Guerilla gardening

Was watching the teev this evening, and channel 10's Guerilla Gardeners came on. My interest was piqued, because they were doing the little quadrangle in Newtown across the road from the Bank Hotel. This one:It ended up with a purple gazebo on the little octagon thingy, and new turf, and plants and stuff. Looked pretty funky. Unfortunately, there isn't a pic of the result.

What really got me though, was that I walked passed this area last Tuesday, and it wasn't there then. So not only the garden happened really quickly, but the post production of the show.

Weird.

Update:

OK, so I just missed it. I have been reliably informed that it was done ages ago and all got ripped out for being dead and/or unsafe. I did say it seemed a bit weird...

The great unwashed

Or at least the great unemployed.

That's right, I got retrenched today. Not hugely worried - there's plenty that I can do that will keep me from starving, and I got a reasonable payout. Still, came as a bit of a surprise. So, after nearly seven years with Reece, I am now at a loose end. Kinda looking forward to having a little bit of time to myself, and then throwing myself into the challenge of getting a new job.

Should be interesting. At the very least, maybe I'll have more time to keep my blog up to date!

Update:

Yes, this did come completely out of left field, and right in the middle of me being busy, busy, busy. It's not a huge shock, though, we've been told for a while that the business isn't making any money... I am a little surprised at some, ok one, of their choices. If it was my business, I probably would have kept the person with the most experience and best knowledge of the systems (me) over the person who has been with the company for less than a year and knows waaaaaaaaaaay less about everything Reece-wise. Oh, and I know how to do her job. But still, I've been wanting to leave for a while, and now I have the opportunity to do so with the golden handshake attached. Bad time to be looking for a job, but there's always temping.

All in all, I'm pretty happy at the present time. So it's all good!

I am an island, I am an isthmus...

Last Saturday, I went to a lovely BBQ at the abode of Baggy Trousers and JD. Whilst there, the charming Harry regaled us with many tales (and many rice crackers at high velocity) and some delightful clips from Youtube (where else?). For a good laugh, check out Fuck the Shit and Jizz In My Pants. Don't do it if you should be working, as the bad language (from your 'puter) and the gales of laughter (from you) will be a dead giveaway that you are not, in fact, working...

During the tall tales session, I was reminded of an act I remember seeing on Hey Hey It's Saturday, many, many years ago. Raymond J Batholomeuz, and his delightful poem, Days by the ocean. I couldn't remember the details on the night, just a few words from the poem. Watching Rockwiz tonight though, reminded me quite suddenly. You see, Brian from Rockwiz is, in fact, Raymond J Batholomeuz...

So here it is.

Flat tyre

Husbands are so useful!

For the past few days I've had a large screw stuck in one of my tyres. It took me a couple of days to find it - I always seemed to have parked with the screw on the botton where it couldn't be seen - and then I'd keep forgetting to try taking it out when I was at home.

Rusty changed the tyre for me this morning. I am perfectly capable, except for the loosening of the wheel nuts part. When R is struggling with it (and he is so big and stwong), I know that there is no chance that I would be able to undo the little buggers on my own. So, now the car looks funny, with 3 mags and one spare. But, it's a good thing that I didn't manage to get the screw out before - as soon as we pried it loose, all the air came rushing out! I wasn't sure before that whether it was a screw or a bolt, and therefore, whether it had actually punctured the tyre. Yes, is the operative word here...

So, my husband has been infinitely useful, and I no longer have the insanity making tick, tick, tick of the screw hitting the tarmac every time I drive the car. Hooray!

Hot and icky

Ugh, hot today. I am so much a cold weather person - this heat and humidity sucks the life out of me.

Which is why I spent the first day of 2009 lying on my bed with the air-conditioner on, reading teenage vampire romance (hey, it's not my fault. I got the second book of the Twilight trilolgy as my Chrissy Pissy pressie last year (no, the year before, now) and I picked it up as something to read whilst I ate breakfast, then had to keep going. It only took me today to read. Great literature it ain't)

New year was spent at a friend's house, hanging out, watching the fireworks on the teev, drinking champagne and margaritas. It was really nice. I'm really hoping that tomorrow will be cooler. I actually want to get stuff done, and I struggle with that concept when the weather is above 25 degrees. I know, I know. Cold weather any day.

Tomorrow will bring the installation of a salt water chlorinator for the pool, which should pay dividends in the amount of time needed to be spent on pool maintenance (which is currently way too much). After that we'll see.

Oh, and if you are wanting to know if I made any NY resolutions... are you kidding me?!?

Iz sick

I must have really pissed Santa off this year. I got the flu for christmas.

I really hope I'm going to feel better tomorrow...

Bah humbug!

:Snort!:

I don't normally copy LoLcats to my blog, for fear that it's too nerdy even for me, but I think this one captures the xmas spirit so beautifully...



Wheeze.... ow, I think I hurt something...

Fuck all on tv...

Must mean sumer is i-cumin in.

I might be forced to go outside occaisionally.

Driving makes me sleepy...

Fortunately not during the driving, though. Just afterwards.

Spent a total of about 8 hours of driving on the weekend. Went to Canberra, fighting the wind the whole way down (and then the whole way back again), to go to a cocktail party. The cocktail party was lovely, the food was yummy, I looked fabulous (no really, ask anybody, they all said so!) and I didn't get horribly drunk and therefore felt like an actual human being the next day.

The next day contained really good eggs Benedict and a really good latte, more driving, and then lots of sleeping (I'll just lie on the couch and read my book for an hour or so....).

I'm still tired though. It didn't help that today was about the longest day of my life. I'm sure they slipped an extra couple of hours in after lunch. Oh, and then one of my colleagues got sacked (no real surprise there, I'm sorry to say), but that still didn't seem to while away a great deal of time. Maybe tomorrow will be better.

I'm just going to go and rest my eyes for five minutes. Really, only five.... just resting my eyes... Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Customer service - huge whinge

I've been thinking a bit about customer service lately. Why? Don't know, really. Just one of those things that pops into your head and won't leave until you've given it some of your attention.

Partially, this train of thought comes from the appalling customer service I received whilst purchasing a new printer at Dick Smith Powerhouse at Lidcombe (hey, I never said that I was going to be impartial and not name names!). Appalling. A bunch of people less capable of giving any level of customer service I have yet to find.

But my faith in the future of customer service gets it's biggest shake-up from the blog that I read, maintained by a fairly well known historical pattern drafter. If you know me (and didn't stumble upon this blog by accident on the way to the fridge)* you will probably know who I mean. Now, this woman runs her own business, researching and drafting historical patterns. She also sells an enviable range of useful notions and whatnot that would be extremely handy to a reenactor. Kudos to her. She is doing something that brings her fulfilment, and servicing a niche market that has been largely ignored. What really bothers me is what I perceive to be an extreme lack of professionalism in the way she conducts her business.

Let me elaborate...

Many, in fact, there are times when one could say most, of her blog entries are whinges about how irritating and stupid her customers are, with moans and bitches about her suppliers chucked in to spice things up a bit:- They are stupid, they have unbelievably unrealistic expectations (whoo, try saying that 3 times really fast...), they make complaints about things that she couldn't possibly have any control over, don't they know how internet shopping works, oh my god, haven't you been listening to my fornight long gripe about about the printer ink saga, whaa, whaa, whaa...

You know what? Fair enough. Everyone has got the right to whinge about things that annoy them (this entry is a case in point), and with the advent of the interwebs, we can share our woes with a worldwide audience (unless it's on this blog, which gets about .0002 readers). How does that saying go? "A trouble shared is a trouble halved", or is it more along the lines of "A trouble shared is a good way of spreading the misery more evenly"... So. Go for it, knock yourself out - blog all of your whinges if that makes you feel better.

But... There's always a but.

If you are going to offload your complaints about your customer base onto the World Wide Web, shouldn't you be just a weeeeeny bit circumspect about the way you go about it? Maybe think about an anonymous blog (ooh, going out on a limb here!), or perhaps make it friends only. Noooo, that would mean that all your sycophants couldn't leave comments about how terrible it must be, poor you, to put up with these IDIOTS who buy your products, how they are soooo stupid, and how you are such a saint, and I want to be you when I grow up... Bleech. So, not only do you make your blog entirely public, but (and this is the bit I really like) you link it to your business web page, so that all of those morons that you (deep breath) have to put up with in order to run your business, can click on the link on the page that they buy their products on, and go to your journal where they can read about how stupid they are.

Does that strike anyone else as rather counterproductive? Many companies spend millions on advertising and PR to tell everyone how fabulous they are. What they generally don't do is maintain public forums where they tell the world that their customers are idiots. Of course their customers are idiots! Stupidity is what people do best. Nobody likes to be reminded of it, though. When it all comes down to it, customers are human beings, with all of the quirks and faults and ridiculous idiosyncrasies of our race. Nobody reads to the bottom of the page to see the fine print; we all want our stuff right now, goddammit; we don't want to pay for it before we have to, and if we can see our way clear to getting something for nothing we will jump at it; and most of all, we want someone to blame when things go wrong - particularly if we are at fault. That's just human nature - to think otherwise is not going to get you anywhere.

Word of mouth and repeat business are the building blocks of small business. If you whizz on your customers from a great height, you are going to get neither. True, she names no-one, but I bet that if the customer being related to in the post read it, they would be able to make the connection from a thousand paces. I don't think that I could bring myself to purchase any of her products (which is a shame, cos some of her stuff is quite nifty) , because I find her really unprofessional.

It's a good thing I'm so perfect, eh?

Enough vitriol for tonight. I think I have used up my blogging quota for some time!

See you next time something really pisses me off.

* Assuming of course that there is anyone at all who reads this blog, except me. I am the world's worst blogger after all...

Urgh...

I am never drinking more than a single glass of wine again. Seriously.

One year ago today...

Thought I'd write a quick post to commemorate this day, which is the anniversary of my last post.

Nothing really to report today, just thought I'd celebrate one year of no blogging!

He he he

So incrediably crap at blogging............

Sorry,

I really am incredibly rubbish at this whole maintaining an online presence thing..... I guess it comes down to the "spend all day at work on the computer, get home and want nothing to do with one" factor.

Meh.

So what's been happening? Well, went to NZ again, this time for Midwinter (which was fabulous) and actually managed to take the husbondo for a bit of a holididleday as well. Drove around, saw some snow, pushed each other over in said snow, had a nice time. I wore the black Cranach frock, that has now had it's skirt fixed, and looks like a real dress, and (wait for it) even got some photos!!! I know! Even I'm amazed!

With the lovely Gillian (looking smashing in my hat....!!)

And from the back, in front of a rather charming fireplace.

On the costuming front - I've finished the beading!!!!!!! YAY!!! Now I just have to manage the hard bit - making the frock. Yikes. And I want to get all this done by the 1st September. Along with the Rowany banners that I am helping with, and the Festival organisational stuff that I'm doing. I've said it before - I need a job that gives me both more money and takes less time. 2 chances - bugger all and none.

Ah, c'est la vie.

Anyway, I'm not going to get this dress done chatting with you lot, so I'm off!

See you in another 2 months or so........

More frocky goodness, Part II

On to the actual sewing part.....

Work has currently stalled on the Beaded Frock of Instanity, because I am perilously close to having the beading finished. What I need to do now is start putting the bodice together, so that I can ensure that all the beading patterns match up properly.

So, I have been fixing some of the problems with the black and gold Cranach frock that I made last year. Here's a slightly blurry photo of me wearing said frock (that I nicked unashamedly from Miss D, because it's the only photo that I have of this dress. Sorry D)

Now, the bodice is pretty good. I'm really happy with the way it turned out - there are a couple of things that I would do differently, but overall it's turned out well. I'll go into some of the details about how I built it a bit later.

The skirt was a disaster, which is odd, because you'd think it would be the easy part. The problem stemmed from the fact that the dress is made from a really soft wool twill. I has a beautiful hand, and a lovely drape, but realistically speaking, was too soft and drapey for a renaissance frock. So over the past couple of weeks I took the skirt off and re-jigged the whole thing. Firstly, I lined the skirt with a ramie-cotton blend fabric, which has enough stiffness to add some body to the soft wool. It's essentially bag lined - the inner and outer layers of the skirt are sewed together at the waist, right sides together, and then flipped inside out. This also meant that I had a nice clean edge to attach to the bodice. Around the hem I have sewn a deep band of......ahem, stiffening fabric.....(I'mnotgoingtotellanyonethatit'stullebecausethen they'llknow) which has the two-fold benefit of kicking the hem out, and helping the pleats form the deep conical shapes that you tend to see in the Saxon gowns in Cranach's paintings. If I were to try a more period approch, I would lean towards canvas, or a woven horsehair braid, although it's possible that I wouldn't need a layer of stiffening, as the quality of the fabric used is likely to be quite different. As all fabric in our time period (600-1600AD) was hand woven - and this is one of those times when the word "always" can be used with impunity - the weave was tighter, and the fabric likely to have quite a different drape. One of these days I'll pull out some of the documentation I've got floating around that talks about the making of fabric, so that I can back up what I'm saying here, but that's a project for later.

Once the fabric was lined, I could re-attach it to the bodice. I used some thick, felty wool to pad out the pleats in the back, but I left this out (this time) in the front, because I didn't want too much bulk over my tummy. Now all that's left is to hem it, and sew on some guarding to match that on the bodice. That ought to be fun - there's over 10 linear metres in that hem, that's a lot of handsewing.......Sigh! I will post some photos once I have figured out why the flash on my camera isn't working.

More frocky goodness

Further to the post before Luke Skywalker (yes, it was terrible) I was talking about the picture of the chicky with the red insert in the front of her frock. Well, here she is!

And here is a close-up of her tummy

It's an interesting view - and you can see how it could be interpreted as an under-bodice stiffened with boning or reeds. I am loath to use the word corset here. When I think corset I think of it as being a much more rigid undergarment, used to shape the body, rather than moulding itself to the body's natural shape, and just smoothing everthing out a bit.

May the 4th.........be with you.

Sorry.........just couldn't resist!

A few thoughts on Saxon gown construction

When the beading on the BFoI (see previous post) is all finished, I will need to do the scary part, and start making the frock.....

So, some ideas on the actual construction. The question of the method for making one of these frocks seems to have been more hotly debated than the chicken or the egg. I have seen a number of these frocks which don't match some of the key features in the paintings, which has allowed me to see (without having to make a whole bunch of expensive mistakes myself) what they have been doing wrong.

Regardless of what method of construction you want to use, one thing is always apparent in the paintings. The stomacher/placket/white bit under the lacing in the front, is always (look at this rash use of the word always) flat and smooth.

See:

This is one of the things that leads me to belive that this frock was NOT an open fronted dress that was worn over the top of a chemise. Part of my evidence for this comes from looking at this style of dress made by other costumers - often no boning or other stiffening has been used, and this panel has been open to the underwear layer. The effect of this, when the wearer sits or bends, is that the lacing all migrates to the point of least resistance, leaving it sort of bunched up. Also, on an unwise wearer, it can make ones stomach look like a trussed ham. Ew!

So, this could be a boned panel, which is a separate piece to the brustfleck (breastband) or the whole front could be one piece (there is some evidence that this could be the case - in at least one of the 472,863 versions of the suicide of Lucrecia - I'll have to come back and fix that spelling later - the whole front of her dress is folded down to bear her chest, and appears to be all one piece.)

I also have somewhere (and when I find it I will upload it) a picture that shows a woman in an open fronted gown in a similar style, that shows this open section as red. You can also see lines of what could be boning or cording. It's plausable that this is a corded or reed boned corset/underbodice that can be seen through the lacing on the front of the gown.

This was supposed to be a sewing blog.....

It occurred to me recently that the name of this blog would generally suggest that it's supposed to be about.......erm, well, garments. The last actual entry about clothing, however, was (hold on a moment while I check) oooohh, a really long time ago (hmm, you'd think I'd find something in the archives somewhere, wouldn't you?).

So, to fix that, and bring this blog back into the realms of actual costumey stuff, lets take a look at the frock I'm making. It's generally being known as the Beaded Frock of Insanity, but it hasn't driven me completely mad yet, so it may have to become the Beaded Frock of Moderate Foolishness.....

So this is the frock. Painting is by Lucas Cranach (the elder), The Virgin Glorified, 1520, or thereabouts. This is the only image I have found of this painting, so I don't know what colour it would be, although from viewing a great many other Cranach paintings, I would guess red and gold, or gold and black. The fabric I have, though, is teal, with a printed pattern in antique silver/gold. I dyed some white velveteen until I got as close to a complimentary teal as I could (and wasn't that a trial and a half). This velveteen is a brilliant backdrop for the pearl beading. The pearls are 3 and 3.5mm plastic ones from Photios Bros. I had intended to use glass ones, but the variety if sizes is very narrow, and they start getting really expensive really quickly. In period they most probably would have used seed pearls, although pearlised glass beads were available*. I started on the sleeve cuffs first, because once these bits were completed, I could make up the cuff. This could help serve as inspiration for the rest of it if I thought about giving the whole thing up as s bad joke.

Here's some of the beading in progress:
The velveteen guards are basted onto a plain weave white cotton, and the patterm was drawn on the back. I discovered, quite by accident, that if I used a fairly firm pressure when drawing out the pattern on the back of the velveteen, the design was kind of etched onto the front. This was perfect, and made it really easy for me to follow the pattern layout. The beads themselves are strung onto a linen thread (which will hopefully prove to be unbreakable) and then couched down. This means that the pattern was nice and straight, and didn't take anywhere near as long as sewing each individual bead down. That certainly would have been a short road to insanity......

Here are the rest of the cuff pieces.

And the completed items, sorry that the one that I'm actually wearing is a bit blurry - it's actually really hard to take of photo of your own arm.....

The bottom part of the upper sleeve is also completed, I'm now working on the guards for the bodice. Well, I would have been, except I'm now actually writin

g about it. Ah, procrastination!

*I don't really remember where this info came from. Like a great many things, I read it somewhere, and I also saw an SBS doco on the history of pearls which had info on pearlised glass beads. Unfortunately, "I remember seeing it somewhere" is not a good documentation tecnique. If I ever actually find some real info on this that I can use to back this statement up, you'll be the first to know.

Great moments in radio

Heard the funniest thing on the radio on the way home yesterday. Triple J and Triple M linked up to play, in similcast, 20 seconds each of 2 songs - one from a band that Andy from Hamish and Andy (Triple M) is in, the other, a "song" by Scott Dooles Dooley from the J's, titled "Angry Panda". The title is important, because it should give some indication as to the quality of the track.....

If you heard it, I hope you laughed as much as I did (it's a good thing I was stuck in heavy traffic, or I would have crashed into someone. My stomach muscles (such as they are) are still hurting). If you didn't, I'm not even going to bother....... totally a "had to be there" kind of joke.

I have since found that I wasn't paying attention properly, and it was in fact 2Day that the link happened with. At least I know that I had the Triple J part right!! Oh well, it was a hoot, whoever it was! I don't quite know how this post went up twice, either. Sorry, JD, for deleting your comment!

What I did on my holidays. Part 1

Festival of course!!!

So, we packed up the car on Wednesday night, so we'd be ready to go nice and early on the Thusday. Most of this was achieved, however, despite the dreadful hayfever that I was suffering. But that was ok, I'd be feeling better in the morning, wouldn't I?

Nup.

It wasn't hayfever, it was the most dreadful headcold, which tightened it's grip on me as the day deepended. By mid-afternoon I was about as miserable as it was possible for a person to be. Oh, and then we discovered that the brand new air mattress that I had bought (Ashfield K-Mart, don't trust them, bunch of shifty bastards) had no plug, which would make it very difficult for it to remain inflated..... I have to say, there were many moments of dispondancy, and Festival was starting to look like it was going to be ghastly. We did, however, manage to buy a new air mattress in Yass, which was a start, and an early night (on the new, and surprisingly comfortable, air mattress - the one with the plug - not the crap one from Ashfield K-Mart) made everything seem much better the next day.

So, did I enjoy my Festival? Yes, very much so. On Friday I was feeling so much better I went out and made myself unwell again...... yes, the lure of the wine bar was too much for me, and I made some fairly substantial inroads on the road to being a drunken disaster. But that's OK, because I had at least enough of a grip on my sobriety to make a new friend. I spent many hours in conversation with Master Charles, probably because I had spent so much time in his fine establishment. I don't think that we solved any of the world's woes, but we sure laughed a lot. I don't think I'm ever going to be able to read a wanky wine review again without reliving some of the finer moments. Actually, the more I think of it, the more I realise that many of my fine times came from the wine bar - and not all from the bottle, either!!!

Saturday afternoon saw us back there, us being Meg and Snerg, DV, Helen, Scruffy, and for a brief visit, Charlie. After Charlie and I dashed of to go to court (to see Mark the Armourer be laurelled - although we had to sit through quite a lot of court before it happened), I came back to the wine bar....well, I was already half tanked, so I figured I might as well continue. Unfortunately, all of my friends seemed to have disappeared, but that was OK, because Manfred (from Mainly Medieval) kept me company.......if that's what you want to call it!! He seemed to take a great deal of delight in being icky and perverse, and making me squirm. We both had a lot of fun though! Somebody was continuing to ply me with alcohol (it might even have been me), because by the time I eventually stumbled up the hill to have some dinner I was fairly stonkered. This served as fodder for the inevitable ridicule to which I was subjected. Obviously I need some new friends.

Sunday night saw me sober, because I refushed....er, refused to have 3 hangovers at one event. I had a really good chat with Asa and Portia (and another lady who's name I simply cannot remember). Asa now has be on her watch list for being a "hussy" who unashamedly appeared in public without a hat, in a place where members of the opposite sex were in attendance. According to her, I was lucky to make the 4 steps from the wine bar to the tavern without being "ravished". Hmm, I never knew the power of a hat!!

I spent a lot of time wandering about, talking to people that I don't normally see or socialise with. One thing I have come to realise is that the 2 years of doing Festival Merchant Co-ordinator has really given me the opportunity to come to know, and be known by, a whole new group of people. It's great! So, as a result I really don't spend a lot of time in my own campsite, or even talking to my own friends.... sorry guys.

Normally this would be the place where I would start inserting some of the photos that I took..... erm, I will be the first to admit - I'm crap. I didn't take a single photo until the Tuesday morning, and that was only because there was a really cool fog. Oh well, I will just have to preserve the good times in my memory (and given that a) my memory is garbage, and b) I spent a reasonable proportion of Festival in a mild alcoholic haze, I'm not terribly confidant that the preservation will be terribly successful. Good thing there will be another Festival next year to do it all again in!!!