Weekly update January 21

The dress above is a dress I made for a Japanese customer to wear to a wedding. The navy silk is really beautiful and I can't wait to see it on her! Apart from that, This week will mainly be a lot of work-in-progress photos... 

I got an idea last week for a cute sixties wedding dress using these pretty fabric flowers I got in Hong Kong. It's been really fun to work on! 

My other work this at the moment is all in the toile stage - where I make a sort of practice or prototype dress out of cheap fabric to check that the pattern works. Both of the dresses I'm toiling at the moment are big long gowns so I've been working with teeny tiny scale pattern pieces to work out the most economical way to cut these dresses out. 

I'm working on another sash sample, I like having hand sewing to do in front of the tv in the afternoon! This one is a retro flowery style. It's just what I'm liking at the moment!

I was proud to finish off my pub paintings this week so if you didn't see them, check them out.

Awards season has put me in the mood for evening dresses so I've been sketching ideas for more bridal samples to make for the Etsy store. 

I keep my painting stuff (and some fake flowers) in these Andy Warhol soup cans.

Stacey from Rollergirl posted this cute photo of her in her bell street waitress costume rolling at the soda factory last week. Doesn't she look great? They're having a summer of 69 themed roller disco soon, so if you're in Sydney, you should check that out!

In other news, we bought a sandwich toaster this week and my lunches have improved immensely.

Adventures in Watercolour, part 2

Part 1 here

Before my mum came to visit us, I let her know that I wanted to get better at watercolour and demanded some lessons from her (she's good at all that). While she was in Manila we had a few painting sessions and I've been making it a habit to paint regularly since. I've been painting lots of wedding dress ideas, and also did some watercolour illustrations for my Hong Kong post.

I still use fashion drawing templates, because trying to draw people properly takes all the fun out of it for me. I've also been adding ink outlines using various techniques - fine pen, thicker markers and bamboo pens. My favourite way of drawing with ink is to cut an old-fashioned quill from a feather (so hipster, I know...) but I didn't think to bring feathers with me when I moved to Manila and I have no idea where to buy them! In Australia I would just buy a novelty feather mask from the party section of the supermarket or a packet of coloured feathers from the craft shop but I haven't been able to find any in Manila. There are also no birds in the city apart from sparrows, so the chances of finding a feather lying around are slim. Luckily the town where my parents live is full of magpies, so I managed to collect a few feathers while I was there before Christmas.

Hong Kong: Reasons to go and things to do

I've decided I should try to make my travel posts a bit meatier, so instead of just posting photos I'll give a few recommendations as well. Not a comprehensive travel guide by any means, but just some things I liked about Hong Kong. 

Reasons to go:

• It's a beautiful city - the most well known images of Hong Kong feature the harbour at night, with jungle of brightly lit skyscrapers. It's a stunning image, but so are the amazing mountains around Hong Kong, and the various beaches around the islands.
• It has a big airport, so there are a lot of flights available which can increase your chances of getting a good deal.
• It's a great stopover between Australia and Europe, and the compact size makes it easily manageable for a short trip.
• Hong Kong is famous for its shopping. There really is something for everyone and I'd definitely recommend booking some extra baggage on the way home.
• You can geek out over specialty streets - businesses tend to cluster by type, so you'll find a whole street of just toy shops, or an area filled with aquarium shops. I've spent hours in the fabric/trims district and I've barely scratched the surface of it. Find what interests you and dive in.

Things to do:

Avenue of Stars

This is the boardwalk along the Kowloon side of the harbour, looking at the Hong Kong skyline. It's nice to go down there for a walk at night, especially if you find Deck & Beer, a bar where you can sit outside and have a drink while you watch all the tourists, runners and boats go by.

Hong Kong Disneyland

We went here for our honeymoon in March and I went again with my parents a couple of weeks ago. It's the newest Disney park and currently the smallest, so it's a good 'starter Disneyland' because it's easy to do everything you want to do in one day. It's also fun for overseas visitors because the local visitors generally prefer different rides to us - which means you'll wait forever to go on Winnie the Pooh or Autopia, but Space Mountain and Buzz Lightyear are practically walk ons. Woohoo!
Unique to HK Disneyland is the new 'Mystic Manor' - an interesting twist on the Haunted Mansion as there are no ghosts! Designing a Haunted Mansion that was mindful of Chinese superstition must have been challenging but it's a really great ride. Other highlights include the Runaway Mine Cars, sort of like Rocky Mountain Railroad but with a twist, and the Festival of the Lion King which is a fantastic show.
If you want to go all out, stay at the Disneyland Hotel. It's not a practical location for Hong Kong sightseeing but if you're just there for Disneyland, you won't regret it.

Ocean Park

I can't tell you much about Ocean Park, because I haven't been there since I was nine. I'm putting it on the list though because everyone keeps telling us to go! Apparently the rides are really good.

The Peak

This is one of those standard attractions that people say you 'must do'. I say do what you like, but if you do want to go up to the Peak, I recommend the Peak Lookout restaurant for a nice meal or even just a drink. It's a really beautiful old restaurant with lots of outdoor dining space in a really pretty garden. Having hot chocolate by their fireplace was one of the only things I remembered from my first trip to Hong Kong when I was a kid. When James and I got up there and saw the mall and the Starbucks and the ice cream shops, I was thinking, 'This isn't what I remember'... and then I saw the restaurant tucked away in the trees. We had a beautiful lunch there and it was just as pretty as I remembered it.

Temple Street Night Market, Kowloon

This is your market for souvenirs, phone chargers, knockoff bags, the usual. If you want to do some market shopping, I think Stanley is better. It's the same stuff but more choice and the sellers aren't quite as pushy.
The highlight for me is Temple Spice Crabs, on the corner of Temple and Nanking Streets. It's your classic crazy busy Chinese restaurant with bossy waitresses, laminated everything and people sitting practically in each others laps. The food is delicious.

Stanley

Stanley takes awhile to get to, as it's on the other side of Hong Kong Island. Take a bus and sit upstairs so you can enjoy the scenery on the way - its a good quick tour of Hong Kong. Once you get to Stanley, you'll find a little mall, a nice waterfront area with lots of restaurants, some historic buildings, and a big market. The market is much calmer than Temple Street and has lots more variety - you'll find souvenirs, jewellery, handbags, silk products, embroidery, etc etc.

Sham Shui Po

If you're into sewing, head here. Take the MRT to Sham Shui Po station and head for Nam Cheong, Ki Lung and Yu Chau streets. There are so many shops that the best option is really just to allow lots of time, bring lots of cash, and wander around to see what you find. Have fun!

Ride Buses/trams

If you feel like sitting down for awhile, grab a bus and sit up top. You can have a rest while getting to see parts of the city you might not have otherwise found. When you feel like going back, get off, cross the road, and take the same route home. Ask at your hotel desk for bus information. You'll also need exact change (around HK$13) or an Octopus Card for your fare.

Draw your desk

Amy Borrell

In Frankie magazine's 50th issue last year, they had a few different artists illustrate their own desks and talk about what they like about their workspace. I love seeing where people work, and I love illustrations, so of course I thought 'Hey, I'll do a blog post on this and draw my own desk'. This was November last year, so it took me awhile to get around to it! I didn't have a desk or an apartment at the time, so I had to wait until I was kind of settled into a workspace. Then I forgot all about it until now. All of the people who contributed are amazing illustrators so make sure you click the links to have a look at the rest of their work.

Beci Orpin 

Catherine Campbell 

Jill Labieniec 

Mel Stringer 

My own attempt! I should have used actual paint to colour it, but sometimes I don't feel like making a mess and Illustrator is easy. So my desk is a pretty average, ugly coloured wooden study desk with drawers underneath. It came with the place and it's kind of unusually high for a desk, but I think that's probably a good thing for using a laptop all the time. Obviously my laptop dominates most of the space, with a little plant and my 'desk buddy' to the right of the laptop. 

Yeah, my desk buddy is a mini drawing mannequin with a fluoro skull and washi tape accessories.  He keeps me entertained when the internet is slow.

On the left side of my desks are a whole bunch of notebooks and a little plastic shelf thing from Muji which is filled with various index cards and post-it notes.

Obviously that's way more post it notes than the average person needs, but I like the pretty colours. I originally bought the index cards to use for our wedding guestbook, but fell a bit in love with them and now I use them every day for random lists, notes, writing down measurements etc. 

Also on my desk I keep a daily diary that my work friends gave me last year. At the time I wasn't sure that I would use it, because I've usually been more of a compact weekly diary kind of person - but that was when I was always rushing around between work and uni and everything else. Now that I work from home, I don't really need to have a diary on my all the time and this daily diary is the perfect layout for writing a daily to-do list. It's so much better than any iPhone app. Want to remember to do something on Wednesday? Write it on Wednesday's page. I'm as addicted to apps as the next Apple tragic, but I can't shake my diary, index cards and post it notes. How about you?

Angie collection - finished!

I'm back! and I'm married!

More about that later.

For now I'm excited to say that I have "finished" the Angie collection. I say "finished" because I didn't end up producing as many pieces as originally planned. As I said in the previous post, I ended up going back to Australia early to attend a funeral and so I was away longer than I thought I would be. I didn't want to drag out this collection forever and fall behind, so I finished off the items I was working on and called it a day. Time to move on to the next collection!

I'm just in the process of adding the last few items to the Etsy store, it will all be there by the end of the week. I'll also have lots of wedding photos to show you on Friday!

Tonight, in an effort to make working from home feel like a normal job, my husband (!) and I are going out for after work drinks to celebrate finishing the collection. I think it's better than celebrating things alone in the studio with my mannequin.

what I wore/what I draw 2

 

I'm hoping this week's drawings look a bit better than my first lot! Now that we've moved into our apartment I have my workspace all set up, so I was able to colour these by hand rather than on the computer. 

I've been working at home most days, with a lot of trips to the shops as we keep thinking of more things we need for the apartment! We've also been exploring the local markets on the weekends and occasionally going out with people from James' office. I really like it here!

DIY Pom-Pom Christmas Ornaments

I'm going to credit Sadie with the inspiration for this post. Having left most of my Christmas stuff back in Australia, I was wondering how I was going to start from scratch again and decorate a Christmas tree without buying even more decorations that would eventually end up being thrown out when we go back home in two years. When I read Sadie's post about how to make your own pom-poms, I realised that this was the answer! Easy, cheap, home-made decorations that won't break if you cram them in a bag. They're a very ethical solution if you've got leftover wool, too. As I've just arrived here I don't have any leftover anything, so I went out and got some white yarn.

I used the method described by Sadie to make the bigger pompoms (hers are much better than mine, yours will look better too if you have more patience than me and use a lot of yarn!). For the small pompoms, I have my own method...

I didn't take any pictures because I was doing them in front of the TV at night, so I drew some pictures for you. You'll need an ordinary kitchen fork, and some yarn.

1. Wrap your yarn around a fork. Mmmm, looks like spaghetti... don't eat it. Keep wrapping until its nice and fat, or until you get sick of it.
2. Cut a piece of yarn around 15cm long and wrap it around the middle of your little wad of yarn. As you start to tie your knot, pull the yarn off the fork.
3. Once the yarn is off the fork you can really tighten that knot. At this point it'll start to look less like spaghetti and more like bowtie pasta (or farfalle, if you're fancy).
4. Use a sharp pair of scissors to cut open all the little loops you've created. Fluff it open and you've got a teeny tiny pom-pom!

Go through your kitchen drawers to find different sized forks to use. I used a salad server to make medium-sized pom-poms!

I attached them to the tree with those little plastic loops used to attach price tags to clothes. You can get them anywhere they sell office supplies (or just use more yarn).

They look cute on the Christmas tree, don't they? Like cute little snowballs.

I got this ampelmann (traffic light man) decoration in Berlin and I love it!

This little owl is actually a bookmark that James' mum gave me but he looks happy being a Christmas decoration at the moment!