Catherine’s Blog

Tudor

Originally uploaded by LPM

I got on the train this morning and headed to new train station in the suburb that I grew up in, Wendouree. Wendouree is part of Ballarat, apparently Australia’s largest inland town, population under 80, 000.
My parents and I rescued a little old lady who had got on the wrong train and was going in the opposite direction.
then it was a tour of Ballarat to see the the hospital that has been torn down and rebuilt, there goes my first memory in brick. Then the lake to see the water in it.

We then headed home, the house I grew up in. I spent a lot of time cuddling Tudor, my cat my parents are looking after. She is looking good, she has lost weight but she almost 14. I am very happy to be back with her as there is no guarantee I have that much time left with her.
Of course Lennie got into the cat, he is second of the three cats living with my parents.

After Lunch Joyce and I headed to the Australian Sewing Guild’s Ballarat Chapter meeting.
I looked at quilt designs for what was a wedding quilt but is becoming a divorce quilt. Joyce pieced together a quilt.

It was a nice afternoon.
Then it was home to a house full of roasting meat smell. My father was roasting a leg of lamb. One thing I have not had since I left Australia last time.
Joyce and I looked at her newest patchwork quilt, lovely.


Then Dad started finishing off dinner, gravy, the works, I love Dad’s gravy and living with a veggie real roasts were rare on the ground.

I annoyed him with the camera no end!
Then it was time to eat my fathers “small plate of roast”, six different vegetables, a healthy amount of meat and lashings of gravy!

Oh course Joyce and I had to drink Champayne, we went from Great Western’s ‘Pink’ to my parent’s friend Jack’s home brew bubbly.

I looked over my mother’s photos from their trip, it was sad to see photos of Anthony in Ireland, apparently enjoying himself. One day photos like that will not make me cry.
And now I am lying on the back room floor as Joyce watches the television and I am drinking the bubbly.
The final photo, my mum, Joyce, no doubt who I am going to look like when I grow up.

It is very odd, up until now it felt I have been away forever, until I came back to this house.

Last week and this week I am home alone.  Anthony is in South Africa, organising the house renovation.

I have been busy.  I have decided to try and sell my sewing online.  Mainly gothic and steampunk wear.  At the moment it is just waistcoats with some sporran type bags on the way as well. Vegan ones made up out of the left over scrapes from the waistcoats. I may expand into shirts although not the winged collar styles as they are very easy and cheap to get hold of.  Maybe some high collared ones.  I have been having fun being creative, having some fun pattern drafting and generally sewing for relaxation.  Now to hope they sell.
Work has been interesting.  I have been applying for jobs internally and getting no where, after a couple of attempts to get more money or a change and more skills this is disheartening.  I had earlier, expressed an interest in moving campuses.  I had said I was happy to go to Harrow.  Harrow is outside of central London quite a way but reasonable close to home.  There is also a possibility of driving as well. The fact that there will be no Zone one means the cost of public transport will be minimal.  Also there is not as much food on tap, this hopefully will help with my waistline, although things like the post office will be difficult.
Another plus is all the art and fashion subjects are out on the campus, my skills maybe finally be put to good use.  At least I will have very good access to an interesting collection.
Besides that very little has been happening besides cleaning and general house stuff.  I have been enjoying pottering around and leaving the dishes, opps.  The weather has been lovely, around the 25 degree mark, very pleasant.

Week Thirty Four

Originally uploaded by LPM

Can you guess what I did most of my weekend? Yep, made a huge mess in the lounge room. The sewing so far has produced a shirt and waist coat for Frog and waist coat for me. At the moment there is a kimono in production, still thinking about putting a dragon on the back and the fact it is completely reversible makes this a complicated thought as the dragon will have to be appliquéd on and I don’t want the stitching to go through. Ohhh exciting times, whilst I think about it, I am making the obi. Still not sure what I am going to do with my hair in a kimono. Unfortunately I doubt there will be much corset action for me this Whitby.

We also went shopping and picked up some Halloween decorations, I do like the tat in all the shops. The holiday is not at all that big in Australia so it has real novelty value for me. My family in Australia are very jealous and we had to do a run for pirate stuff for them!

Talking about novelty value, Anthony has discovered fireworks. As they are illegal to buy privately in Australia and South Africa we have finally summoned up the courage buy some. Well, not some, a reasonably large amount. Anthony is intending to take some to Whitby I believe. I am hoping he comes out of this pyrotechnic craziness unscathed.

Bibbett has enjoyed the sewing and sitting on the tissue paper, paper instructions and the feel of fabric skidding along the table top. She does not like the sound of a hot iron on wet fabric nor the neighbourhood cat she had a scrap with on Saturday. She now has a box on the dinning table tahe se enjoys sitting in.

I have not watched what I am eating for about three weeks, I just could not deal with that and the other stress, I also refused to feel guilty for the rapidly disappearing cask of red wine. On the good side I have put on about ½ kilo which is a lot less than I thought I would have but I am back to watching my food and trying not to drink the bar dry.

Work is pretty good and I slowly am nutting out this role.

Well, I have been quite busy since Whitby but I should tell you all how it went.

Thursday I raced out of work after being up late on Wednesday packing. I came back to the flat to find Tina sitting on the front door step. After I faffed around a bit then we performed a Tardis stunt and packed the car.

Tina and I set off on the road to Whitby. We journey up the M1 stopping for dinner to avoid traffic and then later to take pictures. We met Anthony in York and jammed him in the back seat and headed across the moors to Whitby.

Once we found our cottage after dropping Tina off we could not manage to go out and headed pretty much to bed.

Friday we got up reasonably early and hit the shops. Shopping is fun in Whitby, all your goth shops in the one spot. During our tramping we gathered a little group consisting of Gerry, Ben and Kat. We shopped and Anthony bought an Edwardian era Top Hat and some New Rock boots. Very goth.

We finally got some lunch and then headed off to the Elsinore for a drink before heading home to get ready for the night.

We got dressed and headed down to the Met to catch the goth Burlesque night. Well, that was a fizzer. The drinks were expensive and burlesque rubbish, sound and lighting terrible and the dancers needed more practice. We stuck around for the second round but we made a break for it before they bought out the amateurs. We headed back to the Elise. There we caught up with people and then headed home with people in tow to sit in are cottage lounge and talk rubbish. It was great. Clive joined us later and I apparently fell asleep in a lounge chair.

The next morning was a little late in starting. We were feeling a little delicate. I wandered out to take photos and came back to get changed to go shopping. We decided that getting very dressed up was going to be fun and we donned some Victorian clothing for the shopping. We got stopped a lot to have our photos taken which was fun but I was concerned with the high level of professional photographers.  Then we went off to the Co Op supermarket dressed like that. Very amusing.

Then we headed off to a steam punk meeting which was very inspiring and has given me some ideas for some new outfits.

Then we had a group dinner after a lot of fun we headed back to the cottages to change. We headed out in Victorian Era gear and tried to get into pubs but the where all crammed. We finally got into a pub and then caught up with some people and headed out to A and G’s place where we meet Preacher, an infamous fellow. We talked until the sun was peeping above the skyline.

Sunday we were well on Whitby time. Rising late we had deep fried Mars Bar for breakfast and headed off to watch the football match. Real Gothic against the Whitby Gazette. It was our first soccer match ever and I tired out my photo skills and took about 450 there alone. It produced a couple of nice pictures. I geeked with a fellow about cameras which was really cool.

Then it was back to the cottage to cook for the crowd and try and drink a bucket load of wine. We then headed off to Laughtons for the 80’s night where it was hot and there was a lot of dancing and bouncing. We headed home early, sort of, past 12 and we collapsed. We got up early and packed the car and went up to the Abbey to take more pictures, then it was off to pick Tina up, got to York, drop Anthony off at the station and then back to London. I then spent the week washing!

We are going up for the November Whitby, looking forward to it. Oh and of course if you have not worked it out there is a lot of photos out there.

Waistcoat of Doom, originally uploaded by LPM.

Yesterday I finally completed Anthony’s Whitby waistcoat. I am very pleased with it. I almost drove me insane but of course I never do anything by halves. The pattern is a Laugh Moon pattern and they tend towards the historically correct patterns and that translates to fiddly. The orginal has six welt pockets but after the first one made me cry I settled on two, he needs to put his pocket watch somewhere.
The fabric is Anthony’s choice and I rather like it. The back panel is a navy blue shoot with a similar blue to the front. Not a complete match but very nice together. The buttons are fun, they are the same ones used in my medieval costume for my costume course.
The colar is a little odd but the rest of it goes so well together I may revist the collar and get ready to make him some more of these.
So this weekend is Whitby, I am driving from London tomorrow and will pick Anthony up in York. We are there for a shorter time due to neither of us having that much leave.
I have adjusted on of my old dresses to fit me again, that involved a lot of swearing and cursing as the bloody thing is lined I, as was my way then did a cut corner job on the lining. I am not adjusting it again. unfortunatly it looks like I have lost a ribbion for the gaunlets but I have not explored my ribbion box yet.
So the packing will be done tonight and then I am off tomorrow.