Monday, July 29, 2013

Auckland Dress

A couple of weekends ago I was in Auckland for my birthday (more details on that soon) and because it was my birthday, Rich and my friends Conor and Sue basically let me do whatever I wanted whilst dragging them along. One such thing was visiting the most ramshackle op shop which was located in an upstairs store on K Road.

Now K Road does have a lot of super awesome op shops - this was NOT one of those shops, it was basically a whole bunch of 80's wedding dresses and associated crap in one place. But amongst the general crap I found some blue knit fabric for $5, I couldn't resist it. I also found some epic fish shaped plates, but Rich called veto on that one. You can't get everything you want - even on your birthday!

I decided to sew the fabric up into a simple tunic style dress based on the dress design from my Sew La Tea Do sewing book.
I'm not 100% sold on this dress - but it may grow on me over time. It's not bad for a frock made in a couple of hours.
Here's me walking to my very glamorous photoshoot - aka the car park in our apartment block. You can see the scaffolding on the right, which relates to our never-ending building work!
 I thought I should share a close up of this necklace for all of the My Little Pony fans out there (you know who you are!). It's more than a little adorable - I picked it up at Armageddon this year.

Hope you all had a great Monday xoxox

Sunday, July 28, 2013

Birthday Part III - Tarot Reading

Another fun thing I did for my "birthweek" this year is have a tarot card reading at "Zammtopia" which is a small tarot reading business that operates in a building a few doors down from mine. There were lots of options for readings but we choose a 15 minute reading for $30.
If you are wondering why the business is called "Zammtopia" its because the tarot card readers name is Zammerly.
So you can't see my face as its buried beneath ALL that here - but here's the start of my reading. Zammerly give you an option, you have either have a straight out reading or ask questions. You also get the choice of three tarot card decks.
You get to choose five cards and place them on the table fact down and Zammerly flips over each card and reads it. The first three cards were kind of something about what's happening now or personality and the last two were kind of about the future. I got told I was generally a glass half full kind of girl and that I was too hard on myself (so TRUE) and that I have some big decisions coming up that I have to make or my dreams may slip away.

We got to do a "shared" reading, which meant we all got to hang out in the same room together whilst the readings were being done. We also got fruit bursts!
 My reading was followed by Emily's reading and then Jaimee's.

So was the $30 worth it? Totally! It was a lot more fun than I thought it would be and we all had a great time. I think maybe I would even go back again.
Also Jaimee bought me some lovely birthday flowers! Emily tried to make me fudge, but it didn't work out - but that's ok as its the thought that counts.

Hope you're all have a fun weekend and if you're in Wellington you really should have your tarot read by Zammerly sometime.

Thursday, July 25, 2013

Indie Sewing Pattern Month (Better late than never)

So way back in June a couple of my friends from the Wellington Sewing Bloggers Network, Kat and Mel hosted an indie pattern sew along. I have to be honest, if I am going to splash out and by a new pattern rather than a second hand one I much prefer to buy an indie pattern as its good to support small industry and to be honest, many indie patterns are much more to my tastes that the big pattern companies.

So I did have EVERY intention of joining in on the indie pattern sew-a-long I even bought this pattern and this one, but then something happened - I lost my sewjo. It seemed everything I made turned out crap to the stage I didn't want to make anything to wear ever again. But with some loving words from my girls the the WSBN I decided it was time to give sewing another go (I mean I have spent too much time and money to quit now).
Indie pattern month
Instead of buying one of Christine Haynes dress patterns (which I will try another time) I decided to make a Renfrew top from sewaholic. 

I think I need to take a moment to give a big thank you to Penny from Dresses & Me for opening an New Zealand based online pattern store that sells indie patterns! There have been patterns I've wanted to try in the past but the expense of having them posted had put me off buying them altogether.

Also Penny is really lovely so if you're going to buy indie patterns you should buy them from Penny - you can find her shop here

Here's my first ever Renfrew top - I made a size too big I think, but I can still make it work. This photo isn't so great as its taken after work in our apartment - I can't wait until its daylight savings time again and we actually have light after work to take photos.
I do really like the Renfrew pattern, but next time I will make a few adjustments - make a size smaller, shorten the sleeves (you can't really see it in the picture, put the cuffs reach my knuckles) and also shorten it so I don't have to tuck it in. But I don't HATE this top, it's a miracle. Maybe I don't suck at sewing after all?

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Birthday Part 2 - Warhol!

On the Sunday before my birthday Rich and I were planning to go to the zoo and hang out for the day, unfortunately my birthday is right in the middle of winter and so it rained and rained and rained pretty much ALL day. So we decided to choose our "Plan B" and head to Te Papa and see the Andy Warhol Exhibition.

Rich and I are pretty lucky as this is the second time we have gotten to see an exhibition of Andy Warhol's work - the first time was when we were living in Seoul. The exhibition in Seoul was pretty great, although it was SO packed you had to fight to get to the front to even see the works. Fortunately for us, Wellington's population is MUCH less than that of Seoul. So we could see much more of the work.

We weren't allowed to take photos at the exhibition itself - but you sure knew that there was a Warhol exhibition happening at Te Papa.

I picked up a few fun things at the gift store at the Warhol exhibit - some "pop art" badges and an Andy Warhol card that I've sent to a friend.
Even though it was a freezing cold day, Rich and I decided we should head to the top of Te Papa and take on the view from the roof. It was freezing!
 Here's a could of views from inside Te Papa from the top floor looking down - it always gives me a bit of vertigo!

 I hope you've all had a good start to the week - Rich and I were both able to return to our offices today, which was good. We are luckier than some folks in the city who aren't going to be able to return to their buildings this week due to quake damage.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Shaky Town

So a lot of you will have heard already that central New Zealand was hit by a fairly big earthquake (6.5 magnitude) at around 5pm last night. I'm pretty used to earthquakes, we get them fairly frequently, but this one was pretty scary. Rich and I basically bolted to the nearest door frame when it hit and our apartment was unharmed, a few things fell off shelves but no real damage. There has been some damage to the city and neither of us were allowed to go into work today due to our offices needing to be checked for safety.

The media has been saying all day that people should stay out of central Wellington, unfortunately Rich and I LIVE in the CBD so we can't avoid it. 

Despite the earthquake damage, we decided to leave the apartment and go for a walk along Oriental Parade to calm our nerves. However we saw some signs of damage along the waterfront. 
I'm not really sure what this stuff is floating in the water - it looked like polystyrene. When we looked over the water to the working part of the harbour we could see at least one shipping container had fallen into the ocean, perhaps this was part of its contents?
This earthquake left us wondering - was this crack here before? I don't remember it! This is a conversation we had over and over again whilst out walking.
From this view, you wouldn't even know I lived in shaky town!

I hope you all had a good weekend, and that it wasn't shaky at all.

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Birthday Part 1 - High Tea at Sweet Pea!

Like I said in my previous post - I'm the kind of girl who enjoys celebrating a whole "birth week". What is the point of limiting you birthday celebrations to one day?

So last Saturday I headed out to Sweet Pea in Petone which is a cafe that specialises in fancy high tea!

Here's a few photos of the cafe itself - super cute right? Also a sneaky shot of the cupcake cabinet. 




A few photos of the high tea we bought, we chose the "Posh" high tea, which is the most basic one. But it was still pretty amazing. It had a good mix of sweet and savoury and it wasn't too heavy on the super doughy things. We also got to have a tea pot each with a tea of our choice - or hot chocolate, ice tea or other kind of drink (depending on preference).



 This photo is a bit blurry - but its the only one I had taken of me at the event. I made my friends wear hats to the high tea because we are fancy ladies.
 Here's the rest of the fancy ladies in their fancy hats (all but one of the hats is mine!)
With this particular high tea you get a free cupcake to either eat at the cafe or take away. I will be honest though guys, these cupcakes look beautiful without a doubt, but the taste wasn't so great. They were a bit dry.
Here's a couple of group photos after the high tea - it was such a fun day out. Fancy Ladies!

Tomorrow I'm off for my birthday celebrations in Auckland - hurrah!

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

What Colour is your aura?

It was my birthday on Monday and I have had some fun celebrations so far, I'll blog more about those later. 

One of the things I'm planning on doing during my "birth week" this year (why have one day when you can have a WHOLE WEEK?) is having a tarot reading with my friends Ria, Jaimee and Emily. The reading will be happening tomorrow night after work, but it made me think of the last time I had some kind of fortune told. It was when I was in Singapore and Chloe took me to have my aura read by some kind of crazy aura reading machine, it even takes a photo.
It turns out my aura is all kinds of  blues and purples - pretty!
So what did the aura reading machine tell me about my aura? Well here's a snippet:

RIGHT SIDE (EXPRESSION) - Violet - "The vibrational frequency most likely to be seen or felt by others around you"

"You show a magical, fairy/leprechaun-like face to the world. People see you as someone living in a somewhat different dimension, of realm, not everyday"

I wish I really DID live in a magic fairy world!

CENTRE (EXPERIENCE) - Earth Blue - "At this point in time you are experiencing deep inner peace and tranquility in your life"

"You many be on vacation or experiencing a "time out" to relax and gather your energies"

This one was kind of on the money - I'm not really a tranquil type - but I was on on holiday so more relaxed than usual!

LEFT SIDE (FUTURE) - Earth Blue - "Blue is the "communication" colour which indicates that you are a sensitive and intuitive listener, able to transform other through your loving listening"

People do tell me their problems quite often, even if I don't know them very well. Perhaps this machine does have some fortune telling skills? 

THROAT (COMMUNICATION) - Magical Blue - "You may feel a rush of artistic inspiration, or the need to sing"
I really hope for all of those around me I am not compelled to sing - also what kind of blue is magical blue? Really?

HEART (EMPATHY) - White Energy - "You glow with a mysterious inner light and a strong connection with the devine"
Can you guys really see me glowing?

SOLAR PLEXUS - White Energy - "The very centre of your soul is super charged with a miraculous, spiritual, healing energy"
That can ONLY be a good thing right?

SEX - Blue - "What you want most in your relationship with others in clear, honest, heartfelt, deep and intimate communication"
Doesn't everybody?

ROOT - Wildflower Violet - "You put out the highest vibrational frequency into the world"
"Somehow you have managed to transcend the physical plane, in a sense, because you easily negotiate your worldly affairs without worry, stress or effort"

If only this was true!
 

I'm not a huge believer in this kind of thing - although I do wish I lived in a magical fairy world and everything in my life was a breeze. I will let you know how the tarot card reading goes tomorrow night.

Hope you are all having a fabulous week! 

Thursday, July 11, 2013

Rock n' roll quilt - part II

So its all been a bit quiet over here lately! Winter is in full swing and as its dark when I leave for work and when I get home there's really not much light to take any outfit photos. I have also had a distinct lack of "sewjo" (that's sewing mojo) lately so I haven't made many things. But I DID finally finish up my rock n roll quilt. It's my first ever quilt and a pretty cool recycling project for a music nerd.

Some of the tee shirts were picked up at op shops but others we have had for a long time and haven't been able to let go of! One of The Cure t-shirts on the quilt I bought when Rich and I went to Auckland to see The Cure (along with our good friends Conor and Sue).  Some of the t-shirts used are t-shirts I bought for Rich as birthday gifts - like the tee shirt with the image of Iggy Pop. I love that we have been able to keep all these old tees but put them to good use at the same time.

I lined the back of the tee shirt quilt with some animal print fleece from Arthur Toye - because animal print is rock n roll baby!!

Now I need to get onto some of the other projects I have been thinking of creating - come back sewjo!

Sunday, July 07, 2013

Wellington Sewing Bloggers Roadtrip!

Since I joined Wellington Sewing Bloggers Network there has been a trip planned to visit Levana in Levin. Levana is a factory store that's open the first Saturday of every month, the sewing bloggers had been planning this trip for a while and I was really excited to go along. So excited in fact I was prepared to catch the 7:03am train from Wellington to Johnsonville on a Saturday morning to meet up with some of my sewing blogger pals to head to Levin. I was the only person in my train carriage!

I met up with Mel  in Johnsonville and she was kind enough to drive me around for the day, along with Nikki and Jo we headed off to Levana.



However, when we finally arrived in Levin and headed to Levana - disaster struck! IT WAS SHUT!!
There was some issue with the electricity so it was SHUT on the first Saturday of July and open the second Saturday instead. We were sad - but resourceful and decided that we were still going to have a fabulous day. We decided to check out an op shop and then head onto Palmerston North as originally planned.
I didn't buy this fabulous men's "body shirt" pattern at the op shop - but I did buy a table cloth which will become clothing and some cute doilies.
When we arrived in Palmerston North we headed straight for Petite Fours where the lovely Juliet had booked a high tea for us all. It was amazing! You all know how I feel about high tea - the cafe was lovely, the food delicious and the company was just the best. I even learnt some New Zealand sign language at high tea.











After lunch we visited the Arthur Toye fabric shop in Palmerston North, its MUCH bigger than the Wellington. So much excitement - they even had a selection of Hello Kitty fabrics!








After spending much time and money at Arthur Toye it was time to check out another op shop, Juliet told us they had a lot of vintage patterns.

Look at ALL THESE PATTERNS!

They also had a "fabric room" where I managed to pick up some fabric cheaply to try and make a coat.

So what did I pick up during my adventures in Palmerston North? I was pretty restrained despite a half price sale at Arthur Toye. I bought some stretch blue velvet and blue Hello Kitty cotton. The velvet is much more of a royal blue that it looks in this photo.
At the Op Shop in Palmerston North I picked up some houndstooth fabric to try and make a make a coat with and also a whole bunch of patterns.



Despite initial disasters, I had the best day out with my sewing blogger friends and hopefully we can do it again when Levana is actually open!

To finish off, here's a tree that's been yarn bombed in Palmerston North that I thought was pretty rad (there was some kind of festival happening when we were there).
 Hope you've all been having a rad weekend xoxox