Hi All
Just a quickie to say a big THANKS to all the folks now adding me on Bloglovin (link over there ——->>)
I am so sad to see Google Reader going and have already imported my feeds into The Old Reader.
Other ways to keep in touch are of course Facebook, Twitter and Instagram 
And since I’m way more active on Instagram…here are some latest pics 
Ciao for now!
Hi All!
Ah so I didn’t post last week. And this week I have no new pics to show you – not of new creations. Just a few Instagram and Hipstamatic shots from the last few months. Instagram username is kittysdrawings if you want to follow I’ve been on for a while but only posting regularly there only recently.
Winning you say??
Wellllll Friday was a very lucky day for me! I got an email saying I’d won a $200 Witchery gift voucher thanks to Schweppes for my comment left on Esme & the Laneway’s blog competition I honestly didn’t expect to win since I’ve never been very good at those creative entry type contests – mostly because I’m terrible at those naff little rhymes. But thankfully it seems that wasn’t what was required here and I’m super happy to have won! I will spend the money on some nice accessories and I did take a peek in Witchery the other day and they had some cool rust coloured skinnies. ME in denim?? Yessir – on my scooter! Ha ;-P I did consider the FLURO YELLOW ones – harkening back to my old raving days and also, no one could claim they didn’t see me if I ride past wearing those. BUT, the Mr doesn’t approve and it is pretty mental to be wearing fluro yellow jeans I guess. Heh.
Anyways – accessories and maybe something for the boyfriend and whatever other nice things I find. Yay!
But that wasn’t all that I won! I woke up Saturday morning to another email from We Sew Retro informing me I now had $40 to spend on vintage buttons at Vintage Necessities! Now that might not seem like a huge sum – but $40 will get you a heap of buttons. 40′s vintage buttons at that! *excited* YAY again!
Here are a couple I selected: (Pics are from Vintage Necessities )
Onto other things….
Random shots of SHOES. Oh my god I LOVE THESE SHOES. Got them for a song off eBay. Melissa are apparently re-releasing this style in August. Do I want another pair in a different colour???? 
I’ve been working on my 1940 trench coat. More WIP pics can be found on Facebook.
The weave is gabardine I think – and the fibre content feels like a blend with some poly in it. Kinda sticks if my iron is up too high and doesn’t like to press that well. It’s not REALLY difficult but enough to be annoying. The rest is cotton I guess? It frays like a b**** as you can see in the photo! I’ve zigzagged all my seams so far and it will be lined too. I don’t currently have any lining for it but I’ve made the pockets out of the same black satin used as the contrast in my Cambie Dress. I might lay out my pieces for the lining and see if I have enough of the black to line the rest of the coat.
Progress on the green coat is slow – my purple silk & rayon lining arrived which looks great. It’s thin though which will require underlining if I want it to have the strength and longevity I expect. Which means another fabric purchase. Coats sure are a lot of work!
I also received a One Lovely Blog award from Purls and Pleats I’m notoriously slack at responding to these things but Marrie took the time to actually email me saying she’d passed it on so I think I should answer. I’m supposed to list 7 things about me. Sounds difficult. Umm…Okay lemme try:
1. I listen to audiobooks while I’m sewing. I “found” a Top 100 Sci-Fi audiobooks and have made my way through Neuromancer, which was excellent…The Mote in God’s Eye which was kinda lame and I didn’t finish it, and now onto To Your Scattered Bodies Go. This piqued my interest because of the curious title and the story is even more interesting. I wont tell you more about it but look it up if sci-fi is your bag. It’s not for everyone but I LOVE it.
2. I watch a LOT of movies. So many that I am now pretty indiscriminate with my choices. I’ll start watching almost anything (romantic comedies are usually on the no-go list because of their painful formulaic boringness!)….finishing is another matter entirely. And I don’t like to read reviews or know much about a flick before watching because I don’t want them to influence my opinion.
3. I almost never eat breakfast at home. Hehe. On weekdays I will have cereal or porridge at work (depending on the season) and on the weekends, we almost always go out. Even if it’s only for a ham and cheese croissant and a coffee. Does that sound decadent to you? It’s not that I don’t enjoy making breakfast, but where we live there is such a wealth of options for eating out it’d be a shame to waste those opportunities. Heh!
4. I’m a crazy cat lady in training. Yep. Not surprised though are you?
5. I do zero exercise – except for a bit of walking here and there (sometimes the 2kms it is to walk into the city from home). I’m not proud of this fact – dedicating the time to be healthy should be important but when I dont get home til 7pm on a good day, the last thing I want to do is lift heavy things. However, I’m seriously considering going back to muay Thai and maybe boxing since my old gym is on the way home from work and it’s the one sport I actually enjoyed. Just need to stop procrastinating…..
6. And while I’m at it…I’m pretty darn good at procrastinating. Not everything gets the Master Procrastination treatment – but things like organising my tax return, calling people, some emails, design work (sorry Mum!!!!) and mending clothes gets put on the back-burner something chronic. Argh!
annnnnd 7. Just to be stupid. Last week I spent $8 on butter. And I don’t regret it one bit. So unbelievably delicious.
On that note, I think I shall leave it. Next week I should have some sewing posts for you. And I won’t tag anyone for this blog award cos – meh ;-P
Til soon!!
Hi Everyone!
A bit of an all over the place post today. First up, I’ve currently got an auction up on eBay for some gorgeous shoes I bought off ASOS. They are so pretty but unfortunately way too small for my feets! I bought a UK4 which usually means a Euro 37 but these are a full size too small. So I would say if you’ve got a 36 foot, AU6 or UK3, these should fit. They’re brand new, never worn and still in their box. Happy to ship international, just ask me and I’ll get a proper quote for your location. They’re currently sold out in this size on ASOS and you will be getting them cheaper even with the Buy It Now option
CLICK HERE for the auction
Also – I now have a Facebook page! It took me quite a while to jump on that bandwagon because I usually keep Facebook for private stuff. But click on over and press LIKE for me There’s a bunch of buttons to get you there in my sidebar or just click HERE
You may have noticed I’ve tidied up my blog a bit. I also figured out how to add custom fonts so I’ve changed my post titles. And remember how a while ago I told you I’d won a years subscription with the BaseKit website builder? Well I’ve set up the very beginnings of my site (finally). It’s still not finished but I’ll show you when it’s done. It took me a little while to figure it all out but I’ve got the hang of it now. My only problem with using Basekit is that I am limited to standard fonts and I can only use Google Analytics for my tracking which I don’t like very much, preferring Woopra. I know the idea is to get away from any kind of code but IMHO you do need to access a little of it, as annoying as it may be. Maybe one day I will learn how to make a proper website. Hmm.
Other news – I got my scooter license!! YAY! The two day course was quite intense. Going from Zero driving knowledge to being allowed out on the roads in two days is pretty full on. The instructors at HART were really excellent and taught us really well. I’m kinda proud of myself for passing because only 8 out of 12 made it, and I was the only one who didn’t already have a car license. I brought my scooter home on Friday – it was nerve-wracking driving home from the city let me tell you! Not to mention my 200cc Vespa is a LOT bigger and heavier than the itty bitty 50cc scoot I did the course on. The advantages are that it’s not as battered and the weight of it means it handles better through corners and driving slowly. After scaring the people working at a prestige car dealership in the back streets of North Melbourne (I was hooning around the car-park getting used to my new ride), we went out on a longer ride on Saturday. All the way down to St Kilda via Williamstown, then South Yarra (Chapel St!), Richmond, the city then home. Now I love it and I’m not scared as much anymore hehe. It will no doubt take a while not to be a danger on the roads (oh dear) but it sure is a lot of fun having a scooter!
However, today we ran into a dilemma. I was all set to head down the beach and go for a nice long ride….buuuuttttt……when I started her up – she started leaking LOTS of fuel!!! Omg! Not really prepared for all this mechanical bizzo. Dammit! So now she has to go back to the dealer and hopefully they can fix it. I mean….that kinda really sucks. I hope I haven’t bought a dud. Eep. I think something must be loose along the fuel line somewhere. It was only in for service last week.
Ummm that’s about all for now. I’ll be posting some sewing stuff soon and hopefully do some drawing too. It’s really hard to get motivated this time of year. Not sure what it is. Does anyone else fall into a bit of a creative slump around the end of year holidays???
Ciao!!
Hi Everyone!!
You know how I was going on about that photo-shoot I did with my friend Sally the other week? Well I have some pics for you! This is not all of them – There are more coming soon but I wanted to show you anyway.
The picture formatting is a bit different from my usual so I’m sorry if it looks untidy. It doesn’t do Sal’s pics justice as much as looking at them on her SITE or her Facebook page.
As you can see, she’s quite a talent! The pics are fantastic and it was such a fun day. Her vision was clear from the get-go and she organised the whole thing fantastically. Having participated in quite a few photo-shoots I know how important it is to have an excellent relationship with your photographer. This is especially important for weddings!
My dress is also borrowed from Circa – How awesome is it! Totally a cupcake dress. I loved traipsing around in it all day The location was amazing too – We went out to a 150 year old homestead in Inverleigh, the property of one of Sal’s friends’ parents. It was SO stunning – with views out towards Geelong and the coolest old brick barn. Not to mention our hosts were so lovely to let us use their property to take photos on!
Soooooo – that’s about all I’ve got to say…check out the piccies and follow the links to see more
One last thing…If I could kindly ask no one to download these pics or use them without Sally’s express permission. It’s really important to respect the work that artists put into their projects and distributing without consent is very poor form.
I know my regular readers wouldn’t do such a thing So my note goes out to those that stumble here via Google or wherever and might not have considered the implications of stealing someone’s intellectual property.
And so I don’t leave on a down-note….I’ll mention that I’ve been super lucky with winning stuff off blogs lately! I won a $50 voucher from The Paraders Vintage via My Happy Sewing Place (Fashions from the Past). I’ll have some photos of what I chose with my voucher soon.
Another winning was from Mel:Hot or Not – a La Madre Bakery sample pack with heaps of yummy shortbreads and things. I haven’t received that one yet but I’ll probably take photos before we nom the lot.
Well then – til soon….
Hi Guys!
We’re back from WA! What a whirlwind trip that was. Totally forgot how FAR everything is from everything else there. It’s a good 3.5 hour drive to Margaret River from Perth and we did the trip 4 times in as many days. Crazy! We didn’t actually spend that much time in Perth – mostly hanging around Freemantle and then off down to Marg River to sleep. The weather was beautiful and HOT the whole time we were there – so hot that it was perfectly reasonable to go swimming at the lovely and secluded Redgate beach at 8am.
The wedding of course was awesome. The bride wore the most amazing lace dress with little attached bolero thingamabob and elegant fishtail skirt. Dinner consisted of scallops for entree, steak for main and some sort of parfait thing for dessert. All was delicious as to be expected from the winery it was held at. And the wine was great – goes without saying really (even though I just said it) .
As for what I wore…You’ll see that soon enough….
Anyways – Onto what this post is supposed to be about….My “Summer Collection” (haha that’s intentionally wanky sounding)….Of which there is only a couple of pieces so far….Isn’t “piece” a wanky word too? Heh. Oh dear. Carry on. Um. So yeh – I whipped this up using my Butterick 2633 pattern and made view B this time round. I used a purple floral cotton I bought off Etsy (from the same seller as I got the pattern off). It’s “vintage” I suppose – I’ve no idea what era its actually from – it’s fairly thin and I’m vaguely guessing 70′s but I could be totally wrong.
These are the things I changed/added:
I’ve decided I don’t really like pleats and/or tucks instead of darts in a skirt. Why would I want to make my hips look bigger? They bunch up when you sit down too. I know they offer more freedom of movement but I like to keep things slimmer around that area to try and balance out my relatively narrow shoulders. Despite that little design flaw I’m rather happy with this dress. It’s proved excellent for the hot weather. AND it matches my peppermint lolly Miss L Fire wedges perfectly. I didn’t plan this but realised they would go well together about halfway through making the dress. Add the little white belt I made and my new green bag and YAY, new outfit!
The green bag by the way, is the same brand as the yellow hexagonal one – how’s that for vintage karma?? After my years of trawling the internet, it’s not often you find such things…For clothes yes, but accessories like this are harder to come by.
Other news: I should be able to get back on this blogging bandwagon a bit more regularly now. There’s quite a few things I’ve got in mind for the next few weeks. Including a giveaway – IF I reach 100 followers So when that happens I’ll host something. Not sure what yet. I don’t have the resources to get my art printed at the moment though I could supply something digitally. Even though that’s kind of lame. Is it? Or some sewing bits and bobs – or something else? Clearly I have to think about this a little more….
Also – I’ve decided to become mobile, and get my scooter license. Yup that’s right – I don’t have a license. Any license. At almost 28 years old I think it’s about time I got myself some wheels. The BF has had his bike for a few months now and has been encouraging me to get a scooter. What finally pushed me over the edge from procrastination into action was the news that our People’s Chariot (Trains, trams and buses) are increasing their fares by an average of 8.6% on New Years Day! The scoundrels! That’s more than double the current rate of inflation. In the 8 years I’ve lived in Melbourne, there has been no significant improvement in public transport services, certainly not enough to warrant the guaranteed price hikes every year. It has now become more economical for me to purchase a scooter and drive to work. So I’m off to do my license test at the very end of this year and by 2012 I’ll be joining the ranks of petrol guzzlers (albeit daintily sipping not guzzling – heh) on the roads every day.
Pictures of my new ride when it arrives from Adelaide…For those that aren’t Facebook friends, you can take a potshot at exactly the kind of scooter I will be getting and I’ll bet you’ll be right
(aaand – look it’s Puss)
Till soon!
Hi All
I’ve been pretty sucky at this blogging bizniss the past few weeks haven’t I? Seriously I’ve been SO busy!!! We’re off to WA for a friends wedding tomorrow morning and the past month I’ve been crazy busy getting prepared. I took on the task of making myself a dress as well as the backdrop for my friends photobooth. Add to that the late hours I do at work and getting home and doing home stuff. BLAH. AND having a social life. It’s all too much really. They don’t call it the silly season for nothing.
Thankfully I will have a break off work in the time between Christmas and New Years. I plan to take full advantage of these days off and do a lot of sewing and drawing and being fairly introverted since most people will be away doing family things. Yay!
So I wont be posting anything this weekend. I do have some sewing to show you though. That I will try to do next week. This post was just to pop in here and say I’m still alive. Also, since I had to take down the RiskCloud post until the launch of the product, your Reader might have stuffed up and you’d have had some broken links…Check it out HERE if you like as it’s back up again. Sorry bout the confusion.
Also, last weekend I was super busy – especially on Sunday….
My friend Sally Goodall is quite the up and coming photographer. We met when her and her now husband moved in next door to us when we lived in a studio apartment in Richmond. Sal needed help setting up her computer and Jonny was there to lend a hand. Sal was keen on becoming a photographer and was going through school at the time. Jonny lent her some of his gear and we went on a few shoots together and now Sal is working full time shooting mostly weddings and portraits. She’s come such a long way in a really short amount of time and it’s really great fun working with her. On Sunday we went out to do a vintage wedding shoot out in Inverleigh (near Geelong), on an amazing property. I borrowed a dress from the ever lovely Nicole @ Circa Vintage and we had another ‘bride’ and our model ‘husband’ (lucky boy – LOL). We were out frolicking in sunshine and long grass all day and I really can’t wait to see the pics when they’re done. I will definitely be posting them here for you to see.
ANYWAYS.
I better go finish packing, eat, clean, all that stuff.
To tide you over til my next post, here’s a picture of the BoofMonster, doing what he does best – nothing.
Ta ta for now!
Hi all!
Bad blogger here. It’s been over a week again…and I’ve got nothing substantial to show you. Because…well, I had all intentions of taking some photos on Sunday but I couldn’t find the remote for the camera. I did do some sewing though. As for drawing….umm. Don’t ask.
The house is currently all over the place – the Boyfriend decided we should rearrange the house so he’s starting pulling everything out and moving furniture upstairs, downstairs, everywhere. Now my sewing machine is perched on the end of a bookcase and unplugged. The new table which it’s going to go on is on the third floor in the master bedroom….the master bedroom is going to become the study and we’ll move our bed to the ‘spare room’ (sewing room currently)…Now the spare room is much smaller than the master which is the whole top floor – but it has A DOOR. Which we can close and not let insistent little kitties in who want to knead their sharp little claws into your neck at 2:34am in the morning.
What is currently the second floor and study will become the lounge room. The bottom floor will stay kitchen (duh!) and we shall buy a nice big dining table for down there so we can actually have guests around to have dinner without them having to eat their food in their laps. *ahem*
Consequently I have no room to draw or sew. There is so much stuff everywhere, it looks like we just moved in. That said, after this I’m going to take my sewing machine upstairs and plug it in. Then I shall have some room for my Wacom and I might continue the drawing I’ve been procrastinating about for the past 4 weeks.
ALSO. I have some great news for ME. Ha. I won a years business subscription with a service called BaseKit, where you can build a website very easily using their WYSIWYG editor (no Flash either yay!). This is most timely because I have been mulling over how my folio isn’t separate from this blog. And since the blog has become not entirely focused on drawing lately, it’s best that I should have a separate place for my illustration and graphic design work. Fortunately, I can tack the whole lot onto my current domain and when it’s all up and ready I will show it to you.
However, first I need a bit of a ‘re-brand’….focus my ‘look’ into a website and portfolio. I like the simple and clean thing but technically that doesn’t really suit my personality. What does suit my personality – I am at a bit of a loss to describe….I think this will require some proper brainstorming and creativity.
There’s just one more thing to talk about – another thing I won! This time something sewing related, and based on merit. A little while ago, Suzy Sewing (awesome UK blogger who happens to be a redhead too) had a mini comp on her site where readers were asked to guess how she made a boo-boo on a sewing project. The project was a skirt with buttons down the front…I was the first to flounder my way towards an answer as to what went wrong….And so I won! She sent me this cool vintage pattern:
Cute huh! You all know I’m a fan of wrap dresses! This should be great for summer – I can see one made up in one of the floral sheets I have lying around for just such dresses. Should come together really easily too as these dresses usually have no fiddly fastenings to deal with like buttonholes or zippers.
Just quickly – sewing projects recently completed, on the go and planned:
Speaking of Halloween – it was also suggested I go as Barbarella….Now, that would be a much more difficult costume to make, and I would need to find an outrageous blonde wig, and boots….but it’s a really cool idea and I’m in two minds. Heh.
Oh well I better go – I’ve been prattling on for far too long! Promise my posts will have more pictures soon!
Seeyas!
Meg's Makeup