Aunty Shabby

A rather pregnant pause

 After declaring I would post more often, I once again regressed and lapsed into a state of blog inaction. Is that a term? It should be. Anyway, lots of excuses - busy end of the year, mother-in-law from overseas staying with us, and oh, did I mention I was pregnant? Yes, Aunty Shabby will soon be Mummy Shabby. I know being pregnant shouldn't be an excuse for inactivity as such, but when you are feeling like crap for several months, not eating and worrying that your baby might be malnourished as a result, blogging is the least of your worries (all first time mothers can probably relate to some of this)!

I am now more than halfway in my pregnancy, the baby is fine so far and I am feeling much better, so I plan to get back on with things, including this blog and my business. (And NO - that image is not me!!) Which is what, in a sort of circuitous way, prompted me to blog today. 

After going to my prego pilates class this morning, I decide to check out the 20% off sale at Spotlight. As you do. I had started a baby blanket for my baby (to be) and again, as you do, discovered I didn't have enough wool to make it as big as I had wanted. Of course they didn't have any of the wool I wanted left - but I did find some other stuff- when I observed a group of ladies enthusiastically exclaiming at all the different wools. I could tell they were new to the whole knitting/wool thing and when one of them was selecting an acrylic wool next to a much nicer wool I was getting, I couldn't stop myself from pointing out that the wool I had was the same meterage, but real wool, cheaper and much, much nicer. I have never been a big fan of acrylic. Luckily, she seemed appreciative of this unsolicited advice, and we, together with her friends, chatted for a few minutes about the joys of wool, knitting and crochet. One of them then admired the scarf I was wearing - Ghost gum, see this post from July 2008 - describing it as "designery". What a compliment! I told her I had made it and was trying to get my act together to sell them under my label, Aunty Shabby. To which she then replied, "I will GOOGLE it". You can then imagine my horror at her finding a woefully neglected blog, and to date, still no website! I cautioned her to hold off on her search, and so of course was immediately shamed into action! 

I have actually been working on a few things, but can't upload any new pics, as my digital camera acquired a large piece of dust on a recent trip to Sydney - another reason not to go there (oooh, mean) - which is showing up as a big black dot and needs to be removed at some considerable expense. It may be cheaper to just buy a new one. 

Am also helping my sister, greenolive out at the Modish Creators Market at Malvern this Saturday, so am getting back on the crafty circuit! More to follow...

I've been to Antarctica

That's why I've been off the air for so long!! Only kidding. I couldn't think of anything worse (Melbourne weather is cold enough for me, thanks very much) and besides, I took this photo at a recent trip to the Melbourne Aquarium with my Dad. Not a bad shot if I do so so myself. And I do. It would want to be though! I took about a million of the little critters. Thanks God for digital cameras!

Well, after a VERY LONG ABSENCE, I thought it may be time to get back in the saddle, blog-wise. I can't say exactly what has kept me away for so long - over a year - lost blog mojo, several bouts of bronchitis with a side order of swine 'flu, a stressful job.... I could go on. But let's say we just pretend it never happened, a bit like the whole Sarah Palin episode, call it a blip, and get on with things. Whaddya say??!!

So what's new with Aunty Shabby??!! I have FINALLY finished my study - don't have the energy or enthusiasm to elaborate right now, maybe another time, please remind me - so in theory, have my life back. I am also no longer working, in the sense that I do not go to a place of employment and don't get paid. I am apparently working for myself, but alas, have not yet achieved much. I have been working on my business plan and waiting for inspiration to strike. Did I mention I am a very good procrastinator? 

How do I live then, I hear you ask? No, I haven't yet been reduced to standing on street corners and am not collecting welfare. I have a very nice, well-paid husband, who actually suggested I take some time out of the rat race to focus on my business and work out what I wanted to do. (I secretly think he was just sick of hearing me complain that I didn't have enough time to do my business whilst working as well. I guess he shut me up!) Sounds ideal, huh? So what's my problem? Dunno. Just going through a bit of a slack phase, I guess. 

Craft-wise I haven't done much, except for a few scarves and baby blankets as gifts, and don't have any photos ready to put up. Will do so ASAP.

Thanks to all of you who have kept reading my blog, despite my appalling record of late. Please keep coming back. I am back on track. Promise. 

It's official...

 

Image courtesy of The Simpsons

I have no life. It seems another month has passed without me blogging. Just another part of my life which has suffered greatly from neglect of late. So much for my promises and resolutions to get back to regular posting.

So what has happened to rob me of my life and deny me those precious few hours each week when I know I should be doing something else, but instead blog? It seems LIFE. Let me explain. When I started this blog in November last year, things were pretty normal. I had finished study for the year, work wasn't too busy, everyone was in good health and I had some time on my hands. It seems since I began study again this year (end of February) everything has gone pear-shaped. My Mum's visit over Easter didn't help either, then cue bronchitis, way too much study, a sick cat and lots to do at work, and you get a stressed-out, cranky Aunty Shabby who has no time to blog and even if she did have time, would be too demotivated to say anything nice and would rather lie on the nice, new leather couch and eat chocolate.

And that's another thing. Started gym program as dismayed that weigh same amount as did almost five years ago before went on huge diet and lost heaps of weight, only to put it all back on. I have only been once, as no time to go, but then feel guilty because I haven't been, so lie on the couch and eat more chocolate.

Good thing it was our wedding anniversary last month, as I may have even forgotten I was married. Poor Mr S has also been the subject of my awful neglect, but as he is studying too it has been more of a mutual neglect situation. Oh - before I forget - I got those earrings I wanted. I almost can't believe it. Feel a little bit too spoilt. Very nice though. Will have to post a pic of me wearing them!

And so of course, this little rant brings me to my climax - no time also means no time to craft. I still haven't finished that baby blanket and I am pretty sure the baby has already been born!

My last assignment is due in a week and  half, so if you can indulge me just a little longer, I will then be back in June, bigger (well, actually hopefully smaller) and better than ever!!

We will resume normal broadcasting soon...

I have not deliberately been neglecting you.... life has just rather inconveniently gotten in the way!

Mr S and and I have both been a bit ill of late (much better now thanks), work has been a bit mental, I just started study again (alas no, not craft-related, but to do with my other, paying job) and I have been madly trying to make stock in anticipation of meeting with potential new stockists! So all my spare - and not so spare - time has been vacuumed up into one or more of these delightful things!

Promise to be back to regular posting again soon.

I have been tagged...

 

Apparently the lovely Stephanie from "Spices for Violet" has just tagged me.

I have heard of this blogging phenomenon and read responses to said taggings; I even remember greenolive getting in a flap about it when she was first tagged. This is now my first "tagging" and I actually feel a little dazed and exposed. Whilst I was not entirely enjoying my blog's anonymity (the joys of writing for an audience of one do start to wear thin), the recent spike in my stats thanks to lovely comments and links from raspberry and others, and now this tagging business, means the pressure is on!

Try to write things which are honest and insightful but not too revealing. Try to be funny but not sound forced. Try to sound smart but not like a smart-arse.

OK - my seven tantalizing and titillatingly true facts (too much already?!):

1. I suffer from migraines which is one of the reasons I haven't posted much lately, as I have had one for about a week...
2. I love the colours orange, red and brown and have several plastic crates full of orange, red, brown and rusty-coloured wool and fabric. Yet I still buy more.
3. I love a bit of leopard print and have an amazing leopard print trench coat that I have said I will be buried in.
4. I used to be a champion Debater. And yes, I still like a good argument and often consult my dictionary (but now online).
5. I love red lipstick and have about 30 tubes (all different types). I once bought 6 of the same one - my all time favourite red, which will have to be the subject of its own post - as it has now been discontinued. I figured I would then have enough.
6. I have a bit of an achilles heel for Easter Bunnies (the chocolate ones, not real live ones). Red Tulip Elegant Rabbits to be exact. Which is kinda bizarre in itself, as usually I prefer better quality stuff like Lindt or Haighs, not compound rubbish. I secretly dread and yet look forward to this time of year, as I know I will consume far too many of them. My tally so far, 2 and counting (well they have been in the shops for at least a few weeks now...) I blame my father, a fellow bunny lover, for this addiction.
7. My husband and I are addicted to the tv show, "The West Wing" and are currently working our way through the complete 7 season DVD box set, which a very good friend of ours generously gave him for his birthday.

That's it! I could go on but you would probably politely ask me to stop.

The hardest part was actually thinking of and finding 7 people to now in turn, tag. Here is my newly tagged list:

1. the funky felter
2. Jody at meringue
3. raspberry
4. fioleta
5. Robyn at Craft with Me
6. Anna Laura
7. Pip at Meet Me at Mikes

And the rules (as far as I understand them):

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

Now go forth and tag!

Scrabble on a Saturday night

Is this what I have been reduced to?? It appears so. I put it down to a hellish and busy week at work (try month or actually year, so far), a late-ish night with perhaps a tad too much champagne, followed by an early morning and a lazy day.

The offending scrabble board was actually a birthday present for Mr S (we did already have one, so now have two - what complete nerds), but if you look closely, you will see that the tiles are wooden and it is a copy of the "classic scrabble" set, which if you are old and dull enough to remember, was all wood. Mr S was in fact rather disappointed, when we purchased our first scrabble set several years ago, to find that it was all plastic. I still remember him complaining about how you could still get the original wooden sets in North America (he is not a born and bred Aussie like my good self). I think he has secretly blamed the light, plastic tiles and shiny board for his lack of inspiration and luck whilst playing and the fact that I usually always beat him. I just tell him that I wasn't top of English at my school for nothing.

Anyway, when I saw the wooden sets, I knew we had to have one! On closer inspection they are a bit crappy and for some reason the tiles had been stuck together with some tape, making them all sticky. They do feel a bit nicer than the plastic tiles though and have a bit more weight to them. In case you were wondering about the photo - this is not just a cool pic for a blog post; we have this weird habit of always taking a picture of the board after a scrabble game. It is always interesting to look at, to see the words we made. I also have a bit of a theory that the words we make are not completely random and in some way maybe reflect what we are thinking or feeling. Too weird?! I also think these photos would actually make a really cool exhibition one day. Maybe a project for the future...

Oh, yes I did win (by about 40 points, thank-you very much), but as you can see it wasn't a particularly intellectual game, with lots of easy and small words! I told you it had been a long week. Whilst he seems happy with his new board, I told Mr S that we will have to keep looking for an original set - either at a garage sale or maybe on eBay. If you have one that you can bear to part with, please let me know!

Are softies the new knitting??!!

It seems you can't pick up a magazine these days without seeing something about softies, heralding them as the next big thing! In the past few months I have seen them in no less than 3 mags - Australian Vogue (see my previous post about this), Australian Woman's Weekly (see greenolive's post) and now, a recent issue of Real Living (an Australian lifestyle kinda mag, for you non-Aussies). And these are just the ones I know about!

Is this some sort of conspiracy I wondered? Another beat-up, just like the alleged "pub knitters" that supposedly began the knitting revival in Australia in the late nineties and early noughties??! (If you don't know what I am talking about, grab a copy of Sharon Aris' "It's my party and I'll knit if I want to". It's an entertaining and quick read and is quite enlightening in terms of the whole knitting "thing".)

I confess I have seen more softies in stores lately and I have even seen the "how to" books at Borders (I browsed BUT DID NOT BUY), but are they really going mainstream?! It wasn't until a girl at work told me that someone had given her sister a toy she had made herself at a recent baby shower, that I really believed it. "A softie?" I asked? "Huh?" she replied. "You know," she went on, "those strange, kinda ugly toys you see in shops, with like, funny eyes and stuff. Like that." Yep, a softie. It seems the name may not yet be "household" but the face is!

So who is this Aunty Shabby??!!

   

I am lots of things. A polite way of saying it may be that I am a complicated and highly evolved creative being. Another way may be that I am a high maintenance woman who, amongst other things, likes to knit and sew!

Aunty Shabby may seem an odd name or choice for a blog but Shabby (it was meant to be ironic) has been a nickname for years and with the birth of my first nephew almost 10 years ago now, I became Aunty Shabby. Nearly everyone calls me Shabby. A former boss, a partner at a law firm, used to call me Shabby. My father calls me Shabby. I won't tell you what I call him. I have also been known to answer to Shabster, Shabs or Shabarella. Friends often introduce me as "Shabby", which at times can have funny consequences; someone once misheard and asked later, "Who is this Shaggy girl?" That then spawned its own legend, and in some circles I am known as "Miss Shaggy". (This is also my celebrity pseudonym, but that is a whole other story.)

Anyway, after a lifetime of cutting out pictures from my sister's - yes, greenolive - usually discarded fashion and chicks magazines to cover my school books and folders (now called collage), making dodgy dresses for my androgynous dog teddy called "Willie" (as in Wilhelmina), crocheting an enormous blanket over a 20 year period, made from cast-offs, leftovers and cheap acrylic wool (which my cat now sleeps on) and generally making a pest of myself when my sister was trying to do her art homework or projects (yes, again greenolive), I realised I might be onto something. I wasn't the artist or the athlete of the family (the intellectual perhaps? well, I was a lawyer...) but it seems I got enough of the creative gene to enjoy making things, eventually turning to making handbags as an outlet for my work stress and general feelings of malaise in about 2000. Handbags then became general sewing (clothes for myself and cushions), then knitting and again, crochet! These initial spurts of creativity and energy were enough to sustain me for a few years, but after a while I wondered if this had the potential to be more than just a hobby.

I would get comments and question about my handbags or scarves, making a few gifts or random one-off orders here and there. A shop was even interested and stocked some of my children's bags. However, several attempts to get it off the ground, were just that, attempts. It wasn't blossoming into the mega empire I had envisioned! Why???!! It all seemed too hard. I was working full time, so didn't have the time to dedicate to it. What if no one liked my stuff? And where would I sell it? And wouldn't it be expensive to set up? So I continued on as before, making stuff for myself and random things for others, when in about mid 2007, something changed. My sister and I started discussing getting a craft business going. We had done this before but this time she seemed to really mean it. And so did I. A random, but clearly serendipitous, order for a scarf from a make-up artist (the international make-up director for Stila, as it happens) who was giving us both make-overs one Saturday at MECCA Cosmetica was the final impetus. (I have actually kept his payment in the envelope he gave it to me in as some sort of good luck charm or reminder of what I want to do! Did I mention that I am at times bizarrely superstitious and sentimental?)

Whilst we didn't end up setting up something together and have taken our own paths, I think we are both now committed to trying this and seeing what happens. My sister has wasted no time (and you can read her blog to track her progress) and seems to relish the contact and feedback to her work and ideas. I am constantly amazed at her dedication and her prolific knitting. I have taken the more "slow and steady wins the race" approach. This means that is still early days, with a website and hopefully ETSY shop still to come. Whilst I am still employed primarily in another field (but now only 4 days a week), I have found I need an outlet to provide me with some balance and am enjoying the creative process and possibilities of finally establishing my own "Aunty Shabby" business. Mega empire here we come!!

Rediscovering Bris Vegas

I went up to Queensland recently, principally to visit my mother. Those of you who keep up with my sister, Greenolive's blog, will know that she has not been well lately. Anyway, I always anticipate my visits "back home" (I don't actually think of QLD as my home and as my parents are divorced, there is no family home anymore) with mixed feelings. Much as I love to see my parents (independently - see comment re divorce), I find it very tiring and usually come home in need of a holiday! This time I was particularly concerned about my mother, as I wasn't sure about either her mental or physical state, but as it turned out I had one of the best visits with her that I have ever had!

An arty shot of part of her new garden

Usually there is an argument or some sort of drama and tears, and it all turns sour, but we had a lovely time. I helped her out with some of her courtyard garden projects whilst I was there, which was good as she would have over-exerted herself otherwise and done it all on her own. Even though her initial steroid treatment had given her huge amounts of (unrealistic) energy, her recent cutting back on the dose meant that she was actually feeling (realistically) tired by the afternoon, so I would need to keep telling her to stop and have a break or nap and have a drink of water. I think at the time she found it quite amusing, but told me a few days after I had left, that she missed me, especially me telling her these things! It was also hot up there (about 30 degrees but high humidity, about 80%), but luckily not as hot as it usually is in December!

The riverside cafe at the Art Gallery

One of the other things we did was go to see the Andy Warhol exhibition at the Art Gallery. We got the CityCat (groovy Brisbane ferries) and as we approached the new Art Gallery complex I was stunned. I hadn't even set foot inside and I was already impressed! The new buildings and design and use of the river is great. Even though I go back to Brisbane about once a year, usually for a week at most, which is enough to notice most changes, I haven't lived there in over 10 years, so don't really have a great feel for the city or what's happening. It really has matured. I always find myself wondering if I could live there again (a question my mother also always asks me every visit) and this time I seriously considered it. Well, maybe for a minute. My husband, Mr S, wouldn't be in it though - he's not a big fan of Bris Vegas and he can't seem forget a particularly bad trip we had there a few years ago. I will continue to enjoy my solo trips to see my parents and hope to keep a connection with a city I am growing to appreciate once again.

One of our lunch companions, a water dragon!

Needless to say the Andy Warhol exhibtion was amazing. We actually thought we were done, having taken our time wandering through some of his ealrier works, to discover that there was a whole other room to see! We needed to stop for lunch - which was great, outside at the Riverside cafe (note: amazing tempura prawns and nougat) - to regain our strength for the rest. I think we were there for over 4 hours in total! If you can get to this exhibition - it is in Brisbane only until 30 March 2008 - it is well worth a visit.

How did Fred Flinstone manage?

Does technology rule your life? And when do you know if you've gone too far? (No, the irony of this being the subject of a blog post has not escaped me.) Is it when you start plotting your period in an excel spreadsheet? When you Google or Wikipedia everything and never use a hard copy (read REAL) encyclopedia or dictionary anymore? Or when you research and table the RRPs for merchandise you want to buy more cheaply online, just to be sure that you are indeed getting a bargain? I must admit the latter, though imminently practical, can take the joy out of online shopping or browsing.

Or when, as occurred to me this week, my mobile phone battery died (and yes, that is a photo of said phone), and for the whole day I felt oddly disconnected. Arranging to meet my husband after work at a book store in the city suddenly became a logistical nightmare and the pressure to catch the right tram to meet at the appointed time was almost too much! I even remarked to a friend later that it was crazy and wondered what we did without mobile phones. The scary thing is that I do remember - it really wasn't that long ago!!

So what does all this have to do with an allegedly crafty blog and if I am such a technophobe (I'm not really), then what am I doing here in blogland?! I'll admit I was rather skeptical about setting up a blog and until about 7 years ago, I was a lawyer who had others do my online research and used email mainly for professional purposes. What changed? Everything! I ditched law (well, not entirely, but that's another story), embraced my inner "artiste" and found I actually had a knack for this web stuff.

Whilst I still appreciate technology and what it allows us to do, I love the simplicity and authenticity of handwritten letters (who writes anymore?), reading from a printed newspaper, diagrams and scribbles on scrap paper and real photos printed from negatives. This may be part of the reason why I love making things. It's not just the process itself, which I really enjoy and find bizarrely therapeutic, but the end result - a genuinely unique, handmade article which reflects you and your style and in some way contains a little piece of you. Perhaps this is what I am trying to achieve through this blog - a shared appreciation for technology but at the same time a love of all things crafty and handmade, and an escape, albeit briefly, from the (un)real world!

I hope you enjoy reading my blog - I do endeavour to post regularly and look forward to reading all of your comments!