This is probably my most favourite bliss bag I have put together yet. It features Edwardian actress, Miss Marie Studholme in a Geisha costume and the photo has been hand-coloured in a curious mixture of pale yellow, aqua blue and pink flowers with green leaves. I really enjoyed choosing fabrics and trims to match the colours in the photo even making pink, lemon and blue "skeins" of Ardern's Silkateen very vintage thread. I love working with vintage threads as they have a totally different effect to our modern ones. I am going to make myself a block using Miss Marie which I want to put in a frame which has a cardboard mount with a sort of bamboo/straw pattern in fawn colours. This will be my project to work on while I'm in Sydney with my friend Mary Lewis.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
It's finally happening!
The bloke in charge of the concreting team thought I was a complete nutter, running around taking photos of the wooden formwork, the black plastic and the steel re-inforcing mesh on top. It looks so small in the photo but the studio will actually measure five metres (nearly sixteen feet) across by four metres (just over 13 feet) deep. I hope it is big enough to keep my stash, my cutting table, sewing machines and overlockers etc..... I really can't believe that after all this time of waiting, it is finally happening.
Men at work - on my studio.
I stood on the verge over the road to take this photo of the workmen's vehicles out the front of our house. I was standing in front of yet another truck with a bob-cat on the back while I photographed the cement mixer vehicle, a truck full of wheel barrows and shovels etc and one of the young "boys" car. As you can see, I live in suburbia, however we don't have houses across the road, we have grassy areas, a creek, then a railway line which carries freight trains and in the winter months we get the occasional preserved steam train and behind that, paddocks and the hills of the Darling Ranges..
My Concrete Slab.
Nearly four months after we signed the contract for the studio, I am now the proud owner of............a concete slab! Firstly, the local government authority took three months to approve the building permit then the company who are building the studio "lost" our folder of specifications and plans until I finally took a day of work and went into their office. I merely asked why, after nearly four months, do I not have a studio in my back yard??? Well, from 8.30am until 1pm, there was mad search for the folder which was finally located and within four days, I have a slab, but at least I can plan where things are going to go and best of all, I'll have my OWN place to sew, to cut, to pin and to dream.........this photo shows how the studio will be flush up against the brick paving and roof of the patio area.
