no good tv

The dumped rubbish that appears out the back in the lane sometimes annoys me and other times amuses. Like the time that the people on the corner moved out and set up their discarded furniture in tableaus each day- the lounge room, the laundry, the bedroom- and interestingly it would all have disappeared by the end of the day. Lately there has been a surprising number of televisions, they are dumped then someone comes along and takes them and then they reappear (like, duh, they were dumped because they no longer worked and they've sat out in the rain for a week....). Someone has suddenly got the bright idea to label them. This one amused me no end this morning.

No good TV. 

No, good TV.

No, good, TV.

You dirty no good TV.

Anyway there is no TV for me tonight, good or otherwise. I'm off to participate in Hand Eye Collective. It's free. There'll be 40 minutes of chat and 20minutes of questions. You can buy a drink and mull over creativity for a while. It starts at 6.30. Three nights of discourse. Come along!

wound up, wind down

Ahhh. Saturday again. A week later and home still isn't cleaned, the dyeing has only just started, I've well and truly avoided the studio, some emails have been answered, some are falling off the bottom of the list, a few phone calls have been made, most of the tin toys have been unpacked.... just another week drifting by.
I'm just printing up some handspun yarn wraps so we will have more yarn in the shop today. I dragged the spinning wheel upstairs and now I need to carry it back down. What colour to spin today? Choices, choices.
I haven't much to say this morning. I'm sitting here staring at the dye colours around my fingernails, they will be like that for the next 5 months, and have just realised that I forgot to get rubber gloves at the stupidmarket this morning. Damn. Note to self: don't shop when half asleep.
Having so many tin toys out just makes one itch to wind them all up at the same time and have them buzzing and whirring away together. Occasionally when one was sitting on the shelf supposedly run down it would start to whirr and click and jiggle about, it makes you ponder how exciting automatons must have been in their hey-day. There really is a magic to tin toys, a few cogs and springs, some jerky movements and away they go. More so, I think, than huge computer operated dinosaurs and dragons, they are impressive but not as much fun as a bit of pressed tin that you can hold in your hand, turn over and watch how they work. I think it's the Meccano factor, a bit of string, a couple of pulleys and some slotted metal and you have the Eiffel Tower. Perhaps it's just me, I'm a tinkerer, I like to visualise and think about how things work. I could at this point talk about the downside of computers and their two dimensional world, a shock realisation that came with teaching that there are generations of people out there who can not think in 3D and this is where craft and making stuff can come into its own. Using your hands and solving problems through craft and making stuff is a fabulous exercise for the brain. Often before I make something I will make it over and over in my head, thinking through how to produce it before I every pick up my scissors and slice through some fabric. On this note I should let you know about a panel discussion I'm part of for theL'Oreal  Melbourne Fashion Festival, you can pop over to the Hand Eye Collective's page to check out the details, three evenings of chat about design and making. You can come and have a drink and hear me waffle on Monday evening.
Seems like I had more to say than I thought.
Cat wrangling time!

tintabulation

When we did Markit at Fed Square last year a woman came up the stall and said rather abruptly to me (at me) 'so Pene Durston, not making stuff from vintage fabrics anymore then?!'. I was quite shocked at her presumption and she went on to tell me she was still using vintage fabrics. Well as you know I still make product from vintage fabrics (quite a lot of product) but we have always included a mix of new and old at the Cottage and we have always been upfront about the line between real vintage and re-pro. 

When the Cottage first started out I had a wishlist of things that I really wanted to get my hands on to stock. It has always been about a 'curated' list, things that I love, things that I would want to own, things that inspire me. We've got glass domes, favourite books, work by our lovely country ladies, Jim's knitting needles, vintage silk spinning bobbins.... and now the tin toy delivery has arrived! 

Jethro was excited (he chased a wind-up car through the shop last night and retrieved a train when it shot behind the wooden trunk), Dell was very excited and I have a whole pile of stock to price! We've got some little tinnies for Easter, rabbits, chicks, roosters and a very cute blue bird, and then we have a cars and trains, boats and spaceships. I think the real favourites are the monkeys though, oh and the elephant and ball, and the sawing lumberjacks and the man pushing the box (I must get a photo of him, he has a tattoo on his arm). Just where in hell are we going to put it all??

awry

This morning's booking to get some stuff sorted has gone belly up so I sat under the jasmine out the back and ate breakfast. I really don't know why I am bothering to book things and factor in times and what-have-yous when it's all going off target. Damnation. Stamp my foot in frustration. I'm now trying to move this afternoon's appointment forward. What a mess.

Sitting looking at the jasmine was nice though.

Perhaps I should hole myself up in the kitchen and start dyeing. In fact I definitely should. Well that's a plan. I need to move the huge basket of washing out of the way. Definitely. And clean the bench off. Get the dye pots out. 

Yep. There's a plan.

bird in the hand

A stop-start type of day today. Started well, ground to a halt, re-started, took a left hand turn, then a right, chugged along again. The plan had been for more cleaning and sorting but emails got in the way and a general feeling of ennui crept in and then I took the step of postponing this week's photo shoot until next week. I'm not a postponer or plan changer so it was a big step for me to make the call but the right step. I just don't have the energy to finish sorting and to lug it downstairs and out to the car (and after last week's thievery I wasn't happy about leaving it all in the hatchback until the morning).
My lack of focus is probably due in part to the mixture of sore-as-hell hip and today's anniversary of the accident that has giving me these aches and pains. I'm moving very slowly today. Creaking and creeping. I seem to lose days so easily but I am trying to remind myself that not all my work is about being in the studio, it is something I have to keep reminding myself about.
I got to play Portlandia 6 Degrees of Separation on Saturday morning when Mary Timony from Wild Flag dropped into the shop. Had it been Carrie Brownstein I think I would have died from embarrassment, stick a bird on it indeed. Portlandia, northern Melbourne, it's all a bit squirmingly close, crafty, coffee-ist, hilarious. Here's my favourite bit.

8 hours work, 8 hours play, 8 hours rest

Really this is what a long weekend should be all about, restful contemplation.
Sadly the washing and vacuuming and cleaning seems to have taken over a bit.
I'm trying to get upstairs sorted for a small photo shoot this week but the mess has me a little overwhelmed. I wish I could stretch out the big room just a bit so I could fit all the detritus of my life in. Books and magazines piled up, boxes filling up, heaps and heaps of paper work to be filed and me in the middle looking flummoxed.
Jethro helped me string up some wires out in the 'backyard' and now we have the start of a jasmine 'roof', it's rather nice. The jasmines seem to like the micro-climate out there and I'm hoping there will be lots of flowers this year.
I have read a book, drunk some tea, cooked some food, made messes in the process of cleaning, been for a walk, done a pile of washing. Just your usual long weekend.

yo there mohair!

The first hot water bottle covers of 2012, Winter must be on its way. 

A rainbow of mohair-y goodness, all the fabric woven in Australia (Tasmania or here in ol' Melbourne Town), they remind me of the 1950 and 1960s fluffy jumpers and scarves we were sometimes lucky enough to score at the op shop back in our student days. Little mohair sweaters for hot water bottles.

So it's Saturday again and what a weird and not wonderful week it has been. I've been robbed and annoyed and energy-less, I've been harassed and frustrated and getting into the studio felt strange and unfocused. I did get some work done, the HWB covers and some new vintage linen cushions, one pair in very pretty posy design in purples and raspberries reds and another in a heavyweight 1930s shiny rayon/cotton (ok, not linen but the reverse is).

I need to get treadling on the spinning wheel, we have only two hanks of handspun left, there I was thinking I had a head start on the cool season knitting. I've got another hank to weigh and measure and I'll pop that out today. It's almost time for me to pull out all our Winter beanies and this weekend I start dyeing gloves again, I'm a bit late this year, the humidity of February and then the raininess of March has thrown me a bit and now I feel like I am running behind. I probably say that every year!

It's a long weekend here (8 hours work, 8 hours play, 8 hours rest- except if you are self-employed) but I need to give the place a good clean and sort, plan some dye recipes, do the washing, create order from chaos. Just the usual Labour Day weekend. Labour Day this year falls pretty close (one day out) to the anniversary of that Labour Day morning I went out for a bike ride and didn't come home for a month or more, when I smashed my body into a taxi. I'm wondering whether my aches and pains over the last few weeks are trying to remind me about cause-and-effect, before-and-after, another life. Or perhaps that I really shouldn't lug 15 boxes of damned satchels around. 

Better dash. Things to do before the door swings open at 11am.