A Package!

I heard from my mum that I'd received a parcel in the mail, and I wasn't sure whether it would be the long-awaited Brett Bara book, or my lomography Diana Mini camera. So when I got home, I excited ripped off the paper and lo and behold...


So, no, Sewing in a Straight Line still hasn't arrived yet... sigh. But it was love at first sight for me and this little beauty. So... pink. I loved the packaging. Very well presented.


And inside, there was this cute little book...


I wish I was this cool.


I'm going look at the manual now. I can't wait to get some film and test it out!

Shop til You Drop, August 2011

There were so many great ideas in last month's Shop (I generally buy 4 magazines a month, Real Living, Shop, Aus InStyle and Vogue Paris, supplementing with the occasional Aus Vogue when I like the cover.) I thought I'd show you a few I especially liked.


Karen Walker.I know I'm late to the party, but I'm only just starting to really love her stuff. This belt reminds me of the bow belt tutorial a while ago that was pretty cool from Casey's Elegant Musings.


I was looking for something else, possibly a necklace from this website, but I love this bag. So sweet looking, great for bike-riding.

Fashionary. This is so cool... I am a little desperate to find a good reason to buy this, but I don't think I would use it, it's too awesome to use.

Cool dress, cool shoes.

I made this dress recently, just kind of a slapped together thing to distract me from the seemingly never-ending project that was my wedding dress (done, at last!). I actually really like it. I wore it to work a few days ago, and all everyone seemed to say was 'Aren't you cold in that?' like all I was wearing was a crop-top and g-string. Anyway. Oh gosh, look at that mess. Keeping it real, folks, keeping it real.

I also bought these shoes, comfortable and they have that slightly flapper-esque style which I'm liking quite a bit at the moment. They were rediculously on special, down from something like $130 to $30 at Mathers.

Wedding Invitations

Hi, old friend! So I've been going gangbusters with wedding preparations... now that I've sent out all of the invitations, I thought I'd show them here, too.


I love the paper with the peacocks on it... from Christina Re. The deep green paper is metallic. I wasn't going to put the ribbon and butterfly on, but my mum informed me that wedding invitation should be red and gold, and now I think it actually looks better with that extra touch of colour.


So the inside... I got a stamp made with all the details on it, and stamped them on the invites. The small cards are just printed with an inkjet printer... they bled a little, but after stamping 160 invites, I wasn't very fussy.


A closeup of the back and front of the small cards.


The stamp that I used. I got this made up at federal stamps, they can do any size and without a handle. I used a white chalk stamp (don't try rolling paint on, it doesn't work!) which worked well, but stamping every invitation took hours.

On another note, I just discovered a better way to sew zippers through this video by Brett Bara on Design*Sponge. I had been doing it without sewing the opening shut first and I now think that is lame. I just bought her new book because I'm hoping there will even more pearls of wisdom to be found there.

Manic



Wow, it's been so long since Bob Dylan. I've been a little bit anxious about the upcoming wedding, now that there are only 6 months left (how did that happen?). I've finally started on my wedding dress, if you can call crazily smashing beads with pliers starting, thanks to the tips from this forum thread.

Just finished cooking dinner now, I was making minestrone soup, and I noticed some day-old rice in the cooker that I didn't know about (I live with my brother, so forgive me) so I threw that in. I have some vague memory of cooked rice having the ability to grow some kind of really nasty gastro bug, but I don't know.

On another note (I'm on a few tangents today, sorry) I'm quite a bit interested in joining this. I've always enjoyed the idea of pen-pals.

Jacket, done!

I finished this jacket with a flared peplum probably about a week or two ago. We took these photos just before the Bob Dylan concert (which was awesome). I'm wearing boyfriend jeans from Just Jeans (they were in InStyle magazine, so I couldn't resist, even though I usually avoid distressed denim), a massive ring from Diva, and the green bag, which I love, is from a store in the Galleries Victoria, I can't remember the name at the moment, I just remember that the logo has a guy with a massive afro on it. Oh and the heeled brogues are new. I got them from Wittner, they're so cute. I just finished a matching skirt, yay.

I Love Gladys Knight And The Pips

Gosh darn it, I love this video. (I have seen a Ben Stiller, Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr mimed version where they pretend to be The Pips, and I like it too, but that just makes the real thing seem even more adorable and sweet.)

You Can Find Gems Anywhere

The place where my fiance and I work is moving away from the city (boo) so they're trying to get rid of as much as possible. I received an email from him saying that his lab was giving away free books, so I went up to have a look. Most of the books I took home were actually useful, but I took this one because I really like the cover. It's so simple and graphic and I love the mustard yellow. Modern texts tend to blast you with over-the-top representations of cells and electrons, but this is lovely.

What I Did Next.

Sometimes, because people know that I make my own clothes, they comment on what I wear, and they ask whether I made it. Since I haven't made anything recently, I've had to respond with 'no' for a while, until someone reminded me that I said that I wouldn't buy anymore clothes, that I wanted to make all of my own clothes. So I went out and bought some material for a jacket. I took the photo just before I was due for iceskating class, sorry. I've half finished the pattern, I still have to draft out the sleeve, collar and epaulette patterns and I am half hoping to do a toile tonight (but maybe not).

The plan for the jacket. Just ignore that crazy hair.

Enough, I Say!

So I just finished a sketching class that my brother gave me for Christmas. It was fun, and I certainly learnt a lot, but I've decided that life sketching is not my thing. Not that I'm being ungrateful (or maybe I am, sorry!) but I just thought, 'Enough with the bowls and the nudes! More clothes, please!' Anyway, here's another sketch from my notebook. And you may have noticed the slight rehash of my banner. Thank you and goodnight!

Fierce!

When I'm having a break during iceskating practice, I do a sketch in my notebook. What do you think?

Ob-sessed!

So I was recently thinking of more animals to sketch re: my wedding invitations. That's why I've been spending hours gazing doe-eyed at photos and videos of dormice. Dang, they are so cute.

Swatch Box Swatch Card...


So I finally got around to making up fabric swatches. I tried a couple of ways before I decided on this cd box. You can also buy dividers which is handy for sorting things out by fabric composition. Oh, and the pinking shears I got from King of Knives (not online, though). They are a little expensive, but so much better than the $20 ones. Don't forget to never use fabric scissors for paper.


So I just pinned the fabric onto these large notecards I got from Big W. I trimmed them down with my guillotine because they were too wide and just write down any extra information I need. So now my fabric swatches sit neatly on my sewing table, ready to be of service.

Go Go Flamingo! (and friend)

I sketched these 2 birdies tonight as an idea for our wedding invitations. I always say that flamingoes are possibly the cutest animals in the world (and chubby european robins too).

My New Notebook

I had a notebook, which I originally had planned to use for notes and random sketches, but it kind of turned into a messy sob-story journal, and I accidently wet it and the cover ink bled on some of the pages. So I decided to start again. I like lined pages as I like things to be neat and my writing tends to go up-and-down-and-everywhere if I don't have some kind of guide.



The one thing I am a little sad about is that the paper is more absorbent than what I'm used to, but I've decided that it's good practise, to keep things simple and not have too many lines in my drawings. And I really like coloured pens. Fun!

Red Dress

So here is something I made, at last. It's sort of a practise run of the bodice for my wedding dress, or any evening dress, really. It looks loose on the mannequin (plus the poor constrast, red on red *sigh*), I really need a new one because it doesn't have my proportions. The bust measurement is the same as mine, but it's wider in the back but quite a bit smaller in the chest. It fits well on me, though. I'll post a photo of me wearing it later.

Fabric Swatch Book

Ok, so it has been a slow few weeks for drawing, sewing or anything-ing for me. I have done a few things which were fun,

• The entombed warriors at the NSW Art Gallery - amazing. I am always thrilled by the fact that you can still see things that were made by people more than 2000 years ago. I just stared at the statues thinking, "there was someone who looked just like that alive once."
• Soap - I love acrobatics, so it was really fun for me. If that doesn't really do it for you, then avoid. I think it's pretty cool what the human body is capable of.

So when I went to the Art Gallery, I also browsed the gift shop and I saw this great fabric swatch book. I was too cheap to fork out for it there and then, but I still may buy it (I mean I am still thinking about it, days later) but I thought I should at least try and make my own, you know? So I've been saving scraps of fabric and noting down their composition and care instuctions to put into a binder. Yeah, it's all pretty messily slapped together at the moment, but when it's nice and pretty, I'll post a photo.

Hello, Cohabitation!

So here is my quick and dirty sketch of what I thought would look nice in our future living room. For now, I'll be moving into a rented apartment, with white walls and ceilings (with pink cornices) and salmony pink carpet, but when we get our own place, I'd love moody grey walls with a stencilled fleur de lys motif in matte silver. Then I'd get this rug and a floor lamp to brighten the area up. We've both been dying to get a chesterfield sofa (I love cushions - maroon and pale blue) and I love rocking chairs (he already has a recliner, but secretly I love this one) This is his existing coffee table, which I like anyway and I'd decorate it with a cute vase and a souvenir from our Paris honeymoon (but the one in the blue rectangle is from here)

What do you think?

I Am Not A Photographer

So I have this not-very-good digital camera, that I always have trouble taking photos with - I remember once I chose to bring my polaroid camera over it to a wedding (not so good in hindsight, they're actually very loud in a quiet room, especially when everyone else is in complete silence.) But shame on me, I've never really bothered to read the manual, I just leave it on auto and hope for the best. Last week I finally hunkered down and actually learnt what the settings are and how to focus it and I tried taking some photos.

I know, it's just a top on a mannequin, and this is actually the least blurry of the bunch. But you know, the colours are true, and I followed the advice of the blogging sages: never use flash! My parents gave it to me for Christmas (cool!) so I sketched out a little outfit design for it:


I like that something so sweet and elegant can look sleek and tough with the black leather cuff and ankle boots. I want to make the tuxedo pants myself, I haven't made a pair of pants in ages.

Christmas Is Over, But The Tree Is Still Up.

On Monday I went out and bought things that I wanted but didn't get for Christmas (not that I'm ungrateful, seriously - I made a killing this year). My brother got me a drawing course and I went to get supplies, like proper drawing paper, a sketching board (I was going to also get an easel, but really, I don't paint that much) and some pencils, charcoal sticks and erasers (I lurve kneadable erasers - in my mind they're magic, probably because I was never allowed to get them when I was a kid so I had to use bits of bread). But then I couldn't control myself and got some nice coloured pencils. They're the best medium for me, cheerful and quick.

I also got a couple of books, this one (mine is translated from japanese, yay!)

I know that I probably won't make designs as unusual as this to wear, but I figure that having the skill to do it will be useful.

This other book I only got because it was 6 dollars and I can't walk away from a bargain.

It was a good read, anyway.