

There's SO much icing. Even by my standards. I needed heaps to stick the two parts together and fill in those gaps. I used 250 grams of butter, and a kilo-bag of icing sugar. And some milk.

Simon says we girls need to re-name these little gatherings bingernoons. I doubt anyone will eat that apple, it is provided as a reference to scale only.

YUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!

angel angela

2011-03-31T21:58:00.007+11:00

It was my friend Ange's sixtieth birthday today. She was TOTALLY getting the giant cupcake treatment. I owed Ange a good feed! I made her cake purple because that's her best colour.

Ange is one of those most wonderful people, those angels of the office environment: the Workplace Feeder. As I am a Workplace Eater, we're a match made in heaven. Ange frequently brings me homebaked treats and enormous volumes of barbequed meat after weekends; I believe one plate she brought me had as many as five different animals on it. She always makes a point of stopping by my cubicle to tip me off when the chocolate biscuits are replaced in the tearoom. Upon hearing that we're low on Barbeque Shapes, she rises from her desk in indignance and promptly fetches a boxful, plus some Chicken Crimpies into the bargain. If there's been a catered meeting somewhere on the floor, she makes sure the tailings come to us. No peppermint tea this month? She's not happy about that, and it's just lucky she's kept a cache in her file drawer. She gave me the recipe for her handheld lasagna. It defies the laws of physics. You're standing there, in the middle of the room at a workplace do with only the dissolved fibres of a Homebrand serviette filming your fingers because there are no fresh ones, but you're eating lasagna, and it doesn't slop on you!

class at harvest textiles

2011-03-23T12:33:00.004+11:00

Until this past weekend I've had no time for crafting. I just started postgraduate uni and am still working fulltime. Things have been a bit hectic! But a few weeks ago I won a blog contest to do a printing workshop at Harvest Textiles. On Saturday I trotted off to their Brunswick studio and wallowed in six hours of creativity.

The workshop was Printed Teatowels. I have a little experience with printing - a little gocco machine that you can use to turn photocopies into screeprints- but I was a bit worried because we were to turn our own drawings into prints. I'm not confident with my drawing skills. But I remembered hearing somewhere that 'bad drawings make good prints', and hoped it was true.

I need not have worried. Our teacher, Emma, sat us all in front of a table of native plant cuttings and wooden blocks and we got to work making simple sketches and graphic patterns. She said the simpler they were the better. We traced them on lightboxes, knifed out the stencils, chose our ink colours and then came the best part- squeegie time!

I want to go back to Harvest and do another printing class soon. It's such a clean, beautiful, light-filled space to work in, and I really enjoyed being part of a group and being inspired by the other students. I loved having a solid chunk of time really getting stuck into the project, and having a teacher to keep us moving so I could see it through to completion. That was really satisying.

Here's my finished teatowel, and one from my squeegie-buddy, Lisa. Lisa was kind enough to swap me one of her teatowels for one of mine. I think they are too pretty for dish-drying, I think I'll hang them on the wall.

There's a class on making a lamp and shade, which would be lovely for my bedside table. I think at the end of the uni semester, I'll do the class as a reward for getting through it!

More Harvest pictures here.

are you there, autumn?

2011-03-12T16:36:00.002+11:00

The season changed at the beginning of the month, but you wouldn't have known it today- the heat was intense. I'm excited by the prospect of cooler days ahead. I'm really not built for Australia's climate... and Melbourne is one of our cooler cities! The only place I don't sweat is when we visit Tassie.

At work this week I mentioned to my friend Lisa that I was looking forward to getting into knitting again. Last year I taught her how and she made a scarf. We've decided to form a little lunchtime knitting club. I'm going to show her how to make the Le Slouch hat- I made a few last year and I'm not sick of them yet! I want them in every colour. We went off to Morris and Sons last night to pick out wool for our projects.

I already got started. This yarn is delicious!

giant cupcake

2011-03-03T15:19:00.004+11:00

My friend Pen from work is leaving for another job after today, so we had a little do for her yesterday. Last week I snapped up a giant cupcake mold at the Reject Shop so I volunteered to make the cake. I was so excited. I wanted it to be a surprise but I pretty much chat to Pen all day and GIANT CUPCAKES have been pretty much THE ONLY THING ON MY MIND since I bought the mold, so since Monday I kept bursting out with things like “Omuhgaw, Pen, this cake… is gonna BLOW your MIND!” and also “Mate, you are gonna be so BLOWN AWAY by this cake, your brain is gonna fry up into a tiny little LENTIL!”

Still, I left making it till the last minute because I was busier than I thought I’d be this week. I baked it late in the evening, then had to frost it in a mad rush at five thirty the next morning. Simon got up with me. He hovered in the kitchen, telling me icing a cake was a crazy thing to try to do at that hour and that I was making a mess, that two cups of icing was too much, and other silly statements of that nature. I kicked him out and finished it. Two cups of icing was JUST enough. Simon nudged his way back into the kitchen and when he saw the finished cake he let out a “WHOAH” at a velocity of ten keanus, then said “It looks like Dame Edna!”

He was right!

Such a job making it safe to ride the train to work with me. It’s so tall! I had to put it in a wine crate and that still wasn't high enough so I had to fashion an aluminium foil tent over the top so the icing wouldn’t get smooshed, and Simon said I really ought to make a matching hat for myself out of the foil. But then he very nicely said he would clean up the kitchen for me.

Pen loved it, she said, of her mind: "It's TOTALLY BLOWN!" I will be making more of these.

homestead hoedown

2011-02-07T10:03:00.000+11:00

Yay! Me and oonaballoona are gonna swap!

We are going to make eachother a crafty something for our homes.

We're calling it the Homestead Hoedown! Which doesn't make that much sense. But we like

the way it sounds.

So that we know what to make for eachother, we're sharing pictures of our three favourite

places in the house...

The light is nice just here. It's because of all the ambient dust inside the house, and the thick cobwebs on the outside of the windows. Normally there's also lots of ivy vines that are constantly trying to break and enter but we trimmed those back. While I've commandeered (or been banished to?) the spare bedroom for my sewing endeavours, Simon squeezes all his music stuff into this end of the dining room. He doesn't get a lot of time to make his music but when he does I get all happy! His eyebrows knit together in fixed concentration, he gets a thousand-mile stare and a scowly expression. He also gets rather short-tempered so Edie and I aren't permitted to gaze dreamily at him for very long. If he catches either of us we get snarled at and swatted away. Or I get threatened with being made to sing. That always makes me skedaddle.

Wherever we live next HAS to have this shelf molding in at least one of the rooms. This is up high in our entryway. Book People notice it straightaway and really love it.

I love spending time in our kitchen! This is not the same as saying I cook. I know I have shared recipes and showed pictures of food I've made on this blog but that's because it is a fairly rare occurence, so it needs to be documented. It's my favourite place in the house because after work, Simon and I gab about the day while he cooks. He's a VERY good and enthusiastic cook. I think he'd make a better chef than a rockstar, because he doesn't seem to mind adoring groupies in here.

I can't wait to see Oona's pictures!

i ♥ my street

2011-01-29T15:36:00.003+11:00

I do, I love it! It's the scozziest, dodgiest street in this stolidly middleclass burb. So really not that scozzy at all, but sketchy enough to keep the rent down! I've written before of the fires and wildlife, the Rolls Royces and racehorses, and the piles of furniture, whitegoods, mass-produced artworks, small electricals, and car parts that litter every second nature strip. I'm a dumpster-diving, hard rubbish-fossicking gleaner from way back, but there is only very occasionally something worth all the wheedling necessary to get Simon to help me drag home.

Except this one bumper find! A Horn sewing machine cabinet (sans sewing machine, unfortunately), pitched on its end and with the mechanical lift compromised somewhat, but useable nonetheless. It was identical to one I had been given for Christmas by Simon's parents so we took it over to The Jen's place. Because I'm a nice sister. I kept the contents of the drawers for myself:

A box full of crochet lace cottons;

A box full of old-style Bernina feet of all kinds which will fit my $15 garage sale Bernina Nova. Yay! Those feet can be expensive. And a... green... thing that would go on the back of an old 60's Bernina Favorit to hold threads and accessories.

I think I might turf the greeny-thing. Simon's mum has a Favorit but she doesn't need another accessory box...

Simon was a real sport about schlepping the big cabinet over to The Jen's, so when we got home and he suggested it might be time for me to dispense with my Singer sewing machine cabinet , I said yes. It had a wonky leg I never got round to fixing, and none of my Singers ended up fitting into it. It was sixties-era and funky-looking but ultimately useless, just taking up space.

I don't want to sound smug about the calibre of our rubbish but I was fairly chuffed when persons unknown removed it in less than an hour. Before putting it out I had unscrewed these little wooden shelves from it's door. Cute storage for small sewing bits and bobs. There are two of them of each size.

I thought my vintage thread spools looked pretty in one of the boxes so I took it to work and did a little photoshoot in our horribly overlit, white melamine office.

Have you ever found anything really awesome on the street?

2011-01-24T20:05:00.001+11:00

Hi everybody... happy 2011!

The past few weeks have been lovely, lots of friends, food and general festivities. Over New Years, a bunch of us nicked off to my family's beach house for five days. Soooooooo much fun.

It's getting to be a tradition among us to write New Years' resolutions FOR eachother. Here are a few. The rest were FAR TOO RUDE to show.

a christmas miracle?

2010-12-26T11:48:00.005+11:00

You know how you always get a number of bad gifts from family members at Christmas? Years ago our family decided to run with that and do a Krappy Krissy Kringle, which has even evolved into a contact sport. We each get something ridiculous, wrap it up. Extra points for recycling something you got in the office Kris Kringle or an opshop. Presents go in a pile and you get to choose one... OR steal one of the presents someone else has already opened! I wrapped up the Baby Ninja. He was one of the most coveted items, as I had known he was sure to be. He changed hands a number of times, ending up with Dad after a couple of strategic swaps involving a TuttiFrutti LipPops three-pack and a wig. Now you may remember that I'd put batteries in Baby Ninja and discovered he didn't work, but my Aunty Gabrielle somehow animated him! I was about to level an accusation of sorcery until she pointed out he has 'Press Me" clearly printed on his hand and if you do that, he does this:

Left, The K Man with his gift, a ball in a bucket. Same photo centre; 3D Elvis poster. Below, me wearing my instant tattoo sleeve.

Not pictured: a plain aluminium vacuum flask identical to one my late grandmother unwrapped many Christmases ago. Now THAT had been a hotly-desired item. When my uncle Steve's turn came he didn't choose to unwrap a new parcel, he lunged for Nanna's flask. But she was too quick for him! She sprang from her chair and legged it, the flask clutched to her chest. Steve gave chase! He pursued her across the emu-paddock while the rest of the family booed him and shouted encouragement to Nanna. But at the halfway point he caught hold of her cardigan and wrestled her to the ground. Seizing the flask, he held it aloft and crowed with victory, heedless of the boos and hisses of the crowd. He lost the flask within minutes to my cousin Cinty. When Nanna died, Cinty got us all to give her photos of ourselves and she sealed them in the flask and Nanna was buried with it.
I guess we're a bit of a weird family.

Did you get anything really silly? Please tell me!!!

kinda kreepy pointy kitty

2010-12-17T11:41:00.003+11:00

I saw Jessy's Pointy Kitty and had to make one. It's a free Wee Wonderfuls pattern.

At the moment Kitty is faceless- I kinda like it! It's sort of more abstract. Simon doesn't like it at all, he said it freaked him out. So I brought it to work today and everybody loves it and people have been picking it up off my desk. So there, Simon.

It may end up with a face. In any case, I want to make a couple more of them, plus I want to enlarge the pattern for one that's the size of an actual cat.

Last night was our bookclub Christmas dinner, and we did our Kris Kringle where we each wrap up a secondhand book and do a luckydip. I got The Witches of Eastwick, which I have always wanted to read. Alice got a PG Wodehouse and I was a smidge jealous, I loooooove PG Wodehouse. Somebody else once gave it as a gift and I liked the message they wrote for the recipient.

the quilt is finished

2010-12-12T12:52:00.000+11:00

All week we were so excited, because we knew we were picking up the finished quilt on Saturday! I spent yesterday afternoon and this morning making and applying the bias binding.

So far Edie hasn't jumped up and spread her fur all over it. I expect she'll get round to doing that in about five seconds.

i made a monkey...

2010-12-07T11:32:00.000+11:00

...for the Softies for Mirabel project. Probably you already know about it?

I made her from this free mmmcrafts pattern. Anyway I was bit tardy with getting Miss Monkey finished so she wasn't ready in time to go into the window display at the Meet Me At Mikes shop. So I have to mail her today straight to the Mirabel people.

thrifty serendipity

2010-11-28T16:15:00.002+11:00

Yay! I got my hair cut yesterday and opposite my hair place there's a Salvo's that I never normally have any luck at. I had twenty minutes to kill before Simon could pick me up so I schlepped over there and happened upon these two gems. Is that the secret? When you least expect it and don't go out of your way to treasure hunt, is THAT when your thrifty-mojo kicks in?

Published 1944, The Ross Hynes Home Dressmaker course.

I love Mad Men and really want the show to go for several more seasons, but I do not look forward to the point in the sixties at which Joan can be expected to show up to work in something like this. Published in 1969.

I want a little white featherweight Singer like this lady has! Also want her personal tailor.

garage sale finds

2010-11-27T12:19:00.000+11:00

Lucky us, we went to the farm on the one weekend a year that the townspeople all have their garage sales simultaneously. They hand out maps at the information centre and away you go. Here are my finds.

We're caffeine fiends and always interested in collecting coffee paraphernalia. We already have a stovetop steam percolator but this aluminium one works a little differently and is so pretty... the clear glass top lets you see the lovely coffee bubbling up when it's ready! Cost a dollar.

I had a cake stand but it just disappeared. I maybe left it at Latschky's house I think. Anyway, she can keep it, because this milk glass one is much better than the old one. Only four dollars.

Sweet birdy figurine.

And a Christmassy deer.

Lovely printed vintage sheets, I think they were cotton flannel but they've been washed so many times they're not fuzzy anymore, but that's just the way I like them.

a lovely time had by all

2010-11-24T20:57:00.004+11:00

wine slushie!

2010-11-21T16:34:00.002+11:00

Heehee! Been visiting cheesemongers and wineries today... It's quite warm, this port slurpee really hit the spot!

Drink responsibly.

alpaca boys

2010-11-20T16:20:00.003+11:00

Our friend Chris's dad has an alpaca farm. A bunch of us are hanging out here for a few days.

The girl alpacas are in another paddock. I'll go see them later. They have to be kept separated because Chris says, "They're basically just giant rabbits."
Which made me immediately think of Night Of The Lepus.

we're at the alpaca farm

2010-11-20T01:15:00.001+11:00

...that is all...

chunky punky icecream

2010-10-21T18:32:00.004+11:00

We make a roast pumpkin and fetta salad I looooooove! The sweetness of the roasted pumpkin and the creamy sharpness of the fetta go together so well. As I was eating the salad one night earlier in the year I mused on the phenomenon of the sweet vegetable and wondered about trying to make the kind of pumpkin pie like Mum had made back in Canada. I've never made or eaten pumpkin pie in Australia and I don't think anyone here really does. Our pumpkins are different. The Canadian pumpkins I remember making jack-o-lanterns from as a kid have a hard woody shell and are filled with goopy, sticky, stringy orange glop and seeds. Ours are thick and fibrous pretty much the whole way through with minimal goop and seeds right at the centre. They are reeeeeeeallly hard to make jack-o-lanterns from for that reason. Maybe that's why Hallowee'en never took off Down Under? Anyway, I thought they were probably also complelely unsuitable for pie-making. I have been told by an American friend that the ONLY thing you can make with that goopy stuff is pies. And I remember that in Canada pumpkins seemed to be grown for farm animal feed only.

Anyway, I thought about making roast pumpkin icecream using a 'cheaters icecream' recipe given to me by my Aunty Helen. For cheaters icecream you just whip together sweetened condensed milk and cream. Then you're supposed to add a crunched-up chocolate bar and put in the freezer, but I substituted pumpkin cubes that had been roasted with butter and brown sugar.

Lots of my friends told me I was a nut. UNTIL THEY TASTED IT! They had to be coaxed to try it, but boy was I smug once they did and they all wanted seconds! I love it when my ideas are vindicated.

So here is the recipe if you would like to try it yourself. I think it is only going to benefit my Australian and New Zealand bloggypals and the Brits, because I think you will be the only ones with access to Kent or Jap pumpkins? I don't know what the pumpkin situation is in Asia! North American bloggypals... at least you have your pies!

I was going to google more info on pumpkins but actually it would be much more fun if you could tell me in the comments where you are in the world, and what are your pumpkin habits?

My recipe
small tin sweetened condensed milk
600 ml cream
a kent or jap pumpkin, cubed and with the skin trimmed off.
25 grams girgar or other unsalted butter
quarter cup of brown sugar

Melt the butter and swirl it around the bottom of a roasting tin before putting in the pumpkin cubes; shake them around to cover and sprinkle on the brown sugar. Put into the oven at 200 degrees and roast until cooked. Take out of oven and leave to cool.

Pour the condensed milk and cream into large bowl and beat together with an electric beater until it's stiff enough for peaks to form. Spoon alternate layers of cream mixture and caramelised pumpkin pieces into an icecream container and freeze. Delicious!!

Parents, this is a wonderful way of getting more sucrose and butterfat into your childrens' diets.

done in a gif-y

2010-10-17T13:15:00.000+11:00

Finally got all our blocks finished!

postcard from europe

2010-10-07T09:59:00.002+11:00

My aunty and uncle are bopping around Europe right now, kissing Parisian gravestones, visiting family, cycling among weatherproof Danes and sending me postcards.

So now I've discovered my new favourite artist, Anu Tuominen, who does clever crafty things with found objects. She made quilts out of odd socks and mittens! And rainbows of clothespegs suspended between trees. Tiled a whole room with mosaic kettle-trivetts! You can look at all her lovely works here.

quilt

2010-10-03T18:31:00.003+11:00

Yesterday, while watching the Saints get clobbered in the Grand Final, Simon and I cut out the pieces for a new quilt, and today we sewed them up. We made really great progress, we have seven blocks nearly at completion, just another two to go before we can join them all up.

i love this

2010-09-24T21:25:00.006+10:00

omg the yummiest easiest soup!

2010-09-20T19:31:00.005+10:00

Simon has been interstate since last Wednesday for work, and neither I nor Edie really cook when it's just the two of us. So we've been eating from packets. You know Kraft Macaroni, where you just boil pasta and mix in milk and the fluorescent powder? There's an even more braindead version you can buy now, a plastic bowl with peel-off lid to which you add water, then nuke. Shameful. I've had four bowls and it's consistently horrible. And they don't give you much, either!

That sort of stuff doesn't nourish you, just keeps you not-hungry, and you can do it for a couple of days and be fine but then suddenly you feel really wretched. And Sunday morning I woke up with a breathless, crushing feeling in my chest, which was just from Edie because she sleeps there when Simon's chest isn't available. But when I threw her off, my head hurt and my heart felt depressed. And my brain said GINGER SOUP! GINGER SOUP! GINGER SOUP!

Image and recipe from here. I tried to take a photo of mine, which

leads me to conclude that this photo is a complete cheat, because

the veggies do not float and the tofu floats just barely. But you

wouldn't make the soup on the basis of my photo of a limpid broth, and

that would be a pity because it is seriously the most delicious soup ever!

Which I've never made before. But I'm not one to argue with a craving so I googled it, then hit the Asian supermarker, and it was almost as easy to make as the Easy Mac and tasted soooooooooooooo beautiful!! Ginger is apparently great for warming your body up and eliminating toxins and relieving nausea; it helps your digestion; it does something good for your lungs and heart and circulation; my ovaries were not actually troubling me but apparently they like ginger too so that's another good thing. Then tonight I made up the broth again, and had run out of tofu and the vegies so I just threw in a little chopped red onion and some dried shitake mushrooms that have been in the pantry wondering what to do for years. AND I FEEL FANTASTIC!

2010-09-18T22:11:00.001+10:00

I jumped on my bike today and pedaled off to visit several opshops. I really didn't have much luck at all, but I did find this one thing.

It's what it looks like- an infant ninja monk doll. It is supposed to play music and is motorised, but I put batteries in it and it's broken. The nun-chucks are missing, too.

On the way home, I passed my favourite abandoned mansion. I've always wanted to find a hole in the fence to sneak in and explore. As a child and teenager I had lots of fun poking around houses in the neighbourhood that were left empty ready for demolition. And these days if we come upon one when we're out on one of our walks Simon and I will always have a stickybeak. But with only my ninja-baby to accompany me today I wasn't game to go in.

This was the only vantage point I could really get, poking my camera through the fence. There's a whole other wing to the right but it's half burned-down and blocked in by trees. I google-earthed it and there's a whole massive section out the back, plus outbuildings. I'd love to be able to go in there and take lots of photos!

a head start

2010-09-09T17:28:00.001+10:00

I need to do a little draping experiment, to re-create a garment I saw on the interwebs. It's a t-shirt cut from one piece of fabric which you can switcheroo into a bunch of different styles once you have it on. It has a hood that can become a cape, or you can make it look like a cardigan, and it can have sleeves or no sleeves. I've pretty much figured out in my brain how to make it but I need to do some actual fiddling about with the fabric ON the body before I start cutting.

Its impossible to do it on myself, and Simon is way too tall and gangly and I doubt he'd put up with being swathed and pinned in lavender jersey without whinging the whole time. I've got my sister and our friend Bec coming over for another crafternoon on Sunday so I'll be able to get them to help me then, but I'm soooo obsessed with making this, I can't stop thinking about it and trying to move forward with it somehow. I can't do the draping on my fullsize dressforms because of course they're headless. The best I could do was this mini-version on Ms Japanese posedoll. But of course her head's the size of a melon so the hood part can't be checked properly. I can't wait for Sunday!!!!

coast to coast

2010-09-03T21:14:00.004+10:00

You know how there's like, 'coaster people'? Simon and I are not coaster people, weren't raised in coaster homes. But my sister and her fella most definitely are. I'm always getting reamed when I go over there. I'll heedlessly put my mug or wineglass down on one of their midcentury teak coffee-tables, and all hell breaks loose: there's an eardrum-obliterating shriek from the Jen as she disgustedly frisbees a tiny bakelite disc at my forehead while her boo, the K Man, screams "You don't RESPECT WOOD!" Ah, I'm making them sound insaaaane! Because they are.

They're also my favourite people in the world, and the tables are pretty damn sweet- those two got mad ebay skillz. So when I was trying to get my crafty mojo back with a small project, I thought of coasters for the little dorks.

This was the first one, but it's too big! It has to become a teapot-rest instead. But I will go ahead and make more, smaller ones. Because if I can have any influence over what ricochets off my eyelid next time I go over there, I'd really rather it were quilted.

2010-08-29T15:10:00.001+10:00

How did this place get so messy? I haven't been in here in weeks!

Everything is in here, except my crafty mojo, which seems to have evaporated.

It's still really cold. I want it to be spring already! It's like my creative inspiration has just frozen up.

Argh!

lovin' the crafternoon

2010-08-15T12:42:00.001+10:00

I'm going to a crafternoon today! Yay! Two weeks ago a bunch of us went to see Making It Handmade at the Melbourne Film Festival, and we came out of it amped to MAKE STUFF TOGETHER!!!!

I've had a really tiring week, so this is just the thing for a crispy Sunday afternoon. A bunch of gals snacking and chatting and crafting. We're going to be mostly cross-stitching I think. I got all these embroidery yarns at an opshop ages ago and have done nothing but hoard them. So I'll share them at the crafternoon. But I think I will actually work on some knitting. I'm making my first cardigan. I'm finding it a little harrowing so it may be a good to have a bit of support around!

2010-08-14T10:53:00.001+10:00

The office I work in has an almost completely white interior. It's like sitting in a giant, foodless refrigerator. Or here. But there's a benefit to spending my waking hours in this windowless world where row upon row of track fluorescents illuminate every alabaster laminate surface: the place is basically one big lightbox, so my craft projects photograph beautifully in here. From my latest breaktime photoshoot:

It's one of my Nanna's knitting needles. I inherited her collection of approximately four thousand. I know she is looking down at me and rolling her eyes at the sentimentality that won't allow me to drop them off at the opshop. I have been using quite a few of them, and I even gave some to a friend who is a new knitter. There are a lot of odd ones though, and I found these instructions for making them into bracelets. It's the easiest project, it amounts to boiling them in water till they'll bend. But you should make one, because it's the sort of thing you'd show your Nan and she'd say, you clever girl you!

leaves

2010-07-30T19:21:00.003+10:00

I found this leaf pattern on ravelry (you can find it on there if you just search projects for 'leaves'). They're pretty addictive. I don't know what you... do with them exactly but I can't stop making them. I took them to work and my friend Lisa went nuts over them, wanted to learn how to do it. She couldn't knit, but I said I'd teach her how in our breaktimes. I have promised her that by Friday of next week she'll be ready to pump out leaves. She's making great progress; we've really only had two days-worth of breaks and she's already got casting-on and garter-stitch mastered. Next up is purl, and I'm confident Lisa will be a gun at that too. I think we may have a prodigy here, whaddyathink!

Lisa's first knitting.

2010-07-18T20:09:00.005+10:00

Do you know about the Sweater Curse? It has to do with boyfriends. If you knit them a sweater, they break up with you and all that yarn and time is wasted.

I'm not up to making a sweater or jumper, and I guess I wouldn't tempt fate, anyway. But I wanted to knit my sweetie something. He was against the idea. "Nah babe, I don't want anything. It's nice for you to just knit for yourself I think." I know he was remembering the hat I made for him years ago- the second he put it on he looked like he was about to go do a break-and-enter. The other morning at the train station we saw a young guy wearing what looked like a wide, rib-knit headband, which left his hair poking out the top. Simon leaned down and hissed urgently in my ear: "Never knit me one of those!"

I finished this hat today. The ribbed band ended up being so tight! It squashed my ears. Simon kindly offered up his enormous noggin to stretch it out. And it ended up looking better on him than me.

Which was somewhat annoying, because I really was looking forward to wearing this slouchy hat. But, in another way I got exactly what I wanted. Now it's yours, ya big boofhead :o)

2010-07-17T11:41:00.000+10:00

Last night after work I checked out a knitting store in the city that Aud told me about. It's called Morris & Sons and it's a gorgeous, huge store, full of so many beautiful yarns. I ran into mildlycrafty there, and she helped me pick out some yarn to make another slouchy hat from.

I came home and knitted while listening to This American Life podcasts. I only looked up when Simon crashed in, and saw that it was midnight. Picked the needles up again the minute I woke up this morning to finish off my first cable project, this scarflet. It's not long enough to wrap right around my neck, so I'll need a shawl pin to keep it on.

Now that I have more new yarn I am not moving from this couch the rest of the weekend, I'll tell you that right now. I am a woman obsessed.

who do you write like?

2010-07-15T09:32:00.000+10:00

So apparently, when I write about my my childhood

I write like
Stephen King

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

And when I write about my knitting,

I write like
David Foster Wallace

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

You have to analyze your blog posts too and tell me who you write like!

cable enabled

2010-07-11T18:18:00.005+10:00

Last night we stayed over at Chris and Aud's after a raucous birthday celebration for our friend Loz. The police came! Four of them, all aged about twenty-two, we laughed because they looked like Hot Cops. It was a bit anticlimactic, there was no kind of search performed on any person (not even the birthday girl), noone was shoved into the back of a divvy van. I don't even think the music had to be turned down. Anyway once they left Paradise City came on, the dancefloor erupted, and the rest of the night is a blur.

So then today none of us were much good for anything, but on the way back from breakfast we discovered there is a knitting shop on High Street so we girls popped in for a few little balls of wool and things. We went back to the house where Aud and I worked out how to knit cables.

The bottom few rows and the first twist that looks quite crap is my work, the other two that look almost perfect are Aud's. That little swatch took us about an hour and a half.

♪ i made a raspberry beret ♪

2010-07-10T17:02:00.003+10:00

♪ I found the yarn at a secondhand store ♪ which is where I get nearly everything.

I had originally planned to use a pattern from ravelry, but I lost the printout and when I returned it had been removed from the internets. So I decided to wing it, figuring out from other people's pictures how to do it. I just made a ribbed band, then increased some stitches and did the moss pattern around and around until I had a...

... huge, lumpy shape which recalls an actual giant raspberry instead of the soigné little chapeau I had set my heart upon owning. Clearly, a rank amateur like me has no business trying to reverse-engineer a knitting project. Even if I were to just embrace the Strawberry Shortcake-doll look I don't have enough yarn to finish it - the top middle of the hat isn't knitted all the way closed because I realised I was going to run out and I just cut my losses.

The good news is that I turned my sewing room inside out and found the pattern printout. So I've started again, but with different yarn. I will reuse the raspberry yarn but just right now I can't bring myself to rip out all the stitches I spent hours making.

If you're on ravelry, let me know so I can friend you and see all your projects!

Freaky Cosmetics Thursday: Secrets Revealed

2010-06-23T20:41:00.009+10:00

I got some lovely compliments on my last post, and a couple queries about my skin routine. I use Paula's Choice for all my skincare. Paula is this American lady who writes books called Blue Eyeshadow Should Absolutely Be Illegal! and Don't Go To The Cosmetics Counter Without Me! She's a cosmetics-and-skincare junkie and a zealot when it comes to assessing beauty products. For many years she was a consumer watchdog, then she started her own skincare company. My skin's never been better than since I started using her stuff. Great cleansers, moisturisers and the best non-greasy sunscreen in existence. The stand-out product I recommend everyone tries is the 2% Beta-Hydroxy Acid Lotion. (Here's your link if you live in the US or Canada) I've put a lot of friends onto it, and now they're addicts. It is fantastic at smoothing out and clearing your skin. It's like a moisturiser you use every day or every second day, it has a really gentle exfoliant action that is also able to unclog your pores. It's not scrubby, it just stops dead skin cells sticking together and building up too much. If I run out of it and haven't ordered more in time I really notice increased clogginess and my skin looks duller. So I try never to run out! If you have oily skin or don't need extra moisture, it comes in a gel and liquid form, too.

So far, not so Freaky. The other reason my skin looked smooth in the scarf photo is because I had a tinted moisturiser on. This one.

BUT!!!! Under that tinted moisturiser! Was THIS, WHICH MAKES ALL THE FREAKY DIFFERENCE!!!

North American readers, be not alarmed by the brand name; this is not a medicated product for treating any feminine ailment. It's simply a silicone-based gel used for the prevention of skin chafing, free of fragrance or colour. Clever people analysed the ingredients and noted they were identical to the ingredients in pre-foundation primer. Even if, like me, you get your Monistat Chafing Relief Powder-Gel internationally shipped, it works out about a quarter the price of makeup primers sold by cosmetics companies. There are people selling this on ebay.

Go buy it now. Use it. Even if you don't put foundation or tinted moisturiser on top of it, you will notice that it seems to diffuse any redness or blotchiness or patchiness in your complexion. If you put foundation on top... all I can say is, WATCH OUT, GIRLFRIEND! The first time I wore it out of the house my friend Joey did a double-take: "Wow! You look like your whole face has been Botoxed!! You look like... Shannen Doherty!" (?!?) My sister was all "What's with your face? You're OLDER than me! Well order me some! Payaback!" Next day I wore it, people at work were all "Hey!" and "Hi!" and "Did you get coloured contacts?" (?!?) and "saw u in the teameeting u look great WTF!!!! liek u never drnuk all tha free housered lastnite i arksed leelee she rekcons usaid it s omeshit u got of the intenet?! send lnk thx DEE."

cold snap

2010-06-20T16:47:00.003+10:00

Our house is so cold that when I switched on the light in my sewing room the other morning, the sudden burst of heat from the filament cracked the bulb and it shattered onto the floor. Did you ever hear of anything like that happening?

So all my crafty efforts for the next little while are going to be warmth-related- anybody know of any patterns for lightbulb cosies? I can't really call myself a knitter. I can only do knit and purl and cast on and bind off. I can't follow a pattern. That means scarves.

This scarf is moss stitch: knitpurlknitpurlknitpurl for a row, then purlknitpurlknitpurlknit, which you can do without having to look at at your hands. So you can settle in and watch a half-season of Nip/Tuck on DVD, and instead of being the lazy slob who has wasted nearly six hours snickering at Julian McMahon's narcissistic exploits and bare botty, you're the industrious little missy who made herself a brand new scarf.

Actually you do have to pay a bit of attention when it's time to make the splitty pokey-through bit towards one of the ends. But it's not that hard. By the way the splitty pokey-through innovation is a revolution in scarfmaking. Because with it, you can make the scarf about one-fifth to a quarter shorter than if you were to make a scarf that has to do a full loop around your neck to stay on. Less expensive to make! And I think it sits flatter and looks nicer.

Moss stitch makes a good scarf because it looks the same on both sides, and it doesn't curl up. It's firmer than something like a rib stitch, so it won't stretch and get droopy over months of wear. Also it feels so lovely and nubbly, and its pockety texture traps air to keep you warm. It's just a winner all round, really.

benign neglect

2010-05-29T16:45:00.009+10:00

Simon schlepped off to Dixons Recycled this afternoon to trade in nearly six hundred CDs. A couple of weeks ago he started getting our friends to come over and take what they wanted, but they weren't going quickly enough. That could be because while people were making their selections, he was standing over them extolling the virtues of turning one's back on materialism. "I want to get rid of the MATTER. You want the music, not the format, y'know?" All his music is now on the computer and backup drive and the ipod. "It's so liberating to get rid of STUFF! STUFF holds us BACK!" he exulted while hefting greenbag after greenbag of obsolete format into the car.

I've been encouraged to go into my sewing room and see if I can perhaps experience some of this same liberation by getting rid of any crafting supplies/unfinished items that might have outstayed their welcome. Fat chance! Instead, I thought I'd share some pictures of some of the matter I have accumulated and probably will never part with, despite its arguable obsolescence.

Japanese posedoll. Stripped of the voluminous frilly dress and hat she was dressed in when I found her at the opshop, I had every intention of dressing her up again in a Mad Men-style office lady outfit, giving her new red hair and making myself a little Joan Holloway doll. That was six months ago and upon closer inspection, Ms Posedoll, while she sports a formidable styrofoam bosom, is too narrow through the hips to pass for Joan. But I keep her around. She may have cost only two dollars, but she's NOT getting thrown out.

Blythe here is my most expensive abandoned craft project. I got caught up in the online madness of Blythe obsession. She costs an obscene amount of money, and then people go to further expense 'customising' her: sanding her face down (done), changing the colours of her four sets of eyes (did that too) and taking her scalp off with a knife to re-root her hair, plug by plug. This last is the part I got halfway through before running out of hair. Then, Edie vomited on her, but I didn't find out about it till it was all dried up, and I had to soak Blythe to get her clean (a little bit of bleach went in the water to get rid of the tuna-smell). Then I put her in this pink shoebox and hid the shoebox.

I made Blythe a shirt too. I even bought special mini-buttons for it from a Japanese web store but could only sew ONE of them on before I gave up. I could never throw it out- it represents about sixty hours of work.

I bought a kilo of merino wool roving, space-dyed it with Kool Aid I smuggled back from our Canada holiday, then spun it on a drop-spindle I made out of a CD and dowel, then plyed together into yarn. Then I started knitting it and realised there wasn't going to be enough to... knit anything, really. I drank all the rest of the Kool Aid I had brought back- fifty or so packets. I cannot believe that stuff is still legal, and being given to children. You can taste the coal tar in it, it stains your whole mouth, your fingers and the jug you made it in. It makes the back of your eyes prickle and your face feel tight, with tiny little clammy bumps on your jawline that go away after an hour or so. What I wouldn't give for some right now.

Anyway, now that all the CDs are gone there's a whole heap more shelf space freed up so I've moved a bunch of supplies onto them , so my sewing room is less cluttered and I might actually get some stuff done in there soon.

and more!

2010-05-19T19:55:00.003+10:00

Avon bath oil bottles: I'd put them at about 70's, 80s? I don't collect Avon but I do love me some coloured milk-glass. I found the one without a stopper in Oakleigh, and then two days later, the other one in Ashburton. I thought I'd use them as bud vases, or display them with this.

I thought the guy at left qualified as a Freaky Ceramic. An anatomically correct bear wearing a sunhat and carrying a coin-purse? For $2 he was coming home with me, where I pondered the mysterious hole in his chest... on his bottom was stamped 'Benihana of Tokyo'- and, in a flash, I though, oh gosh, what I have here might be a sort of Japanese special thing, with spiritual significance. The hole was obviously for incense and I was being very ignorant for thinking he was freaky. Then I googled Benihana of Tokyo, discovered it was an international chain of Teppanyaki restaurants where mixed drinks are served in this exact bear tankard (and other tankards in different forms), and the hole is for the straw. In retrospect, it made sense that I found him on the same shelf as this tiki tankard, right.

This is a fantastic book, read it cover-to-cover in an afternoon and learned a lot. Anecdote after anecdote of pets with mysterious psychic and telekinetic powers. It's incredible! BUT, written by a scientist under a nom-de-plume, so of course, completely true.

And here's our favourite psychic pet, Edie, communicating telepathically with a two-dollar duckie:

...and more opshoppy scores!

2010-05-17T21:54:00.001+10:00

I used to have a vintage GIRL Guides belt with retro-tastic silver buckle which I loved but it disappeared. I found this Scouts belt for $3. It might actually be for Cubs, it's pretty small, I can only fit it high up on my true waist, right under my ribs. So I can't wear it with any of my hipster jeans unless I attach the buckle to a longer leather strip.

Sewing patterns. The box on the end had the bra patterns and a whole lot of elastics, underwires and bra-making components. Five dollars the lot! Looks like someone got all excited about bra-making and then thought better of it. I can relate... I already had a box-o-bra-bits in my sewing room that I started myself. One day I WILL make bras. I will. Hundreds of them!

What is WITH blogger lately! These photos are taking forever!

2010-05-16T15:00:00.002+10:00

I actually got quite a bit of good stuff at the oppy's last week in addition to the Terri Brogans, but I hadn't photographed them till today!

Another aquatic-themed ashtray, to go with this one. $2! I didn't even realise it was an ashtray until after I'd bought it, just thought it was a hideous little beauty, and the price was right.

We had this game when we were kids but lost the pieces! So it was good to find this 70's era one for $4. I loooove retro board-game packaging. I'm always on the lookout for them. I want to find a Ker-PLUNK! Unfortunately this one should have been labelled 'Imperfection'. Simon had never seen the game before and so I made him play it with me, thinking his startle reaction would be funny. But it ticked all the way down to zero and then didn't move, which really confused Simon, because my anticipatory glee had been visibly building. And the ticking stopped and my face fell and he's all, "What was the point of that?" Anyway, the clockworky-platform-popper thing doesn't work. EXCEPT when you poke it hundreds of times and give up in disgust and go to put it back in the box. THEN it pops in your face and Simon laughs at you.

Sadako's blog has made me want to go back and re-read all the trashy literature printed material of my youth. I've been on the lookout for the Virginia Andrews cannon and have now collected all but the very first book of the Flowers in the Attic/Dollanganger family Saga. Mum was very against me reading this stuff. For good reason- the content makes the Twilight series look wholesome. Mum's a librarian and takes quality literature really seriously. She was genuinely hurt when she'd catch me sneaking them. "It'll rot your brain!" she'd whine, her eyes glittering with tears. "They're full of bad attitudes to women, too (sniffle!)" She'd have burned them all except they belonged to my friend Tammy, whose mother bought them for her. Mum had to make do with disapproving of Tammy's mother, and making me keep the books away from my little sister. If anybody comes across the first book in an oppy could they grab it for me? Don't pay more than fifty cents.

Another linen teatowel. $2!

There's actually heaps more but uploading these pictures is taking a really long time today for some reason. I'll do more later.

thrift score: 70s sunnies

2010-05-04T14:35:00.004+10:00

I was so pleased to find these! I went opshopping with my sister Jen yesterday and got quite a few treasures... these sunnies are stamped 'Terri Brogan' and are made of Optyl, which is a fairly fabulous thermoplastic. You have to be careful you don't leave them in your car on a really hot day because they soften and turn into Dali-esque melty-sunnies. Apparently though you can reposition them and stick them into cold water and they're fine again. But I'm not going to try it.

I'm glad I got to these before my sister! They looked good on her but she already has a cool pair she nicked from our mum, which are even bigger, rounder and have awesome blue lenses.

I tried to do a Charlie's Angels hairstyle, big flipped-out wings with my curling-iron, but it dropped right out as soon as I left the bathroom! So instead, I tried to get a little Olsen vibe happening: do you know the reason they are often photographed with their mouths in that funny position?

The shirt is 70s too, it's a Wrangler which I borrowed from Jen and have been meaning to give back for about eight years. It's soooo comfy, it's been washed about a million times and is supersoft.

i ♥ amy sedaris

2010-05-04T12:12:00.005+10:00

I loooove Amy Sedaris, and I heard last year she was coming out with a craft book at the end of 2009, then it was pushed to March 2010, then March came and went, no book or much news. I just saw it up today on Amazon for release in November! But at least they had a cover peek!

I will just have to make do with re-reading her first book until November. If you haven't seen Hospitality Under the Influence you should really try to get ahold of it. I found copies of the hardback full-colour version at fly-by-night-books on the corner of Elizabeth and A'Beckett Streets in Melbourne for $15 and ended up buying three copies to give to friends. Everyone loves it.

I love David Sedaris too. When he came to Melbourne my friend Aud and I went to see him perform his work at Hamer Hall and afterwards we lined up and met him. Aud got her book signed and also David drew her a bonus cat sketch, told us a story I cannot repeat and directed us to check out a delightfully vulgar website. I told him he needed to tell Amy to come visit Melbourne too and he said he would.

games people play

2010-04-30T14:59:00.008+10:00

Oh, look what I found today! Is your poker game lacking a certain something? How about your lovelife? Perhaps both could be improved after a few rounds of...

On closer inspection it seems to be fairly innocent:

Is it just me, or is the guy also reminding you of a Happy Days-era Scott Baio cross-bred with Rocky Balboa? And she is totally giving off ABIGAIL vibes!!!

Bought from the naughty folk at the Sacred Heart Mission Opshop, 415 Inkerman Street East St Kilda.

magical mystery opshop

2010-04-29T13:44:00.003+10:00

Last year Simon and I went down to visit his parents in Tasmania, and we went for a bit of a drive around the wee island. I made him stop at every opshop I spotted. In one little town I came upon the opshop that had previously existed only in my imagination: the idealised, arcadian thriftstore of dreams.

The proprietress of the shop, Jenny, ran it as a charity for the care of abandoned animals (those kitties were a rescued litter, and they were for sale!), rescue of injured native animals, the promotion of native plants and the preservation of Tasmania's wilderness areas. She very graciously allowed me to photograph the shop but seemed pretty amused by the fact that I wanted to. When I told her I wanted to put them on a blog about op-shopping- and explained what a blog was- she thought that was pretty weird but was okay with it.

Anyway, I thought I had lost these pictures! But Simon found them on the computer the other day. However, the tragedy is, I DO NOT REMEMBER WHERE THE SHOP IS! I am going to do some googling and investigation and try to find out.

ain't nothin but a label...

2010-04-28T09:45:00.004+10:00

...but they were fun to make! I did them on my Gocco screenprinter so it was very easy. Even while simultaneously watching a Nip/Tuck DVD. Even with Edie trying to help by sitting in the Gocco box and preventing me from getting to the inks, then rolling over a couple of not-quite-dry labels and getting them stuck to her fur.

I thought it'd be nice to have something to sew into the clothes I make for myself, and for clothes or little sewn items I give as gifts. Buying woven-tape labels is pretty expensive. I'm really pleased with how these turned out- the ink's not quite perfect, and it reminds me of the weathered look of old, painted outdoor signs. I'm not going to clean-finish the edges of the the material- that sounds like an exercise in frustration. I think they look good pinked and a bit frayed, or else I might sew them into clothing with a line of coloured thread zigzagged over the edges. It'll look kinda vintage-y, and definitely handmade.

look who's back

2010-04-26T11:07:00.000+10:00

We wanted to sleep in, today being a public holiday, but this gal had other ideas. Honk honk!

Really though, I feel sorry for her. She has no friends to hang out with, must be very lonely. I was going to go outside and say hi but Simon said, "You're never going to have a good encounter with a peacock."

Reconsidering the seventies...

2010-04-20T16:24:00.005+10:00

I used to be allergic to the seventies. Hated the style of the era completely. But lately my opinion has reversed. Partly I think its the influence of Genie, but I have also become more attuned to the Art Nouveau influences of the time and so have developed an appreciation. Though I'm still queasy about all the orange, avocado green, harvest gold, mission brown, and the preponderance of polyester... I've come around to the charms of (some of) the fashion silhouettes.

I just bought this pattern off ebay, can't wait for it to arrive.

I'm not thinking of making it exactly as it appears on the envelope; what I like is how the yoke detail is done on view C. I will lose the waistband-thingy, and instead of blouson sleeves with wrist ruffles, I'll do a plainer cuff. With a little tweaking it will look a bit like this Anthropologie cardigan.

Did you know, it's actually possible to have a polyester allergy? Something new every day...

2010-04-18T11:31:00.000+10:00

I checked, and these are not Triffids, thank goodness.

I told Edie to not to worry but she still looks a little perturbed.

A cool song and video

2010-04-17T13:32:00.004+10:00

This video clip is old, but I just found it. It's filmed around my old neigbourhood, in Brunswick and Northcote.

I get a kick out of recognising parts of Melbourne on film!

Teehee, I think I even recognise that couch.

Teeth are not tools

2010-04-14T21:17:00.002+10:00

What's the best way to attach hammer-on snaps to a garment? If you guessed 'not with your teeth', you'd be correct. The reason this method is inferior is it can cause teeth to chip while doing little to secure the snap.

Use a mallet and the tool supplied with the snaps for best results.

I'm going to make more of these knit tops with the polo shirt-style placket closures. I hadn't really used snaps on anything before and it was fun right up until I had the brilliant idea to bite them to make sure they were really stuck on there properly. It was overkill, they aren't going to come off. I think they look good on this top but really, the bloom is off the rose for me with snaps now. I'm going to the dentist to get my teeth ground smooth again, and then it's buttons only for the next little while!

Placket Practice

2010-04-10T22:29:00.006+10:00

I was thinking it would be a nice thing to do to make a shirt for Simon. I made him two several years ago, back in my first foray into sewing. But they... weren't very good. The pattern sizing was way off, so the first one would have fit John Candy. Simon is built like Shaggy from Scooby Doo. And yet the buttons popped off that one. I embroidered cactuses (yeah) on the next one, and Simon wore it to a bar where a friend was having her birthday and we were denied entry.

I think what I will do this time, is I will not use a commercial pattern. I just can't find a nice one. I think I will take one of his old worn-out Country Road shirts and copy that. Obviously, I've seen the error of my ways with regard to embroidered embellishment.

I've spent a couple of hours reading up about the design details and techniques for men's shirts, and have been practicing making sleeve plackets. I'm one of the few people I know who quite likes the muslin stage, and doing little mock-ups of design details. But I really need to nut things out before I'm confident to try it on nice fabric, if I don't it's too stressful!

I had a tee shirt a few years ago that had a neckline placket which was made with woven fabric, I thought I'd try and see if I could sew one. I've never sewn knit to woven before and it worked out better than I expected so I might make myself a few grandpa-style tees with the little snappy-plackets and bias-bound necks.

Well that's it, bedtime. I'm sooooooo tired right now- Simon and I rode our bikes over to my parent's house for lunch today. We went along the Gardiner's Creek trail which should practically take us door to door but we took a seriously wrong turn and realised too late that we had followed a rogue, offshoot creek, and it ended up taking us almost three hours to get to mum and dad's. They live approximately twelve kilometres away.

That's the spirit

2010-04-09T11:01:00.006+10:00

I'm always on the lookout for old linen teatowels in the oppy's. I found this great one at the NCJW Opshop on Hawthorn Rd in Caulfield. It features retro graphics and recipes for old-school cocktails- the kind that Mad Men's Don Draper has his young daughter mix for him! Now if I ever need to make someone an Old Fashioned, a Tom Collins, a Sidecar or a White Lady, I'm set.

Also, I'll know just what's required if someone tells me they want a... Monkey Gland?

What type are you?

2010-04-08T10:15:00.003+10:00

Have you done this beautifully-constructed online test? It's a personality test, but more fun than the cutesy kind that tells you if you're a Carrie-Samantha-Miranda-or-Charlotte, or what Middle-Earth species you'd belong to, or if you work best as part of a group or were born to rule. It tells you what FONT you are which is pretty important to know.

I am Cooper Black Italic. I do like it. But am I right- it's the same font that they use for those funny name-plate necklaces Carrie used to wear? Bit daggy. Oh well, so am I. What type are you?

2010-04-03T20:08:00.002+11:00

This long weekend we've been puttering around the house, spring cleaning in honour of it being now, officially, well into autumn. Our drawers and wardrobe got emptied of all the stuff we just don't wear. It's all now in two bags ready for the opshop. There's several pairs of jeans that don't really fit me anymore. Their pockets were full of lolly-wrappers. Hmm.

I cleared out the sewing room a bit too. I decided to finally put hook-and-eye closures on a skirt my sister made, then lost interest in and gave to me. Two years ago.

I found a muslin of a tee shirt that I'd made from two-dollar-per-metre fabric. When I'd bought the fabric I'd thought it was pretty horrid. But I subsequently decided NO it was AMAZING! But it was all sold out when I went back to get more. Yesterday I salvaged the muslin into a singlet top.

And they go together quite nicely, I think. Simon indulged me in a little photoshoot. We fought! Like always. Because Simon is a terrible photographer. And I am a terrible moddle. Simon sends a shout-out to all the unsung photog-heroes of the sewing blogosphere- a cri de coeur to the husbands, the boyfriends, the children, the housemates: "Let's meet up for a beer or several!"

I'm smizing.

Can you believe this is the pattern Jenno used? The girl has vision.

Tomorrow, we're doing a bike-ride along the rail trail from Lilydale to Warburton. It will take about three hours there, then the next day we ride back. When we get back home I may try those jeans on one last time.