Trying to get into the spirit of things

Have been reminded today that Christmas Day is a mere seven weeks away! Like I needed reminding. My yearly quest to 'get into the spirit of Christmas' began today with a trip to a certain dastardly craft shop which never seems to have quite what I want. Nevertheless, I came away with a selection of bits and bobs in whites, golds and reds and I am going to attempt to get creative and make some tree-angels to put on www.madeit.com . Even though I call myself emphatically 'not christian', I appreciate that the big day is important to nearly everyone I know, in particular, D's family and mine, and I have had a hard time in the past but I'm doing my best to get past all this and just have a nice day celebrating families. Somewhat hard when I'm expected to be at work for almost the entire day, nevermind! Moving on!
So, stay tuned, off to start attempt number one!

Why?

So we all know by love I am in love with the idea of Japan (idea only, because I haven't been there yet!) so I cruise around on ebay all the time looking for Japanese fabrics, ogling obis and sighing over gorgeous kimono which I am consistantly outbid on. I have this firm idea that all kimono are beautiful, and yet quite often I come across a piece of clothing which shakes the foundation of this belief. For example, this one:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Japanese-Beautiful-KIMONO-TOMESODE-No-29384_W0QQitemZ220300302465QQcmdZViewItem?hash=item220300302465&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C39%3A1%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C240%3A1318&_trksid=p3911.c0.m14 I just don't understand why you would want to wear a lobster? Eat it, sure, very tasty, but wear it?

Threadless Love

We got our Threadless package the other day :) Weee! I love Threadless and have been busy indoctrinating everyone else I meet into the Art Cult (JK) that is www.threadless.com.
My favourite Tee in our latest package is this one below, it's called Laundry Monkey and is by Wenceslao Almazan. I partly love it because it features a monkey and I'm a bit partial to monkeys... but also because it's about laundry, and also because it's clever and silly all at the same time :P Oh, and it glows in the dark!


I also managed to order myself yet another grey Tee, I don't know why, but at least half the prints I fall in love with are on steel grey fabric! By now I have about 5 of them, lol! I seem to order a lot of cutsie ones too, even though I don't consider myself 'cute' although I do look good in pastels (damn). I couldn't resist the one below, My Crony by Lim Heng Swee.


The next few are just a selection of my favourites found cruising about the site...

Loch Ness Imposter, Ross Zietz


Liberty, Kneil Melicano


Someday, Lim Heng Swee (popular artist!)
And finally I saw this one for the first time today: Colorblind, Matheus Lopes


Anyway, check it out some time! You'll be spoilt for choice (they have onesies and other kids tees too). Prices, however cheap, are not quite as awesome as they were given the spectacular financial downturn we're experiencing!

Driving myself around is dangerous

So despite having my full license for about 8 years I have never driven on my own. Even with Husband-Dylan giving moral support, I hadn't driven at all in over two years or thereabouts. I have a 'thing' about driving, but my honours work requires me to do field work and I just couldn't do it via public transport.

Recently, I have tackled the wheel and starting driving myself around :) Firstly just from home to uni, my field sites are along the way ;) But as my courage increases, so does my range. I no longer want to throw up at the thought of driving on my own. Now I can get myself all the way to Marion (shopping centre) and today, I braved South Road and made it to Spotlight all by myself! This is not good for my bank account :P D is actually very patient in fabric stores but it was still good to go on my own, touch everything in store and wander about in my own time looking for inspiration.

Naturally, I got carried away and came home with things I didn't need, and without the zip I meant to buy. At the last second, however, I remembered that I wanted plain off-white cotton and frantically dashed back, arms overloaded, to get what I actually came for. I needed have rushed of course, Spotlight queues are always slow. At least the Edwardstown store provides benches by the cutting counters for tired grannies and frustrated small children; big thumbs up.

So anyway, came home with a few cottons in watermelon shades (voiles), more red cherry blossom Japanese print (I have some already, but hey, it was on sale, c'mon!), a plainish browny-cream with a pink stripe and lastly, funky retro printed voile for a dress. I have some of that already, made myself the most unflattering dress in the world out of it in an attempt to copy another dress - note to self: light silk flows over the bumps, voile seems to highlight them... - The irony is, the dress came out exactly as I envisioned, just not when worn! So will take that dress apart and make another one. Not sure what I'll do with the other fabrics yet, add them to The Stash for now!


I've also been waiting impatiently for a package from Japan from my favourite Ebay seller and yesterday it arrived at last! A gorgeous vintage grey/lavender woolen roll of fabric. The picture doesn't really show the depth of colour and texture in the weave, but trust me, it's beautiful. It's a lighter weight than I anticipated, that's the danger of buying from the internet. And it smells powerfully of mothballs! And that is the danger of buying vintage fabrics!


Speaking of mothballs... the cat has, very irritatingly, taken to using the space under the desk as her personal toilet. We are not amused. A friend suggested scattering the area with mothballs to put her off, as cats don't like the smell. Well, not this cat! We haven't tried the mothball trick yet, but when I rolled out the fabric to take a picture, the Little Rotter came straight over and parked herself on it. So I think I can safely say that the smell of mothballs is no deterant to this cat. But then this cat is quite unlike any I've ever met before. Don't worry, I rescued the fabric before she got her claws into it, or anything else untoward happened!

Bits and bobs

Hello all :)

I'm supposed to be out doing field work but after 4 hours sleep last night - my mind wouldn't stop racing - my eyes are burning and so I thought 'bugger it, it can wait until tomorrow'. I thought I'd show you some of my favourite pieces I have for sale on madeit.com.au at the moment...

First up is the sweetest monkey I've made so far, she's waiting for someone to give her a name! Her ears are a little wonky but I think it adds to her charm.

Next a little purse I made with a 'snowstorm' vintage kimono silk, it's pretty basic but the fabric is gorgeous and the bow is just cute :P

This is another purse made from vintage kimono silk with a yellow obi-inspired detail. I call these my 'evening' purses because they're small-ish and pretty and made from beautiful fabrics.

And lastly, I just have to show you this wallet I made from vintage yukata cotton; the sunflower is amazing! I bought it off ebay and the seller sent me entirely the wrong piece (I think mine had lillies!) but I loved it so much I said it was fine and kept it.

In other news, I've designed some little thank-you/business cards to go in with my packages when I send them. It looks like this (below) but just in black and printed on cream-coloured card with a note and my email address on the back. That's a bit of a poxy small picture, sorry about that! One of the perils of working off two computers is that the picture you would like is always on the other machine...
In case you were wondering, the lotus is my own design after months and months of searching to find the 'right one' and I have it tattooed at the base of my neck.

That's all for now, stay tuned my fine-feathered-friends :)

Creative burn.

Hello all :-)
I am finally selling for real on www.madeit.com.au and I wanted to add a blog to go along with my itchy fingers. I am currently riding a wave of creativity which would be lovely except I am trying to complete my honours year in science, so whilst I'm being quite productive, it's not in the way my supervisors would like!

A bit about me for those that don't know:
My name is Katie, I'm married, a full-time student and part-time waitress, and I live in Adelaide, South Australia. I've been an internet nut for a long time and go by the name hearts_in_asia which gives a huge hint to where my head is most of the time. My boy and I have spent a lot of time backpacking around South East Asia and would like to live there someday. It's hard to choose where exactly, because we loved nearly all of it. Our next trip is planned for July, 2009, when we will be off to Japan and South Korea for an undetermined amount of time.

My art:
Asia not only influences how I'd like to live my life, but my creativity as well. I love and adore nearly everything Japanese but also draw heavily from other Asian influences and I will go into this more in the future. I love to sew, I paint, I collage, and I like to think I can write when I put my mind to it. I often wonder what I'm doing studying a science degree!

My little shop:
For the time being I've called my madeit.com shop 'Heart's Designs' as that was the uninspired name I put on my labels when I ordered them way back. I think Heart's Desire is a much better name though so when I run out of labels, I'll change it.
I'm selling handmade dolls and monkeys, as well as purses/pouches/clutches made from both new fabrics and vintage Japanese kimono and yukata fabrics.
Have a look here to see what I have available at the moment:
http://www.madeit.com.au/madeit/supplierdetail.asp?rsSupplierID=20688

I'm so excited to finally be up and running at last :)

Katie
x

Secret squirrels go to Singapore

Yup sure did. Wasn't in the original plan but we had to decide if we should extend our Philippino visa the required 4 extra days (and pay for a whole month) or just change the flights. To be honest, we were totally over Filipino food and decided to go back to KL 4 days early and then we buggered off to Singapore for 2 days and got back to KL this morning :) I've been wanting to go to the S'pore botanic gardens since I whipped past it on a tourist bus when I was 17 and it was well worth the wait :) I won't bore you all with botanical details, let's just say I took over 90 photos and leave it there. Ahem. Oh and I got bitten by ants again but I guess that comes with the trade...
So since we came back to Malaysia (and Singapore) a week ago, we've played super-tourists and visited museums, zoos, night safaris, gardens, markets, temples... Heck, we even bought tourist bus passes in both KL and Singapore!
It's good to be back here, after I last wrote Dylan ate most of a Dodgy Chicken Sandwich (DCS) and I had a bite too and let's just say that the next day was thouraghly...unpleasant. I got off lightly, Dylan did not and I'm sure the day spent on a variety of buses and jeepneys making it back to Angeles in time for our flight will stay in his memory for a long time (a story to rival yours, Sam!). So anyway, after the DCS episode, the food in the Philippines went from memorably bad to downright poisonous. Being able to sit down in any cafe here and eat a dirt cheap, fabulous and trustworthy meal is bliss! I've said it before and I'll say it again, we get seriously ripped off with curries in Australia, they ain't got nothing on anything you can eat on any street corner here. Our favourite place to eat is called something like Zakir and Hameed's Gigantic Halal Eating Emporium...or something like that. If you are ever here in KL, it's the big tiled 24 hour place near Pasar Seni station, right by the central market. We are fascinated by the staff, they seem to come in only a couple of varieties. There are the tall, dodgy ones who float around a lot trying to look busy but never actually do anything, and then there are the little ones who run around like chickens with their heads cut off doing everything. One guy in particular is the splitting image of Snoop Dogg. Truely. Except he's about 5 foot tall.
It's coming up to Chinese New year and so the city is positively abuzz with energy, flowers, lights and lanterns, I'm sorry that we'll miss the real thing in a week, Adelaide's just not quite the same.
Anyway, speaking of curries I'm off for a naan and something delicious, then we'll go rescue our bags from the guesthouse (we just took one pack down to Singapore, a little nerve wracking to know that half of what you own right now is in another country and you don't live in that one either), have a shower and then head out to the airport to begin yet another long journey. There have been a lot of them this trip, not much time to rest but it's been good all the same. Might write a highlights/reflection thing for you all soon that I'll put a little more thought into.
Anyway, see some of you soon, some of you later, keep well and Happy New Year :)
Katie