Normal-ish service resuming

After three weeks of a little sewing, a LOT of unpicking, some tears, tantrums and backache, I have finally finished the dresses and just in time. The big night is tomorrow.
I will make morning tea for the church playgroup, as I do every Wednesday, then taxi the girls to the hairdresser and to The Formal.
Most of the students will travel by limo and stay in an hotel after the event but this pair, like their brothers before them, will have to forgo all of that and I somehow doubt it is much of a loss.
It's funny isn't it? kids these days have more luxuries for their high school graduation than I had for my wedding! And don't I sound  old :)

I have more things in my diary for the next few days than I normally have in a month and when I get through all of that the stars might even align so that I can do a few things that have been rather too long on the back burner.

“Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”

a friend of mine was recently telling me the story of how she was standing, looking at the front door and imagining it with a pretty tile hanging nearby. her son was amazed that she was just standing. why was she standing there? he wanted to know. she told him that she was trying to visualise this decorative tile. again, the question: why?i would like one beautiful thing, just one beautiful thing" she said.

the story made me a little sad. my friend has been a farmer for many years, working drought effected land with lots of heartbreak and not a lot of joy or lot of money. she is also a practical woman by nature, not given to needless frippery and functionality is top of her requirement list whatever she is dealing with so i see how it is that there aren't many beautiful things in her life but it got me to thinking about how to have beauty and still have functionality.

of course my idea of beauty isnt everyone's but i thought i would make a list of ways i might try to "upsize" in the beauty department, even if i spent my days driving a tractor

• exchange white t-shirts for colours
• buy clothes that have interest added through texture or a print
• dress up for trips to town
• get some inexpensive jewellery that you wont mind losing or breaking
• have a regular haircut, or use pretty ties
• wear nice undies, you gotta wear em so they might as well be nice

i wonder what you do to keep some beauty in your life? and what is the male equivalent? do the fellas like a new shirt? a boutique beer? extra time in the shed? new gadgets?

*pictured oxfam resin bracelet $8.95

the way to go

as so often happens around here we kind of got into a ridiculous convo. this one was about my potential funeral at some time in the very far distant future and eco coffins and personalised coffin decor.
yeah so anyhow i have issued some instructions, mainly that i do not wish to have a custom coffin that looks like a screen saver. no sunsets, no rainforests, no dolphins, definitely no dolphins. no sky, no oceans, no soaring eagles.
neither do i want my coffin to proclaim my love for country or sporting team or any other group.
and definitely no cardboard coffin made to look like timber. why have an ecologically sound coffin and pretend it's wood? all that does is reinforce the idea that tearing down forests is the way to go.
i'm thinking maybe a warhol style collection of photos of me. or a car bed.
an all over floral design would have been nice but i want the enormous floral arrangement on top of the coffin to be well appreciated so a floral decorated coffin might clash.....

yeah so anyways, what would you recommend for my personalised mortal remains capsule? or what do you want on yours?

i have a couple of days off and needing a new pair of shoes i set off to the shops. well, shoe buying can get a bit complicated and i didnt see any obvious choices so i abandoned the mission in favour of a bit of a window shopping wander and quickly discovered that my current jacket fetish is becoming out of hand. (long term readers would remember my white dress fetish, i may have mentioned others, they are new each season) the trench style looks nice but would i like a classicly styled trench or a military one, what's the best length to get? and why are they all in such practical colours? i didnt see anything i would consider actually wearing for under $80 and my faves were all over the $100 mark......i did as i always do in such circumstances, decide i've managed this long, i can manage a bit longer without it. wouldnt want to get something i'm ambivalent about! i stopped in the fabric store and looked at pattern books in case inspiration struck there and it was nice to sit and leaf through the latest offerings from vogue, simplicity and my old fave, burda. all shopped out i made my way to the cafe i regard as my home at the shops. i was a little disappointed that i couldn't have a booth. the booths are much too big for just one person at lunchtime so i understand but i do love them, they are like a little rampart from stress! a coffee and coconut bread went down very nicely and i was intrigued to watch the woman next to me. her banana bread was not accompanied by butter as would be usual and the next moment i looked around she had jam all over it and was slipping a jam jar into her handbag. what preparation for a simple cup of tea, how habitual must be her life! she also used a fork to dip the bread into her cup of tea. there are no such ceremonies with me, i just gobble the whole lot up, licking butter from my fingers and cappuccino foam from my lips! last stop was the greengrocer where i actually managed to find some fleeting enthusiasm for cooking as i bought gnocci and the makings of a vegetarian sauce. after all the pleasures of the trip, what with fashion and fabrics and food i couldnt resist a couple of figs. i look forward to those. what are you looking forward to?

the makings of a fashionista

this week nana jo is reminiscing about her mum's sewing and about a particular pink cape, it's a good story (read it here) and it got me to thinking about my own memories of a mum who sewed all our clothes (and even though i write that past tense, mum is still with us and still sewing) jo's mum sewed with some secrecy, only revealing the finished garment but my mum liked to make us try everything on numerous times so there was never a secret about it. my sister and i still fall about laughing as we remember mum poking or tugging at a bubbly shoulder or a twisted sleeve, a fitting was an exercise in patience for a kid who couldnt undertand why it had to happen at all. when i was a wee thing mum would procure the fabric and decide on the style and proceed to make what she thought. often the fabric was given to her and the garment was designed to suit it. i know that mum has fond memories of a coat she made when i was so young i dont remember. by all accounts i looked smashing in that coat and i think that the making of it was a triumph of design because the fabric was a collection of oddly shaped remnants although that could have been something different altogether because the stories tend to jumble in my mind. as i got older mum would buy the fabric while i was at school and i would come home and make design suggestions, there was one particular blue dress i wore when i was about five and i am pretty sure i demanded the frills down the front so my design aspirations started early! as i got even older i shopped with mum and i remember the aladdins caves of fabric treasure we would visit. the rolls of fabric stood up on stands or in boxes, often jammed so closely together that it was difficult to move through the shop. a colour or pattern would catch my eye and the next essential part of the process was to touch it. if the planets aligned the beauty of the pattern would be enhanced by the texture of the cloth and we would take the roll off the stand to search for the price, always hidden by fabric falling everywhere. we would guess at the price as we searched and if it was less than we anticipated that was icing on the cake. sometimes it would be as expensive as we imagined and we would take that as proof of our good taste! i dont remember one of these precious finds ever being replaced on the stand on the basis of price, although they may have been, what i did learn was that the one you have-to-have is the one you will never tire of. if you can find the dollars to get the have-to-have item you wont regret it and that philosophy informs my the way i shop even now. part of the joy in looking for fabric was in the imagining of how it should be made up and after years at mum's knee i was nearly as good as she was at visualising the finished garment. i would describe it to mum and with the really fanciful elements i would have to try to sketch it. mum could nearly always interpret my poor drawing to know exactly what it was i wanted and then she would rise to the challenge of figuring out how to make my vision a reality, she always did make it real. i'm not the seamstress mum was but those days have never left me and i amuse myself when some poor person tells me about a new dress or what-have-you. they say something like "it's pink and it has long sleeves and the skirt is about that long" i often torture the poor person with questions about details they dont see or cant explain: what kind of pink is it? what is the fabric? is it stiff? flowing? matte? does it have sheen? texture? what shape are the long sleeves? what shape is the neck? how is the waist finished? what about the skirt? how does it fall? what details are on this dress that this person cant articulate? ah, mum, it's a legacy all right...... and not always a good one!

curmudgeonly

this week the dishwasher got broken. i can take a good guess about who did it in a fit of temper but guessing isnt helping....
this dishwasher is annoyingly off the market and there are no parts so when the broken bit means that the other bit fails under the extra load i wont have a dishwasher. and i am the only person who cares and tonight i got told to take care of it ......
if anyone has motive to take care of the damned thing that would be me!

a good friend told me not to catastrophise (this is a new subject, in case you are interested) only i am not the one catastrophising, someone else is doing that, only my friend cant direct any frustration at the source so i get the lecture. i wont hold it against him but i will hold it against the drama queen who caused it

would someone, anyone, please, please, take the garbage out without being asked and preferably before there is as much overflowing as there is in the actual bag?

and if folks are going to ask my opinion would they be polite enough to wait for and think about my answer? if you dont care then dont pretend. i hate the fakery and i dont want to waste energy thinking about how to present an answer you dont respect

the next person to recommend i get a brazilian, no matter how sincere and well meaning that recommendation is, will be risking a brisk whack (mob style) you might like the idea of getting down on all fours and exposing yourself to a stranger for the purposes of applying hot wax and tearing your hair out but it isnt my idea of a turn on

i think i'm done for the moment.............

fetishist fashion

perusing the paper on saturday i was interested to see that the sydney fringe festival's alternative fashion parade was to be held that very evening. the use of the word "steampunk" was the draw card that got me motivated to go....

i spent an hour (can you believe it?) trying to figure out the best neo-victorian outfit already existing in my wardrobe. very plain compared to most victorian dress, i suppose it qualified for the neo part extremely well while still managing to include elements of another era. i wore a plain, full length purple satin skirt, A -line with a tulle petticoat for volume, a tucked black blouse, the collar turned under to produce a round button up neckline, black satin sash to create a bow at the back and an antique style marcasite brooch at the neck.

the girls decided to come with me, despite a looming poetry deadline for caitlin. and so we set off.

a bit peckish and with no time to eat without jeopardising our plans we caught the bus with the cranky driver and hoped for some spare minutes at the other end. before we even got off the bus we could see that the mostly steampunk crowd was one of the most colourful i have ever seen. the girls decided that i was looking plain and described the scene as scary but exciting.

the box office was slow so we had plenty of time to be intrigued by multi coloured hair and bosoms spilling from corsets, men in mourning coats and a crowd who seemed all to know one another.

still nervous about time constraints i hesitated to order pizza from the next door cafe but quick sevice and an excellent pizza (eggplant, zucchini, pesto, feta, mozzarella, roasted capsicum & tomato) made everything good.

the fashion was varied with pleasant victorian styles from clockwork butterfly and an edgier version from gallery serpentine. there was showgirl lingerie and fantasy fashion. one chainlink top had the crowd intrigued with the question of whether the protruding nipples were or were not real. there were dresses made from balloons, a pole dancer, a mermaid hanging from the ceiling and an assortment of rubber outfits with cut-outs saw two little pairs of eyes open wide.

the bathroom, too, was an educational experience. where do folks put their beers once safely settled in a cubicle? and was that beer on the floor or was it the puddle of urine it looked like? and how many of the very large women were actually women?

eventually, via the same cranky bus driver, we returned to the safe beige of suburbia.

~above photos "borrowed" from some random facebook person~

silver hair is a glorious crown

i was in my early twenties when i got my first grey hairs. for a while they were countable on one hand, then they were quickly multiplying and i started my on and off affair with dye. when the grey showed it made me look tired (or maybe it highlighted pre-existing tiredness) so i would pick up a supermarket colour and haphazardly colour my hair. i started with dark brown and over about ten years i stepped down the colour scale.
sometimes i chose the brand that was on special, sometimes i thought the ones with no ammonia would be less damaging, once i bought the brand with the free make-up purse. my attitude to brands and colours was casual and my attitude to the process was ambivalent.
i would toy with the idea of going grey but it didnt seem right, it was too early and the kids didnt want me to appear any more eccentric than i already was so i continued with it but i didnt like it. i didnt like the multitude of little plastic containers, i didnt like using chemicals, i didnt like the regrowth and i didnt like being obliged to fix the regrowth.
a couple of years back i started getting it salon coloured, that made it a whole lot easier but it required me to spend hours in the salon, not to mention the money it costs.
this year i didnt want to spend the time or the money and my grey roots got longer and longer. there would be a time, i thought, when i would look in the mirror and find it unbearable but that time never happened, i started to toy with the idea of going au naturale, the grey around the edges seemed soft rather than tired, the coloured section seemed almost garish so i went and got some foils, teeny fine foils of blonde and hazelnut, they blend the roots with the growing out colour but the grey is still there. the hairdresser was not happy, she naturally wanted to send me out into the world looking coiffed and perfect.
i wanted something that reflected the reality of my attitude, my age and my looks. i wanted to acknowledge that i am not a perfectly coiffed kind of person, neither am i anymore a dark haired, pale skinned beauty. i was also taken with the biblical statement that silver hair is a glorious crown (proverbs 16:31) so for the moment i am going grey, whether i will stay committed to it i dont know, one day i might hate it and go goth black or soccer mum foiled chocolate but right now it feels right. it looks soft and natural, it is who i am more than who i used to be, it matches my stretched stomach and my wobbly legs, it matches my crepey eyes, what i hope it matches the most is the woman i have become, a little softer and a little wiser than the pale skinned, dark haired girl of old.

i've just been over at the sartorialist where there is a picture of a gorgeous woman wearing double denim. i really dont think i will ever like the double denim look, even though it is supposedly back on the "in" list. then again, i never thought i would like three-quarter pants on men, either....
my current fashion hate list would have to include

• white shoes
• high waisted jeans
• synthetic fabrics (even though i wear them)
• over perfect details, i saw a woman the other day who had on a black dress, red belt, red shoes, red beret and red shrug. i wanted to grab her and shake her. i wanted to scream "YOU ARE TRYING TOOOO HARD!!" not to mention she was way too old to look cute in a beret, who over 23 can pull off a look like that?

this is the best i can come up with right now and if i look like a snob, sorry. or maybe i'm not sorry, i have a very definite aesthetic sensibility .......

a sustainable fetish

if you visit and pay attention here you would remember that while on holidays a few weeks back i developed one of my clothing fetishes. realistically it was just a whim and long experience teaches me that these whims are best disregarded but i thought i could indulge it just a little and went off on a cybershopping excursion. i found the exact shirt i want (well, i want the peppermint version but the picture wasn't so good)

PUDU shirt

i was surprised to see what appears to be a quality garment, sold by an australian company (on second look i'm not managing to verify that) and at a better price than i expected.

i like to buy clothes in the shops, where i can see details close up, where i can feel a fabric for drape and texture but this little gem inspired me to look further and there is a whole world out there, full of natural fabrics, sustainable clothing, australian companies and at least some of the pricing is equivalent to chain stores. it's better than what i had been led to believe...

let me show you a few favourites and maybe you will be inspired about your own sustainable shopping options

i'm struggling with getting layout the way i want it so from left: women's merino dress by icebreaker,
hemp girls dress from hempco, bamboo tee from mooble

when i was doing some clearing out lately i almost got rid of this shirt. it is pure linen, distressed by about ten years of abuse. i decided to keep it a bit longer and threw it in my holiday stuff as a last minute thing, thinking the long sleeves would make good sun protection.

i think i wore it every day.

and it inspired another little clothing fetish........a linen shirt in pale pale green to match the sea.

crazy but true

WE MADE IT !!!

Hey All!! I'm so proud of you. We made it to 200 comments in the last 10 days (or however long) and sometime soon I'll make the promised donation.

Boxing day is chill time for me so there's not a whole lot happening but I thought I'd entertain you with a pre-coffee, pre-shower, pre-breakfast shot of yours truly.

Once you read the freaky exchange from yesterdays comments, which I will kindly reprint here for you, it will all become clear, as clear as anything involving me and Suze could be.....

Suze:
P.S. WHAT ARE YOU WEARING TODAY? I ACTUALLY THINK YOU SHOULD HAVE A BLOG
THAT
SHOWCASES YOUR OUTFIT EVERY DAY. I'M SERIOUS. I'M LAUGHING TOO HARD FOR
THIS
EARLY IN THE MORNING. LOVE YOU BABY!

me:
today i'm in my pyjamas. theyre not
real pyjamas, just an old tshirt
and some grey marl pants. i have no idea why
anyone would wear pants like
these except as pjs but some one bought them, then
they didnt want them,
then they gave them to me!

Happy Christmas

this is the crossing supervisor from the school. i was quite fascinated with this vision of Christmas....the checked shorts, the santa hat, the sandals & safety vest all beautifully accessorised with a stop sign.

it seems almost iconic.

i'd like to wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas

my love to you all

k

and don't forget to comment for Anglicare, we're up to $123. can i get 77 comments in the next 24 hours?

Fashion Fetish

This summer I had a bit of a fetish thing happening. I had to have a white dress. Why I had to have a white dress I don't know but I wouldn't rest until I got one. I looked at all kinds of white dresses in all kinds of shops. Any one of them might have been good at half the price but not one was worth the dollars being asked for it. Then I found this one. It was nothing like the others I had fawned over but I think I'll enjoy it for a season or three.

Have you ever had an un-ignorable fashion fetish?

Biting off More than One person could Possibly Chew, Knowing it & doing it Anyway

Remember how I told you that I went shopping with the girls on Saturday?
I wanted to get them some good winter clothes, something they might wear to go to church or other semi-formal events. (I can't tell you what other events but you know, somewhere that their favoured jeans wouldn't be suitable)
There was NOTHING! No, nothing. Not at the local shopping centre, anyway. Everything was so cheap looking. Cheap looking clothes that would have produced cheap looking girls. Even the more expensive stuff looked cheap. Does no-one wear nice clothes? Do young girls all look like tramps? Was I at the wrong places? Or do I have unrealistic expectations? I just don't know.
We trawled the shops and I grew increasingly frustrated. Eventually I said to them "Let's go look at pattern books" They didn't want me to make clothes. "We'll just look" I said.
I've never been much of a sewer and it must be fourteen years since I last did anything but kids trackpants but we went in anyway.
I opened a Burda book, I always liked the Burda patterns, and found a pattern for a dress I thought I could possibly make. The girls thought they could possibly wear the dress. Miracle of miracles!
Now to buy some fabric. The Princess picked a black woollen flannel, embroidered in red. It was a very adult fabric. "Wouldn't you like something more colourful?" No, she would not like something more colourful.
Then I asked the Tomboy "What fabric do you want?"
"I don't care, I just wanna get out of here" I was inclined to agree.
"Do you want the same as your sister? do you really want to do that whole twin thing?"
"I really don't care" says my Tomboy "I just want to go"

The deal was done.
Now I have to make the dresses.
I might need to do a whole lot less blogging!

Grumpy Old Women

On Sunday night I went out with a girlfriend again, it doesn't happen often, that's why I have to tell you about it. We went to Darling Harbour which I guess might be described as an entertainment precinct. I don't go there too often and pretty much never at night so it was an interesting night for me.
There were all kinds of folks out at all kinds of functions and in all kinds of dress. There was a party where everyone was wearing white- an all white "red Indian", an ancient Roman in white toga (please don't tell me that's a Greek!), girls in white mini clothes (no that's not a mistake, they weren't just mini skirts)
I just wish I knew what that party was about!

My girlfriend alerted me to the massive amounts of cleavage on show everywhere. I don't know why I never notice it, apparently it's very fashionable right now.

There was a girl wearing a tight jersey dress that, I swear, was going to ride up to her waist.

Talking of fashion, my girlfriend and I wondered about the trend towards "Brazilians" (Fellas, if this post is too girly for ya, bail out now, it gets worse)
Please tell me you all know what a Brazilian is? Well if women were blokes you'd be justified in calling them "nude nuts" after a Brazilian!
Why, we asked, would a girl do that? are all the bright young things doing it? or a loud minority?
Imagine getting it done...or worse, doing it! .....for your job!...... all day!
And would a man do a thing like that to impress a woman?

I only have to think about it for a second and I want to grab my boys and shake them and say "You. just. can't. demand. that......and I'd disown you if you did"

On the trip home I saw some young women out for a night on the town in the most up-to-the-minute gear. They were probably in their very early twenties, the peak of their looks but the clothes were just horrible. I wondered why the brightest, most gorgeous young things are the ones wearing terrible fashions. Why spoil natural beauty with shocking clothes?

Of course, there's nothing new in all of this. It's the way of the world and the bright young things are, after all, the ones who can afford to wear something ridiculous because they have youth and beauty on their side.
I just thought the whole thing was rather amusing. I'm becoming a grumpy old woman!


"Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months."
Oscar Wilde

Tag ...you're it!

Well, Bomber has tagged me, which means I have to tell you five to eight things about myself. Here I was sitting down innocently to work on a post that may take some time and as happens so often in blogland (and utopia) I've been sidelined.

• I'm the oldest of three.....younger brother then a sister.
• I'm a coffee, cheese, chocolate, cheesecake afficianado ( there's something about "C" foods)
• I can trace my heritage back to Australia's First Fleet.
• I studied Biology to Associate Diploma level.
• I have weaknesses for beautiful jewellery, glassware, stationery, European cars and did I mention I love coffee?

Do I have to tag someone? PJ...I know you're busy, but when you can.....

Later:

Giving this tag thing a bit more thought I decided to add a bit and Na's comment just confirmed it. It also sent me off on a new tangent.

• I have a handbag fetish
• and a newishly developing jacket fetish.
• I love bold colour and clean lines.
• In an odd coincidence my brother and I both married Malaysians.
• I follow fashion avidly ( but don't neccessarily wear it)
• Oh, and I have a spectacular weakness for good fabrics.