upcycling

Wanderings

| poppypeach

Over and out for now with my crafting and sewing and to wrap it up I collected all the pieces from my work and made a another pillow which is stuffed with the smaller scraps as a memento of my time with my machines. I am now back to studying two subjects Developing Literacy and the Theories of Teaching and Learning both have a LOT of reading and now I am in planning mode so I can get my assignments done on time and balance the rest of my life living as solo parent with two tweenagers.

Last week was a long weekend so we went and did some house research as we are going to leave our lovely house sometime in the near future for the remodel. So as we were in a different part of the neighbourhood we checked out an amazing cafe The Boot Factory on Pentridge Boulevard. The crushed avocado, preserved lemon whipped ricotta with a poached egg was divine and their coffee was the best I have had so far. My favourite part of lunch was the vintage inspired decor complete with comfy couches and old wooden chairs and this gorgeous table lamp. I will have to visit again soon!

This lovely dress is from the same pattern a 1970s dress that was paired with the skivvy on the pattern picture so I thought excellent it can be layered or not for the changing weather. The dress was created for an up-cycled sari fabric which was once a maternity skirt. With the swing in the A-line, I felt it needed pockets so I added a couple of decorative pockets – I would not put my phone or anything valuable in there but it is fun for your hands!

This dress was another old pattern from the late 1990s I reckon that I used to wear a lot in many fabrics back in the day as it is pretty versatile. The skirt of the Japanese fabric was sewn together randomly and saved from the landfill as it was older and stained so I screen printed over the discolouration on the fabric pieced it together and voila a skirt with a top made from a $4 XL t-shirt.

The grey dress is a $2 Muse concert t-shirt cut up and mixed up with the XL tee and the skirt is from a dress I wore for my 30th birthday at Misty bar in Melbourne which is now permanently closed. It’s location was on the very cool Hosier Lane which is a huge tourist attraction with street art covering the walls of the laneway – I may have to go and check it out again and perhaps finally go to Movida to eat. This pattern is super comfortable and works well on hot days.

Looking around the neighbourhood I found the Penal Establishment of Pentridge with its bluestone walls and behind this huge entrance is another development with apartments and I am looking forward to how this all looks in the future with its inner city high density vibe going on. I love how heritage listed elements are combined with modern urban architecture.

Better get back to work as I have a couple of kids wanting the day off school so they can strike for Climate Change. It should be big with many kids taking time off school to show the government what they stand for as it is their future after all. Last rally I attended was the Womens March in San Jose, looking forward to my first rally back in Australia!

Sunshine and rain

| poppypeach

The weather here has been brutal with the heat but now we have finally had a cool change and I am now wearing a cardigan – that is Melbourne weather in a nutshell, four seasons in one week, well it used to be one day! I thought last week was my last week to create but as it turns out I have another week of creative fun! So this week I have made a denim skirt from a $10 pair of massive mens jeans and a dress out of some stretch fabric (my friend gave me a whole roll of red stretch fabric) and I found some cotton fabric at the Salvos, also some hair bands for the gym from the stretch fabric scraps and a hat from kimono fabric. It is incredible how resourceful you can be when you have a minimal amount of fabric to work with.

Next move is in the works for this year and I started looking at rental properties last weekend as builders are checking out the house to give us a price for the extension of our 2 bedroom to extend to a 3 bedroom with open plan living and dining. I am excited about it all, but living in this current state of flux is difficult. We have just moved back here and our stuff from California is in the middle of the ocean on a container and we have to think about moving house again! Lucky this house is all clear of all the stuff from 12 years ago (thank you Brotherhood of St Laurence and Red Rabbit rubbish removals) and we have a few boxes to move but the arrival date of the furniture, clothes, books, craft and kitchen items are arriving end of March, yikes! We have one month grace period, where Allied International can hold our stuff at their warehouse – so I have to manifest a new place for us by the end of April. Again depending on the schedule of the builder is whether we will stay here or be moving in the next couple of months. I hope the extension starts sooner rather than later as we started working on this huge project in August 2017!

I am thankful that I have my machines to keep me company as the move back has been way harder than I imagined with the integration into a new community as a new migrant to Australia. I imagined that amazing little island paradise I was living back in Mountain View with our incredible parent community so it would be easy to come in and make friends. But that was a community I was a part of since Kindergarten – so that made sense I was fully immersed within it. Here it is a lot harder to make friends even though Aussies are super friendly! I have met two 5th grade parents which is something but everyone has their own lives so it is tricky to be the newbie and try and even hang out with local folks. Even at the gym, I say hi to a bunch of people but again it is not the same as the wonderful ladies I spent a lot of time with over there. The peeps at the gym are friendly and we chat about how hardcore the classes are and have a good laugh at our lack of fitness which is a lot of fun and great for my mental health. I have friends here who I catch up with on the weekends but generally it can get a bit lonely during the week but once I get back into study it will be best that I keep to myself and get my butt into gear. It is good to get out and socialise so we went to the city over the weekend to go to the art shop to gather supplies and track down some Mexican food at Guzman y Gomez. Nothing as good as Mexican food in Los Angeles and SF but the tacos were pretty good with the tasty chipotle salsa, yummo!

The kids have found some friends at school and I am happy as long as they come home with a smile on their faces, so I am feeling good about their schools and their time here. It has been just over 2 months back here and our routine is set with walking to school in the morning and I am off to the gym for some exercise and time out. It feels like a natural transition now and I am feeling at home but each day as I look around and listen to the birds and the trams I think, wow it is real – I am back in the inner city of Melbourne complete with the disgusting smell of cigarette smoke! BTW hardly anyone smoked cigarettes in the Bay Area so I got used to the lack of smoke in the air there except when there was bushfires and bad pollution days 😦

Creative freedom

| poppypeach

Now I am back into the swing of things as a solo parent and last week was quite a doozy. The week started off well with a little feature on Instagram which was cool! After that, I enjoyed an excellent week of just creating with my overlocker and sewing machine and fabric to repurpose.

Midweek my son was sick with a tummy bug which we all got by the end of the week which was bad! Which made our weekend was a complete bust and time for recovery. My mission last week was just to create as much as I could as I have not had an opportunity to just make freely for a very long time. Back in California every time I had a spare moment it was spent organising the move back to Australia, so this was my chance!

So I went down to the local Dimmeys and found some cheap clothes that could be cut up and recreated into something else. At the moment travelling to find a fabric store sucks up time, so this was a random Plan B. This plan worked and I found some overstock jeans from a USA fast fashion label for $10, a big black t-shirt $4 and a plain black skirt for $3. The jeans have been screen printed and made into pillows for my lounge – I had to grab another denim skirt for $9 and repurpose that to complete a pair of pillows. I am finishing the third pillow using the top of the skirt with the button and zip which needs a bit of hand sewing with strong button thread.

The black t-shirt has been used for the top of a dress I am finishing with a fair amount of hand sewing before it is complete. I am still working through some ideas as I have really enjoyed just finding my patterns, cutting and sewing away without any real thought of consequence or deliberation for example when I use expensive fabrics. It is such creative freedom!

Today I went out for lunch with my friend and we had a delicious lunch together at East Elevation, in Lygon St, Brunswick East. We were first introduced to this place via coffee and my friend wanted to check out the food today. I enjoyed a plate full of mushrooms and goat cheese on rye (I am missing mushrooms as I would be the only person eating them in the house at the moment – so it is a treat) with an amazing Flat White. The inside space is amazing as from the outside is a big red door and surprise when you walk in, its a massive warehouse space with plants everywhere which I just love! We will have to check it out again sometime soon and see their quails and bees and chocolate factory!! 😀 This stunning flower is part of a display designed by a bespoke floral studio, ceciliafox it’s a Berzelia albiflora a Native to South Africa. I love the discovery of interesting finds that have many secrets behind their doors.