Bridging moments

Terrific Trev took me to Sydney for the January "long" week-end - to see the Picasso exhibition at the Gallery of New South Wales, to scour Oxford Street, the sales, the city arcades, to visit the markets, and to dine wonderfully at hand-picked venues. He is the king of travel planning, and I am a very lucky crafter as a result.

Before we left we walked along the Harbour Bridge feeder road, overlooking Circular Quay, to the foundation stone above The Rocks. The bridge was opened in March 1932, a week before my mother was born, so that was a bit of a moment as she, and the bridge, turn 80 next month.

And she is eternally grateful that her parents decided NOT to call her 'Sydney Bridgette'.

This week-end I have my first market - the very special Heavenly Harvest in the grounds of St Mary's Church above the southern reach of our very own Story Bridge.

If you have a fondness for Jane Marple's village of St. Mary's Mead, or the Parish of Didley, this is the market for you! You can take tea in a pot with its own eccentric cosy accompanied by home-baked scones seated high above the river on the Kangaroo Point cliffs, rifle the jumble, browse hand-made wares, take a self-guided tour of the church, and go home with farm-fresh fruit and vegies, sweet treats and great bread. It's a bit of a hike, and far from extensive or over-crowded, but that's part of what makes it so special.

And the site fees and other funds raised go straight to the restoration fund for the church.

My other bridge moment coming up is an exhibition in which I'm participating of paintings and other works inspired by our very own Brissie icon, the Story Bridge - not as monumental perhaps, but in its own way as structurally impressive as its southern cousin. I have contributed ten bags and pouches - no paintings on this occasion because I simply ran out of framing time, but thematic sewing is lots of fun, challenging to start with but in the end self-perpetuating. The exhibition opens on February 14th at the Robyn Bauer Studio and Gallery, Paddington (the Brisbane one) and includes work from ten artists.

Enjoy a Fabulous February!

Vintage Vignettes

For the first time in a few years my sister hasn't brought her family out from London to spend Christmas with Mum and Dad and the rest of us here.

And why does one say "out from London" - are we some sort of outer space in Oz, or do they get let out of a wintry UK, as from the penitentiary?

And does speaking of Oz loudly proclaim my own vintage?

We missed them all, as much as one does miss one's favourite little sister and her lovely hubby and dearest chickadees. But I had a lovely time shopping, in London as it were, on-line for their Christmas and birthday presents (my niece and nephew were born on the 1/1 and 2/1 respectively). I roamed Harrods and Fortnams, browsed Designers Guild and Zara, and shopped at the London Science Museum and Accessorize.


My cyber visits to London reminded me of how much I am drawn to English crafting, English vintage, and English quirkiness generally. I'm not particularly anglophile, but no one does eccentric quite like Britannia.

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Example: Seaside Sisters - who neither live near the seaside, nor are they related, but they work magic nevertheless. The sisterhood comprises three superlative craftspeople: Gillian Elam of Fabric Nation, Linda White of Handmade to Measure and Xtina Lamb of Printed Wonders.

Handmade to Measure

Fabric Nation

Printed Wonders

Example: Supermarket Sarah, whose walls retail to the world her chosen makers.

Vignettes are the name of the game on a visit to London - our visit in 2010 was like a sequence of snapshots - eye-popping or intriguing, kaleidoscopic or misty-viewed.

Viva la quirk!

Rule Britannia! 

©2010 SupermarketSarah

'Twas the Night before Christmas, and time to take stock...

Mum and Dad

I've been feeling so blessed this year.

My big boys are all finding their paths in adult life, my parents have stayed in excellent health as they both turn 80, Terrific Trev is mellowing and enjoying life more than he has allowed himself to for years!, and I've had the most wonderful time all year ignoring housework and exploring creative avenues in all sort of directions.

small Harry

I've met great people through the markets, both fellow marketeers and also wonderful marketers. I have had good times with old friends and spent wonderful moments with my sister, brother-in-law and their children when they visited. I nursed new great-nephew Harry within hours of his birth - how special does that feel! - and spent time with all of Trevor's wonderful family, including my first visit to his home city, Adelaide, where his 90+ year old Dad still lives. Life is pretty sweet, and I really do feel privileged to be able to say just that.

when my sister came out to visit

Thank-you, dear followers of this blog, for keeping up with my ramblings this year! Have very happy Christmases and stay safe and healthy for 2012!

A twilight affair

"The city" is a pretty magic place in the nights leading up to Christmas...somewhere I took my boys when they were little to see the lights, the giant Christmas tree in the square, and the Myer windows, and it's where my own parents also took me and my brother and sister when we were small, for much the same purpose.

Debra Lidster's photo of the Myer Christmas windows

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It's great fun to be part of the Christmas events with the Christmas BrisStyle indie Twilight Market this coming Friday night...not just about offering our hand-made goodies for sale as stocking fillers and presents for under the tree in a world where we all have to search harder and harder to find something a bit unusual, a bit special.









It's also about sharing the buzz with the city workers, the families come to see the lights and the tree, those starting out their Friday night festivities, those on their way to pick up trains or buses to get home...the chat is always interesting and stimulating and we all love talking to people who are interested in what we do and why we do it in the happy crafting collective world that's BrisStyle. And the many others we've got to know - the customers, the suppliers, those from allied fields, the extended families, the new babies, those who have faced illness, even a few we've lost along the way. The hand-made world is like a very large, disparate family and I feel very blessed to be part of it.

In BrisStyle we have a little band of special, special people who dedicate a great chunk of their "spare" hours to organising and promoting us and what we do - arranging markets and seminars and workshops, liaising with government agencies and business organisations, supplying us with all sorts of info and suggestions to help us all along our chosen paths, and at the same time still trying to find the time to ply their own crafts.

Peppermint Magazine's photo of a BrisStyle indie Twilight Market in full swing.

So if you are local, come and visit us in King George Square from 5 p.m.  - have a chat, and by all means look around at our wares for some Christmas shopping that's outside the parameters of normal retail shopping. Look forward to seeing you!

A Christmas Carol

The St Augustine's Christmas Community Carols is something I used to do with my boys when they were little enough to go bathed and in their pj's, ready for bed straight after we'd headed for home via a quick viewing of the city lights from Bartley's Hill. Grandma came too, and we feasted on sausage sizzle, were directed in song by the legendary Hugh Cornish, and all waved around real live candles, stubby ones with little cardboard collars to protect small hands from hot wax, without burning down the church or the congregation.

Which suggests the singing went on inside that magnificent old building, but in fact we were gathered on rugs in the equally magnificent grounds of the church.


Not sure how much the boys enjoyed the carolling, but they had a lot of fun being boisterous around the trees and bushes and flower beds in the late spring twilight, and Mum and I did the singing, which we love!

Last year I went back with my market goods to support a brisStyle twilight market extension of the carols. I had such an enjoyable time of it - everyone who I spoke to was cheery, if rather hot and sweaty, and many good parents and grand-parents, having watched children performing in school choirs, and fed children sizzled sausages, wandered into the hall for a browse and some comparative calm, leaving their young to be boisterous amongst the trees and bushes outside. No stubby candles these days, but most things don't change all that much.

Wimcee will be at St A.'s this coming Friday night again (25/11) for the Racecourse Road community carol service/sausage sizzle/twilight market - can't wait! If you are local, and especially if  you have children, come along and share the festive cheer.

Head-dressing

Love hats! Rarely wear them - hate hat hair almost as much as I love hats - but love hats, head-dresses, wreaths, crowns, tiaras, head scarves, and wonderful Audrey-esque hair-do's.
 

Think that I must have got this from my Dad, who tends to grace the suburbs wearing a straw boater in summer and a large felt fedora in winter. He has an extensive collection: can at a moment's notice produce anything from a fez to a deer-stalker. And he and Mum have always loved a good dress-up event...my first exposure to the press came as a grubby faced babe-in-arms cradled by an Arts Ball bound bambi look-alike mother (why? still remember the feel of the foamie antlers of her costume but have never understood the reasoning.) Really doing a far better impersonation of a deer caught in the head-lights than my glamourous Mum I made it into the Sunday papers in the days when there wasn't a great deal going on in Brisbane, obviously. Maybe hence Dad's predilection for the deer-stalker? Moving right along...

Gail Davis as the original female super-hero

I was many things out of the dress-up cupboard, but my favourite alter-ego of all was Annie get-your-gun Oakley. I had the fringed vest, the cute skirt, the cowb'y hat, and the six-shooters, with holsters, to match, and stalked around the flower beds of our family home shooting imaginary baddies for hours at a time. How healthy is that! We're talking early 60's here, when the world was in love with the USA, Disney ruled the hearts and minds of Australia's young, and we could all sing the theme song of Davy, Davy Crocket, king of the wild frontier, without have any idea where the wild frontier was, or even what it was.










This early love affair with a happier period of American influence lead me to make a number of stylised wig-wams to sell at market, and from there, naturally, to papooses and feather head-dresses. And of course, best fun of all has been the feather head-dresses...they take a disproportionate amount of time, but are much, much fun to make.
Annie's put her side-arm to bed long ago, but then I always actually preferred the more colourful side playing Cowboys and Indians on the state school oval at lunch-time, and bows and arrows are so Robin Hood (with the Richard Greene American accent) after all

Wimcee will have a full compliment of feather head-dresses (plus lots more) at the Mathilda's Christmas Market tomorrow (19/11) at Eagle Farm Racecourse in Brisbane.

BiECO - the green BrisStyle market.

Of all the wonderful markets that the BrisStyle collective holds through the year - all hand-made, all local...not sure where else in Brissy-land you find that combination of wonderfulness - of them all, my favourite is the BiECO: the BrisStyle indie Eco market.  

This only happens once a year, and this is only the third ever. This year the green and leafy grounds and hall of St Augustine's church at Ascot will be bursting with recycled, upcycled, repurposed, and vintage wonderfulness, as well as take-and-make kits, demonstrations, workshops, seconds sales, and supplies.

There is a lovely, laid-back vibe that attaches itself to the BiECO that speaks to the once-upon-a-time hippie in me; and because it has different criteria the BiECO is a market in a class of its own...this is less little girls' skirts and Amy Butler-esque hand-bags, and more quiet forrest coloured boiled wool, the dinky-di retro-ness of old linens, op-shop collectables, re-worked memorabilia, and Melanie's superb vintage kimono silks and crepes.

my journal cover with brooch

Come and visit us on Saturday, 12th November, from 9am until 2 pm.

vintage fabric cushion from Collecting Feathers

upcycled and pre-loved

pre-loved wardrobe gems from Ruby2gogo

memorabilia notebooks from Meggy Green