Cuba Street Carnival was friggin incredible. 

I'm not going to go crazy on it here, so jump over here instead to see how OutdoorKnit rocked the place. Oh yeah.

Yesterday i returned to the scene of the crime and then took a wander along the left bank alley. That place has got it going on, graffiti wise at the moment. I can't wait to get to London and spy me some Banksy! 

[this is where there should be some photos. but blogger doesn't want to upload them. boo]

There is now less than a week until i head off. If i had a dollar for every time i'm asked if i'm excited, i'd have enough for the flight home by now. Yep, i'm excited. But all the excitement is for things i'll be doing this week before i go, rather than the leaving itself. There are so many amazing people in Wellington (and the rest of NZ) that i will miss enormously. So it's lucky we've got the interwebs to keep us all connected, right?

I think i'm ready. I'm sewing a jacket and a high-waisted skirt, i have quite a bit of knitting to get done, and i have to decide if i take any of my sewing tools with me. Do i take my sewing scissors, for example. I have lots of people to see and farewell - not that i'm keen on the farewell bit. Might live in denial sometime longer and just say, see you later. Cos i will. See you all later...

it's a fire...SALE

I was procrastinating from taking photos and putting all my bits and pieces up on trademe (what a drag) and had a brainwave - so you all get first dibs!

So, this is the plan:

Each day, for as many days as it takes, I will put up an item for sale, right here. Should said item take your fancy, email me at tashbarneveldathotmaildotcom and the first person who puts their hand up, wins. I'll then correspond with the winner, and we can do the whole money deposit/detail exchange thing.

Each photo will be accompanied by measurements, fabric type, and a price. To make it fun, days will be picked at random for the fabric to be free! yep, FREE!  

Of course i'm all into sharing so let all your friends know...bloggy and otherwise.

so...first up:

large blue spots: 57cm x 45cm, 100% cotton (is a quilting weight cotton)

lavender gingham: 24cm x 100cm, poly cotton (light weight)

pale pink with white spots: an odd, odd shape - one section 26cm x 35cm, another section 50cm x 60cm, is a cotton mix, and one side is brushed. Is about the same weight as the blue spots, but softer. Has a few small marks but should wash out. Is vintage - i remember it from when i was about 8!

Sale price: $5 plus postage (about a dollar)

an epic post. oh yeah.

(the 'love, me' bit is there because for some reason i was thinking about Meredith's speech to Derek about how he should pick her over Addison when  i was embroidering ...)


right, so clearly this life of leisure has not resulted in an increase in blog posts. So i shall do the WHOLE two past weeks of my life via bullet-pointing:

• i turned 25. i rather like the number, and hope it will be better than 24 
• i fell UP the stairs at my party and got an awesome bruise on my knee
• one of my old friends who had just got back from the UK came to my party (yay!)
• i sat in the sunshine
• i started going to spinning classes (as in biking). they're amazing.
• i completed an entire game of indoor netball without feeling remotely puffed, just hot.
• i sewed
• i burned my finger on a bowl i was taking out of the microwave. Said bowl says 'microwave safe' on its bottom. my ass
• i went out and got fabulously drunk with the awesome people from the Wellingtonista. They are cool.
• i sold the car (yuss! more life of leisureness for me)
• i had the best cupcake ever from Tempt at Smith the Grocer
• i missed out on the last of the cheap one way tickets to london so am stuck here til march still. i was hoping to change it to beginning of feb. oh well
• i got addicted to Parliament TV. like a crack whore, only with politics
• i was in a car accident. i banged my head, got a bruise on my arm, climbed out of my dad's car and people stood around looking at me to make it all better. for once, just for once, i wanted not to be the person who takes control of a situation. but i did, and turning around to see the brother of a good friend right next me when i needed someone, and giving him a giant hug, somehow got me through the waiting for police bit. There are several parts i distinctly remember - like staring at this other person heading straight for me and knowing that there was no way of avoiding IT from happening. For legal reasons i probably shouldn't say more. i'm a safe driver is probably the best way of putting it.

And now i'm thinking i could either get all morose and grumpy about how crap the past year has been (like i have been the past couple of days) or i could make frigging lemonade. I pick lemonade. 

This coming week sees me having coffees, going to spinning, sewing, knitting, tidying, and starting to think about Christmas. I haven't begun my Christmas shopping, and i'm thinking i might just not. In my old age i'm getting a bit anti-materialistic and so i'm going to attempt to make all my presents. 

In order to not feel so slack on the web front, i'm going to try and post everyday til Christmas. oooer, now there's a challenge...

giddy excitement

I have:

• a mini bottle of fluro pink nail polish (finally!)
• black wool suiting
• silver shot metallic fabric
• black shot metallic fabric
• a pattern from burdastyle (free!)
• Black Seeds
• a 21st (my sister's, ohhh i feel...young!)
• a giddy excitement about designing and sewing one of my creations...so very excited!

The 21st is tomorrow night. Yes, I am mad. I inherited it from my mother - all three balls i went to at school, she or i would still be sewing while people arrived for the pre-ball. It was stressy, but so much fun.

I had some time out today to do a bit of shopping for something to wear, but couldn't find anything i liked that was under, oh, $300. and that picture in my mind didn't appear on the racks anywhere. So i've dreamed something up instead. Fingers crossed it works. I need to channel some sewer's patience to be sure it comes out just right.

Pictures tomorrow :)

oh a not so exciting note, the anticipated work madness is creeping up on me...so i am resigned to the fact i will end up at my desk on sunday. But now, to sew!

Dreams

For some time now a wee dream has been evolving in my head. This weekend it's nearly fully formed, in radiant colour, and I can mentally walk around it...

It's not that much, really. It involves:

• A sewing room that is bathed in sunlight
  
• A vegetable patch
• Chickens

Which is all kind of bizarre really cos i grew up loathing everything to do with dirt. Now i find weeding oddly therapeutic. I have no idea what it is about chickens. They're awesome. I don't think i need any other reason except to think they're cool.

Yesterday a visit to Chocolate Frog resulted in some plant buying (kale) and seed purchases...i'm going to germinate them and re-start my pot-based vege garden of last summer. 

I hate the idea of putting chemicals on something i'm going to eat, so i'm doing research on companion planting. This site is great. I've also heard that a certain method of planting during certain phases of the moon makes for crazy growing activity, so might have a wee go at that too. 

Yesterday wasn't just spent daydreaming. I managed to do some more sewing. I managed to tame my overlocker long enough to make half a skirt but it's now packed it in again. ugh. I also had a go at buttonholes on thermal, and i didn't win. I tried a cable bind on and it didn't work for me ... though i'll be the first to admit i kind of tried making it up as i went along and then lost patience. Any tips? Or just forget the buttonholes and fake it?

oh, for snow!

I'm going snowboarding tomorrow! I get to play in 4.5m of snow, and 1m of it is almost brand new! sooooo very excited...and so very grateful to my boss for letting me go. 

I also went out for a run with a guy i work with today. We keep hassling each other about if we've been for one, and i meant to go yesterday but got distracted with the triathlon.

I almost died. Well, not really. But he runs way faster than i do and totally pushed me to keep up the whole time, and told me not to stop. It was hard, but at the end of it i felt awesome. Compared to my usual cruisy run, it was a bit of a shock to the system. 

It was over 6 hours ago, and i'm still feeling amazing for it. like i could go leap buildings in a single bound. Combined with the excitement of going snowboarding, i'm more than a bit giddy. 

I did do some sewing on the weekend - i've almost finished the wasp bag, though i'm already planning some pattern amendments. I realised how much i love sewing again, i so don't do enough of it these days...

life is good

My msn horoscope for today says something about feeling like a beetle flipped onto its back with its legs flailing in the air, unable to get flipped over again. It tells me to wait for the breeze to turn me right side up, and to enjoy the humour of my situation in the meantime.

The sun is shining. I have a new haircut. I ate a tim tam and two pieces of toast for breakfast. I have one new flatmate moving in today. I feel light and relaxed and in control...and i'm about to spend the day sewing. woohoo! I've been waiting so long for a sewing day.

And i ventured into global fabrics yesterday. Did you know they're having a sale? 50% off!! crazy!! i'd post pics of what i bought but i'm having battery issues again. Hopefully by the end of the day i'll have some finished products to photograph.  but first, i have to get out of my pjs and wash the car.

I've made a decision about what i'm going to do next year. I'm excited. 

There is over three metres of snow on mt ruapehu - it's calling me. i've got ants in my pants waiting to get up there again.

oh and did anyone else watch the rowing last night? my whole family was jumping up and down the whole time, it was fantastic! Didn't manage to stay up late enough to watch the rugby or the shotput, but damn, NZ you're awesome!

inspiration

One of the great bonuses of long weekends is the amount of time available to do anything you want. I spent all day yesterday thinking that today would be back to the office, and it was great reminding myself that oh no, I still have one whole day left!

So yesterday was spent having lunch with my Mum and at the library doing some much needed research. The old design habits are slowly returning - I'd forgotten how much i loved looking through books just for their pictures. It is fascinating what can jump-start the old imagination machine...I have in my possession for 4 weeks: a book on instructional design (hilarious!), one on Japanese design and a source book of flower, leaf and tree designs. All it took were three completely unrelated things to pop up randomly in relatively close succession for the next project to evolve...so i have yet one more creative project on my plate. Who needs work?! I could happily grow into a groove in the couch and knit, sew, draw, read and dream all day... 

oooh...the next post is number 100! Which will probably be Wednesday...drop by for a give away!

random randomness

A few random thoughts today (sorry no pics still - i'm working on it)

Is it just me or is the traffic in wellington, especially from the city to the southern suburbs (miramar, kilbirnie) and from those burbs to the bypass, getting craaaaaaaaaaaazy? Every evening, tim picks me up and we go home together, and inevitably get stuck in traffic. Each day it seems to be backed up further...so i suggested to tim he write a letter to Annette King, Minister of Transport, to have a whinge. Which begged the question: What is the root of the problem? I thought he'd say, well, obviously it's the Mt Vic tunnel being only one lane each way. But the 'round the bays' traffic is just as bad, if not worse. So he surprised me by saying, 'look at all those f***ers in the cars by themselves. It's all these people driving with only one person in the car.' And that's totally it. But what can be done, besides enforcing carless days that can combat the problem? Subsidising public transport is one idea, but would Welly's bus system cope? I'd dare say not. The bus drivers at least would become more insuffereable than they already are.

What piqued my curiosity today was, whilst stuck in said traffic, the girls in the hi viz vests giving out pamphets and talking to the motorists stuck in the traffic coming out of the mt vic tunnel going into the bypass. What were they talking to them about? Maybe the boy and i should set up a car pooling thingy and use the same approach - talk to drivers while they're stuck in traffic. Cos i'm not over committed already.


My other thing at the moment is contemplating the use of someone else's work as your own 'art'. A local artist has an exhibition coming up or is currently on (not too sure) and she has photographed the work of local taggers and graffiti artists and is having an exhibition of it. Well, sure she wants to give away copies of the images to any of those responsible that come forward, but is it really her right to use the images for her own gain in the first place?

I must admit here that some of the images the boy and i use for cards are of graffiti. My decision in our case was a) the work is all australian (the photos were all taken when in Melbourne) and b) the images rely substantially on our own ability to compose a photograph to give it value. I decided about this time last year that while both the boy and I have taken images of graffiti around town, I would never use them for our own gain. Unless somehow we got in contact with the artist and had explicit permission to do so. That effort would be a bit beyond me.

Having said that, no, i haven't seen the photographs. Maybe i should. And i actually own one of the artist's works. ironic.

After that ranting, i suppose i should mention what craftiness is going down. Mainly bag making, so nothing much exciting really. I am totally in love with my wee haven that is my new sewing room - it is bliss to have my little hidey room where i can be in my own little world. the boy isn't used to it - the other night he came in with a 'oh, so that's where you are' - he'd been looking for me and couldn't figure out where on earth i had gone. brilliant.

Meltdown

more apologies for boring and sporadic posts - life is getting the better of me!

I had a cranky attack yesterday afternoon - i was so sick of doing stuff that 'had' to be done rather than what i wanted to and all i wanted to do was sew. Didn't get near the sewing machine until 4pm yesterday, after discovering i had lost my giant white thread in some moving box so i went for a stash enlarging mission. not that i could afford it. picked up some gorg printed cotton at global fabrics, and some AWESOME cotton flannelette at Arthur Toye - photos will follow later, promise. It was one of those prints where i knew that if i didn't snaffle some there and then i'd miss out.

Got some bags half made, the boy is cleaning the printing screens this arvo, bring on the fun!
but until then, i have mega mega work load. So i should really do that.

is it friday already?

man this is awkward - lying on the bed, resting on my elbows to type on the laptop.

Not sure how i'm still functioning really - has been the maddest week. And was a super mad day today - fridays always are at work, which is a bit of a killer.

But somehow i managed to make a pattern and do masses of ironing (stash got washed and dried today) and a little bit of cutting out. Hopefully i'll be able to dedicate sunday to sewing...oh can't wait! plan for tomorrow - out to petone fair, maybe try and hunt out some drawers and a desk for the flat (my clothes have nowhere to live), and then see if i can sell some clothes to recycle boutique before spending all my money again at the global fabrics sale. mmmmmmmmmmmm fabric. might see what knit world has going at the same time...

next week we should have the mac all set up and i'll be back to more regular posting - have a fab weekend!

more bloggy slackness

sorry. But my brain has gone awol - things have been over the top mad. 

I just finished (finally) all the cards i have so far planned to make for the fair. Thank freaking goodness for that. Am yet to decide if i'll do another hundred. Hmm.

Wedding was yesterday. Oh my it was absolutely beautiful. Stinking hot day which made for a bit of sunburn (me) and sweat dropping off hands (the groom). Tim looked fabulous as a groomsman, and i managed (somehow) not to cry, but it was the sweetest, most heartfelt ceremony and the couple looked magnificent. I'm going to try put a couple pics up but they're from tim's camera so they may be a little much for blogger to manage, but i'll try. 

They worked! yay :)

only real crisis of the day was that at about 10am i was having coffee with a friend who is moving to Auckland (sob) and my cellphone decided to seriously kick the bucket. Just what i needed - on the one day all week where i had to be sure that i was contactable at all times, i was suddenly without any means of calling. So i had to embrace the inevitable and replace my four year old, black and grey screen phone. Now i have a swish new pink number, that i managed to chuck on the trusty credit card for $100. Hopefully it too will last four years. Probably take me that long to pay off my current credit card bill (ugh.)

erm, what else. Oh i was asked four times when tim and i were going to get married. Gees, just because we're at a wedding, doesn't mean we all need to get engaged. and tim's cousin just tied the knot so surely one at a time is enough? 

And we had flat viewing number four today. I am so unbelievably sick of them. You'd think the landlord would get the message that they have put the rent up too high when they need four (could be more) viewings in January. The month of flats being snapped up in seconds by desperate masses of flat hunters. 

oh yeah, WIPs - i got both the stole and the clutch done in time for the wedding - they both turned out great - i'll try and take photos tomorrow. I did get a bit lazy with the bag and not do a separate lining, but it did the trick. and it held EVERYTHING. 

Last thing - as i was wielding tim's mega nikon D80 around i ended up being invited by the official photographer to go along to the photo shoot - which was great fun. I think she was a bit threatened by tim and i, and then figured she may as well make the most of me being there. So one of our gifts to the happy couple will be some great relaxed shots.

hmm... i think it is bedtime.

oops amidst the madness

have i really not posted in that long? That is quite appalling, but i have fantastic excuses - the world has gone mad. Well, almost. Am currently doing the work of three people at what has turned out to be a very busy couple of weeks at work, and it doesn't look like it will let up soon.

And the Aro Street Market is on again this week, so of course my brain is desperately trying to fit in the logistics of that along with everything else. So last night, half drunk from work drinkies the boy and i had a card making mission and got done about as many as we think we'll need, which was a bit painful seeing as all i really wanted to do was relax.
The other problem with it is that i have two sewing table options at home: too high or too low. So i go for too low, and end up all hunched over at this mini table. But at least i can see.

Anyway, the madness continues - off to the ROAR art auction tonight which should be a fun-ho time.

hello, friday!

I am at work. it is 4pm on the cusp of Labour weekend. The sun shineth. The office is very jolly and due to said jolliness i have consumed far too many chocolate peanuts and dried mango.

I have been sitting on the same piece of work for the past several hours trying to figure out how to make it look fantastic and have been failing miserably.

Plans for the weekend:
sewing!
knitting!
crafting!
photographing!
relaxing!
reading!
sleeping!

I would really like to go somewhere nice to test drive the tent but i am extremely aware that every time my car ventures out on to the road this weekend my risk of being in an accident is multiple times higher than normal, so i think we'll be saving that for another, non long weekend.

By the end of this long weekend i will also have found out if our cards are to be stocked in a gallery in Taupo, if the answer is yes, i will be strongly motivated to go on a recce to see if some local places will host our creations. Nothing like positive reactions to make you push yourself a bit further.

It is now 4.09 pm and only 51 minutes till i go home. woohoo!

poppity pop pop

a few random pics - my new baby!

and a couple of things i should be doing - sewing and housework. haha...

What i did in the weekend...

my bag! i got a bit carried away dreaming up how i could do a compartmented lining to put all my gym gear in, which worked eventually but not as perfectly as i'd hoped. And it ended up way bigger than i intended - but now it's the perfect size to hold all my snowboarding gear. yay! (obviously i snipped off all the stray threads)

I'd been hanging out for ages to make hottie covers out of my old flannel pjs that i couldn't really bear to part with. The pattern needs a bit of refining...and i ended up feeling like a little kid as i carried my hottie around with me all weekend...

A couple of pincushions - these were so nice and easy but revealed that i need some more practice sewing in a circle!