Aggressively Thriving and International shenanigans

 W-4, four days until I go back to the office.

Having four weeks off has been a game changer. Things that would send me over the edge a month ago are now mildly irritating or I laugh them off.  I can feel the stress in the corner of my eye, lurking and looking for a way back in.

Look everybody has been saying 2025 must get better but I think that it is unrealistic and I refuse to be interventionist in my thinking. In 2025 I am Aggressively Thriving in response to the craziness of the world.

Taking less sh!t, letting more of it go, understanding boundaries, and making amazing things happen in the world, for myself and for others.

The last bit is expressed through co-producing an international festival. Debbie my fellow Pinot Sister and I only committed to this late October, leaving very little time to plan it, really. But we're doing it anyway, 

We have an amazing team called the Glitter Council!  We have a Trello board, a google drive and we're using all the things many of us use in our day jobs, to plan. We've had amazing feedback from funding agencies about how well organised and articulate we are. I am very proud.

My Big Project!

By jingers it's a lot of work though! It's been nearly a full time job this past month. But thankfully all of that "do it once" admin is nearly complete and for 2027, we can focus on improving what we already have, and we have two years to do it in too. LUXURY.

On Wednesday Debbie, Jojo (funding manager) Ian (who is responsible for our gorgeous branding) and I piled into the car and took the two hour trip to Papaoiea, Palmerston North. Such a fun day of meetings and consolidating plans.

As for my other projects, the Summit Dress sill still be there, I am slowly pottering away at two costumes for the Festival (I am Emceeing it) and I've made a Midnight Era costume for a Taylor Swift themed show in a couple of weeks time.

Photos will eventually trickle through of all the things!

Much love to you all in this creative time before life takes us all over completely and sweeps us into a new year.

Sewing Season is upon us.

 Happy New Year all. It's day 11 and I've been doing sewing or sewing adjacent things:

• Traced off the Summit Dress pattern from Scroop. I have lipstick red linen and Italian linen black background with traditional Mexican hearts printed all over it for the godets. But the execution is being delayed for a while
• I've rehomed my small collection of A0 patterns to see through document wallets, all clearly labelled. Previously in rolls standing up in a laundry basket, I could never find the one I wanted and even paid to have one printed twice! I've also culled the collection of several that I think other people will be more likely to use.
• David cut up thin MDF saved from a collapsed kitset desk, to make shelves for my cubby stack. They're held in by pushpins! The level of DIY hackery in this makes me so very happy! And it works a treat
• I MADE a linen shift and sheer curtains and a whole dress! 
• I'm making my friend Joy a dress so she came over for a toile fitting and also rethreaded the @$#$%#$@ overlocker so I could finish the seams of said dress - purple linen. No photos of it yet.

Cubbies with shelves!

Boring linen shift but a very satisfying make nonetheless!

My oppressively sundrenched studio now has some sun quenching sheer curtains. they're cream so do an extra good job. No more working with the curtains completely closed needed!

Bonus smashed spuds content - my favourite holiday food. The perla potatoes are so yellow inside they look even more delicious when cooked! 100% recommend smashing your spuds hehe.

That's pretty much it so far - apart from a LOT of admin for my biggest project ever, but more on that some other time <3

Meri Kirihimete!

 Well it feels like only yesterday I was running a quiz at the company Christmas party as we celebrated a good year.

And now I am theoretically unemployed*, along with 11% of my city's workforce, over 20,000 people. WOW. I don't want to talk about our current government as they don't deserve my time or mental effort.

It's been a good year as well as a bad one - nothing is every simple in reality is it. Worked with some amazing clients, Emceed some amazing shows, made some beautiful costumes, and embarked upon a bunch of hacks to insulate our flat in a 130 year old building.

I can't talk about my mahi with clients but I can talk about the other things!

My last gig for 2024 was early December, hosting a quiz for an amazing organisation who do impactful research into a range of diseases, and are a bunch of absolute gems. 

Me at the event, which had a vintage circus vibe, so I was the Ringmaster!

 Straight after, I had a photoshoot - in spite of not being very happy with my makeup - but decided to just lean in anyway and I'm SO glad I did!

Love this look, there are other more "arch" ones but I went for camp as my first edited one

I love this pic SO SO much. And Haley worked so hard repairing my sweaty makeup digitally!

I spent a lot of this photo shoot with the most adorable doggo looking up at me adoringly. So cute.

House hacks:

As well as having our enormous curtains relined, we had our single glazed skylight "skinned" with a glass house product called twinwall, kind of like super boojie corflute. Also the totally annoying cat door is now blocked up once and for all!

Tiles make great cat door insulators! Also, Sir Robert has been joined by two more brass rubbings. James my hanging guy has banned me from buying any more He's probably right...

 

 

And that's me for now - I've left it so long there's so much to catch up on, but I have four weeks off then only working three days a week!

*What this means is, I have contract work instead of a permy job and that goes through a chunk of this year. I'm very lucky, And it means I can work three days a week which I am looking forward to!

New Tattoos!

 People I finally got new ink. I shared about my first tattoo back in 2011, based on a fabric I bought in the UK, and in that post I said I would get a little butterfly added.

WELL, it only took 13 years to get the next instalment and what a beauty!

My friend Ria is a costumier who has worked on movies from the Hobbit to Avatar, but now her artistic expression is via tattooing. I asked her to design a shoulder piece based upon William Morris' Strawberry thief. I absolutely adore the cheeky birds, the strawberries and flowers and the curling stylised leaf patterns.

To make a coherent outtake, Ria took the top birds and turned them to face each other. She then isolated a bunch of the pattern around it into a design that I fell hard for immediately.

It is quite detailed and complex, and we played with lots of colour - the range of ink colours available now is enormous, far more than in 2011.

This beautiful design took 20 hours over three sessions to complete. I love it so very much!

I couldn't stop looking at it! And a few months after it was completed, I went back for butterflies, a tidy up of Nev's 2011 work, and another I'll show you further down.

Still in the chair, three little periwinkle butterflies to help tie the old and the new together

 Now to be honest, I want my butterflies bigger. Maybe we'll do that this year. But I am SO happy with my growing collection of strawberry related tattoos. Which is quite funny as I'm not a massive strawb fan, given how tasteless they usually are these days. But they are VERY pretty.

And lastly on the same day as the butterflies, I got a wedding ring.

I adore the Husband and it has been 20 years together, and in that time I've had my wedding ring reduced in size and let out again, but although I still love it, it annoys the heck out of me. As I get older my sensory issues have gotten worse and I find it so uncomfortable. But I also do not like going without.

So, borrowing an idea from a young friend, I got a finger tattoo.

It bears no resemblance to my actual ring, and fingers are hard, so it had to be simple. So this tiny heart is now a permanent symbol. 

So there you have it! Am I done? Heck no! I am planning a tattoo for my right arm, some kind of scissor and flowers combination to sort of riff on my late father's dagger and snake one. It was pretty awful,  that weird bluey green we associate with old school tattoos, he would have got it in about 1953. But it was a part of him and I like the idea of a blade that I use all the time, and something feminine like flowers. Possibly done as if they are embroidered. Not sure yet. Any inspirations are welcome!

Anyone else taken the plunge into body art?

 

On Starry Nights and Washi Tape

Washi Tape was a contentious issue in the shop days. Penny suggested we get some in, and I did. Felix came as close to pitching a fit as I've ever seen him, over it. These are two adults I adore and who flat together. But oooh blimey, they have different attitudes to washi tape.

Felix's position was that it wasn't a proper craft supply. I agreed. But, its beautiful, coloured, matchy rolls in a set was so intoxicating to the stationery lover in me! So, I decided to make something crafty out of it, as much to prove a point to Felix.

I decided to make a lampshade with a delicious set of Starry Night, Van Gogh washi tape. Even though it is sticky, I didn't trust it to be strong enough to hold a shade together, and making the rings sticky (as you do) held them onto the styrene.

I started off setting a diagonal, with the big diva tape.

Building those rows, one at a time. Ever so carefully not leaving even a sliver of white between the strips.

All filled up now, the ends roughly trimmed and tucked in.

I gently tucked the tape around the rings, nice and tidy!

And finally, here we are. It's silly, but I like it. I think it's still in the shop. Felix hated it! heehee!

 It's been at least two years since I made a lampshade and I miss it. Once, fabrics were divided into ones that would make a good lampshade, and the rest! 

I still have a few lampshades in me. I'll get there...

A couple of Linen Makes from Stash

 People I have four cupboards of fabric. I am not proud of this triumph of dopamining over common sense.

At least they are well organised, with 95% of them on a card, all lined up on shelves like books so I can quickly spot what I have.

Anyway between Christmas and New Year, I always make a few garments. I love being able to just focus on sewing! It's heaven! And this past summer (Southern Hemisphere remember!) was no different.

Many moons ago I fell hard for this linen at M Rosenberg and Sons in London, online. It's so mad! I bought it for Constance, but when it arrived it was so loosely woven and drapy, I couldn't use it. That means I get it! The dress I based loosely on one I bought, with some adjustments.

I mean, what's not to love about this fabric? It is a gingham but printed, and it swirls and gathers up ni the print like a disrupted table cloth, which is I think the point. Everything from baked goods, lobsters and playing cards are depicted.

It is a little see through and I bought some white linen to make an undershift for it, but I've just been wearing it as is in the heat of summer. It has washed and worn really well. I frenched and flat fell the seams to manage the loose weave. A keeper.

The other dress I mostly made in summer but only finished it in April in time to wear it to Emcee a wedding. I bought the deep grape purple linen on sale, and paired it with a Kaffe Fassett printed cotton from my stash. I felt it needed this little pop of colour. I love this style a lot - it's the Hanbok Dress, but with several changes including a horizontal bust dart to ensure the waist stays level. 

Please excuse the derpy photos, this one being in the Wharepaku (loos) which at least had the big mirror needed for full length selfies. Worn here over a burgundy top as it's a bit parky here.

I adore linen!!! It's cool and comfortable and ages so gracefully. I hope I am ageing gracefully, albeit being rarely cool, or comfortable.

Under my cutting table is a box of fabrics that I have concrete ideas for, and these came out of it. In it is still two lengths of plain linen, one a glorious lipstick red, and the other a beautiful fuchsia pink. I know what I like! I hope very much to be making them up over next Christmas break, if not before.

A tale of two hats

Hat #1 Ruched Bonnet

 I thought I'd show a bit more of Natalie's, and my, favourite bonnet from Pride and Prejudice

It was inspired by everybody's favourite from S&S:

There's something so happy making about this bonnet!

 I was keeping brims back off the face, so the shape is ideal. But, a total dearth of straw hats! I found one only. And a sort of straw and fabric example, that had it had a straw brim and a cloth "crown," I could have worked with. But it was the other way around. And so, I decided to cover it.

I love this extant bonnet from the MET, albeit 30 years later, but I could still imagine such a bonnet with a shallower brim & plain trim. Because the type of bonnet your average Bennett type sister would be wearing was surprisingly simple.

American bonnet 1840 MET

Side angle. It had to be an odd number of bands to look right and I couldn't face 5!

Back angle, deciding what to do to cover the place where all the ruching came together took some fiddling. In the end I felt that this twiddle of gimp did the trick

This angle shows the straw crown I could not work out how to incorporate. I machine sewed the pleated lining to the brim edge facing outwards, then folded it back in and hand attached it deeper inside. The machine sewing disappeared under trim on both inside and outside.

The simplicity of this bonnet belies the amount of time it took to make it but I enjoyed it very much! 

0.5m striped Linen from Voldermart: $16

Hat from some random bigbox store, $8.

Gimp and silk lining both scraps from my stash. 

Time: about 6 hours.

Hat #2

Total pivot now to the annual Polish Christmas Market, which is a street fair in November, when it's pretty warm here in NZ! I had been told I could amp up my costuming from the year before, so I put my thinking cap on. What had I not done before? I know, a Nutcracker!'

Two nutcrackers that inspired me, with their tophat like hats, knobby tops and gold feather.

I have a saucy, silly ringmaster costume to deliver military chic, candy cane tights, and I swapped the bolero from my ringmaster for a plainer and more covering cotton one, for heat management and family friendliness. All Ihad to do was add some bling to the jacket and tophat.

To make the knob, I used a small polystyrene ball, a slice of toilet roll and some card from a box. 

 

 To make it gold, I covered it in the inner gold wrap from some Whittakers chocolate. I've now started saving this paper as it is so useful! The result looked very much like a GI stud, as used in leatherwork.

 

The top hat got a red felt and gold motif I had lying around feather and a band of both gold and red. The gold seemed too plain by itself and the red was too narrow by itself, so we got both! I tried magnetising the knob to no avail, in the end a very few stitches held it on. This is a real top hat and they do not respond well to being sewn!

The final look. Gold on jacket sleeves, epaulettes, and this very silly costume combo!

To be fair everybody loved it, but the general consensus was I was riffing on some sort of Polish traditional costume! So funny.

No nuts were harmed in the making, or wearing, of this costume.

So this year, I have already found a gorgeous green cotton off the shoulder dress that is begging to become a Christmas tree inspired look. More on that in 6 months!

So, what do you make of my madcap adventures in millinery??