Things I like today

Loving this glass embroidered vintage collar
I would like to visit this cafe

Music and fashion, the perfect marriage!



Beautiful retro Staffordshire mugs!

Online Yard Sale!

I'm participating in an online Yard Sale, selling of a bunch of unwanteds, including lots of cds. If you head over here you can see what's for sale, new items added soon!

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The Yard Sale is organised by the awesome Pilgrim Lee of Draw Pilgrim. She's gathered a whole group of awesome bloggers to participate. You can see all the participating folks over here

Things I like today

Love this mushroom purse
Cool tutorial for a glasses stamp! Just like my glasses! Very cool

What everyone needs, a Joy Division colouring book! Chris and I did a election 2007 political colouring book a few year ago. Coloring books are cool.



Loving this doily dress!

And this one

From Burda. Great way to reuse doilies!

Things I like today

If I wasn't living in a rental property I would totally decorate my walls like this

Quite an inspiring poster


Haven't heard from the White Stripes for a while...


And for the cutest website ever go here! Baby elephants are joy inducing!

Things I like today

I added another Smiths embroidery to my online shop

so cool to see Holly's felted terraniums on Mr X Stitch!


One of my new fave songs


Love the milk glass!

One of my dedications to The Smiths...

You can see this and lots and lots more craft at the exhibition. You can also pick up a copy of Mix Tape Zine!

Things I like today

I have many of these brooches and adore these necklaces!

Loving this hand patchwork chair pad

image from modern embroidery by ike rosen, published by charles scribner's and sons, new york, 1972



I've listening to Faker this morning and remembering how good their first album was.

Movies and bands of the decade?

We're holding a backyard film night for NYE this year. We had some fun at a dinner party last night thinking about bands and films of the 'noughties'... Here's my quick list, far from exhaustive!



Fave Films

The Virgin Suicides (2000)
Traffic (2000)
Chocolat (2000)
Monsters Inc (2001)
Donnie Darko (2001)
24 Hour Party People (2002)
Kill Bill (2003)
Elephant (2003)
Crash (2004)
Capturing the Friedmans (2004)
Shaun of the Dead (2004)
An Inconvenient Truth (2006)
Atonement (2007)
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)


Bands of the decade:

Art Brut (of course I had to include them or I wouldn't have met my husband!)
Kaiser Chiefs
Interpol
Bloc Party
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s
Sigur Ros
Franz Ferdinand
The Strokes
Artic Monkeys
White Stripes
The Vines
Maximo Park

Fabulous pressies from the UK!

I got home from work today and found this wonderful present from Chris' friend Carrie. We've not even met but Chris asked her especially if she could send over The Cure covers album (The Cure are my favourite band) and she added a lovely cupcake book also. Hurrah!

The Wombats, Hi Fi Bar Melbourne, 31/7/08

It was set up to be an evening of contradictions. We started off by going to see Encounters at the end of the world, a simply stunning documentary about people who work and live in Antarctica. The film maker, Werner Herzog, had the most wonderful sense of humour and eye for eccentricity as he considered who would work in Antarctica and why, did penguins ever go insane and what happened if the Frosty Boy ran out? Also many dream-like photography sequences, the underwater ones were particularly memorable.

After the film we headed to Hi Fi Bar for The Wombats. Upon arrival I thought i was at an 'all ages gig' then I realised, no, I'm just old. The Hi Fi is a two story venue with a central 'pit' where punters typically sit and get in the way of anyone standing. It’s the kind of venue that is played by many touring UK indie acts, many of whom recieve almost no airplay here to the extent that tickets are given away before the event. But not the case for The Wombats. Their gigs sold out within two minutes of tickets going on sale.

First up was Kitchen Knife Wife, an indie Melbourne four piece who reminded me of Little Red, retro flavoured pop rock with a big nod to The Animals and The Kinks. Great opportunities for young scenesters, but their sound could be replicated in any front bar of any surburban pub by balding 40 somethings stuck in their halcyon days and be considered decidedly middle of the road. But cute looks can take you a long way.

There was the obligatory long wait whilst people applauded middle aged men setting up equipment and water bottles. I considered braving trippable stairs for a watered down gin and tonic (mostly ice and $8 for the privilege) , but ended up standing on the precipice of the central Pit in the hope of being able to actually see the band, without falling off in the process. The heating was desert like, the groups of young men with blonde tips gathered in packs.

The Wombats appeared. Almost immediately the audience started chanting and clapping, fists in the air. The band started with a rather fey acapella tune and then got straight into it to the accompaniment of much exuberant front row spitting and hyperactivity. They've toured Australia before ( I was overseas at the time) and their album is well known to Melbourne audiences. All songs were sung along to lustily by an adoring crowd and I can honestly say it’s the first time I've seen crowd surfing at a rock gig for a really long time. Seasick and Moving to New York were definitely highlights, but a lot of the songs sounded a bit too similar to really hold my attention. I think I'll stick to listening to them on internet radio.