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Besides going to Bird yesterday, I also did my usual post-chiro-appointment op shops and secondhand-land "circuit" at the Cleveland Street end of Surry Hills.There wasn't much to be had but at the Cleveland Street's St Vinnies, I spotted a stack of flyers announcing the opening of a brand-new branch in the neighbourhood and a 25% discount on everything if a flyer is presented on the opening day - Tuesday 29 April 2008. What luck! Wasn't sure about claiming the discount, with the goods already so cheap and their profit going to charity and all, but I was excited with the prospect of a new thrifting frontier. So off I trotted, a 10 minutes' walk to the "corner of Devonshire and Elizabeth Streets", according to that precious bit of paper.
I wasn't expecting much, to be honest, but boy, was I surprised when I walked through those modest two-panel glass doors to be greeted by a huge (well, for rent-high Surry Hills) shop space filled with tidy racks and racks of clothes, all colour coded and "departmentalised", with narrow aisles in between, a homeware section on the mezzanine level, a furniture and electrical appliances corner...it was like a mini supermart. And I've never seen so many people in an op shop at any one time - young local hipsters/scenesters types, suits from the office blocks nearby on their lunch breaks, yummy mommies with babies in pram (not a good idea - the very narrow aisles), foreign students from the language school next door and the less fortunate people that these opportunity shops were originally meant for.
The first thing I picked up from the shelves flanking the entrance stacked full with accessories was this huge geometric print silk scarf in one of my favourite colour combos - brown and different shades of all the greens I love.
Then I started working the racks. It's really like being a kid let loose in a candy store. There was just so much to take in and to take to the changing room.
This white confection of frills, ruffles, embroidery and bows has to be my top buy of the day! A vintage piece of undergarment - a sheer slip with a poufy tulle pettiskirt attached. I tried it over my clothes and that got me thinking - with the right outfit, I might just wear it over instead of under. It's too pretty to be kept under wraps.
Some other choice picks:-
Bows! Bows! Bows!
A tiny old purse. Reminds me of deckchairs - thick stripey canvas and dark brown vinyl.
I spent nearly an hour in the shop before I went to the check-out with an armful of loot, still contemplating the use of my flyer in exchange for a discount as I joined the long queue. Nearly everyone before me (even a man in an expensive suit asking if he could pay with his Amex Titanium!) used theirs so that ended the battle that the angel and devil were fighting in my head - Angel - 0, Devil - 1.
Looking forward to going with the boyfriend this weekend. He'll have fun in the men's and the secondhand DVD/CD sections. And hope the vintage step-stool is still there for him to carry home for me.
If you love pretty things but are worried about the effects that their manufacturing process have on the environment, then pay a visit to Bird Textile Emporium. I'm not that noble but I would buy a whole bunch of their products anyway, eco-friendly or not, if only they were more affordable, because they are just so irresistible. 
Bird is located in a 110-year-old heritage-listed building that formerly housed the Cleveland Street Pharmacy until it filled its last prescription in 1984. The interior - the counter, the wall display units, mirrors and drawers - are all originals from the dispensary days, polished to a shine and decked out with jars of colourful fabric buttons, stacks of scented handmade soap and useful little things for the home.
The changing room - dispensing fashion instead of pills.
Bales of fabric mounted on the walls, all designed in-house at their Byron Bay studio and printed using water-based dyes. These super-cute prints are then transformed, using solar power, into these highly-covetable pieces...
Wow! I didn't even know there was one until I read Mike's post today.All the finalists in the five categories can be viewed at Softies Central and you can cast your votes here. Go on. Do it! It's good fun.Some of them are truly amazing but my favourite - the "Best In Show'" - has to be this typewriter by blueblythemonster in the "Embroidered to Death" category. It's like something out of Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep. The amount of time and work that's gone into making it. Wow!
His arms are ready!
Mr Bitman now has legs! But no body to join them to yet.
My favourite stitch ever - the blanket stitch. I like how they add a certain rawness to him.Goddamnit! Everytime I make a Bitman, I never fail to marvel at how smart Ryota Kuwakubo, Bitman's "dad", is. It's been more than four years since I last made one and I forgot just how clever the pattern is. The t-shirt came with no instructions and I did make some notes before but I think I left them back in Singapore. Believe me, you need them notes on the most efficient way of putting the body parts together like legs first or heads first, and even how to sew the flaps that will make his feet, or you'd go crazy with unpicking your mistakes which I did yesterday. So with this ver4.o of Bitman, I'll attempt writing ver2.0 of my notes. Hopefully, the next Bitman will be easier.
This is my first post with a photo of a real person. "Real" meaning not someone from a band or a movie or TV show.Meet Gervy. She writes an extremely funny blog, Gervorama, about her life in Sydney and if you read her back catalogue, you'll find posts on the years she spent living in London and New York too. She is also about the only regular reader of the likkle girl who wurves pwetty things and leaver-of-comments.We 'met' online via our blogs a while back and have been exchanging emails since. We both share a love for eating our way around Sydney and pwetty things. We also seem to have pretty similar views on the less frivolous things in life. I think we like each other quite a bit.We've both never tried internet dating but I guess what Gervy and I felt would be equivalent to what 's in the heads of most online daters - can't help but wonder if it'd still work without the 'puter acting as a smoke screen (not that we totally lie on our blogs), what it'd be like if we met up out of the virtual world, would it be creepy if we took the friendship 'offline'...Fuelled by curiousity, that's precisely what we did on Saturday. We left the 'puters and husband/boyfriend at home and met up at Lilliblack in Darlinghurst, a brunch place that we've both not been. We found out that we're not only blog neighbours but also 'neighbours' in the real world, living about a 10 minutes' walk from each other.The "creepiness" that I was so worried about was seriously all in my head. We started talking and it was like meeting an old friend that I've not seen for ages and catching up from where we last left off, no uncomfortable silences, not weird moments. So it was decided then that yes, our friendship would work both on- and offline. If only all our single girlfriends have such good luck meeting people on the internet.We also decided that Lilliblack's buttermilk pancakes which we both had were not that great and our next brunch date would be yum cha.Oh, here's Gervy's take on our 'blind date'. She flatters me so.
Have finally started on the Bitman today. All the parts have been cut out in felt of an army green because I'm making it with a little boy in mind. It's really easy for the girls to find a cute little softie that they like, I think, but a bit harder for the boys to find something "butch" that they can cuddle to sleep.
A red "M" for Mirabel, as suggested by The Mirabel Foundation.
A poster, circa 1960, by the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). A chapter of the main Temperance movement established in Australia in 1832, the WCTU sought to eradicate alcoholism, and the domestic violence that often comes with having a man in the house who would happily drink away a whole week's worth of wages in one uproarious night, by advocating sobriety, public education on the dangers of drinking and the benefits of abstinence, and lobbying for various alcohol-related legislative reforms.
Another vintage alcohol-related poster with cute fashion illustration, circa 1954, from the other end of the spectrum. It was used to get people to vote for extending the legal drinking hours in pubs, to change the 6pm closing time to 10pm.I'm not advocating irresponsible drinking but it's not really a party without some choice tipples, is it? So I say, "Moderation, dahlings, moderation. And make mine a 'fruit drink' laced with vodka. Please." For a more comprehensive history lesson on Sydney's love of grog, head for the Sydney's Pubs: Liquor, Larrikins & the Law exhibition at the Justice & Police Museum. Justice & Police MuseumCorner of Phillip & Albert StreetsCircular QuayPhone: 9252 1144
From a fashion spread in the current issue of Yen magazine.I love Zoe Sernack's zoemou range of laser-cut leather necklaces. Not that I get invited to fancy masked balls all the time but I wouldn't mind owning this wine-gum-purple piece of hers. You know, just to have one lying around should an invitation come in one day. But I have a feeling that this is a one-off, made just for the shoot. I will be diligently checking her website every so often just in case I'm wrong.
... on DVD (no, we don't have cable) in our living room! Finally! Yay!It's the first season of the Flight of the Conchords sitcom with Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement of Flight of the Conchords - the Grammy Award-winning band that is "formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo" - playing fictionalised versions of themselves trying to make the big time in New York.We've only watched two of the twelve episodes last night but the characters, the occasional Bollywood-style singing narratives and music video inserts have already got us in painful stitches. And the two talented boys! They are hot hot hot! In a geeky-muso kinda way. I like!...A little scared (for my stomach and my heart) now to watch the rest of the discs.
Autumn's really set in here in Sydney. The past week's been cold, grey and wet. It's time to put away the summer wardrobe and start thinking about what I'd like to be wearing in the cold months ahead - the only fun thing about the dreaded season, really.
Of late, I've been attracted to all things Holly-Hobbie-esque (the classic one that adorned my favourite lunchbox and thermos when I was eight, not the new tweeny-looking one!) and Little-House-on-the-Prairie-like. It started with a bonnet I found on Gibbous late last year during the Northern Hemisphere's winter and I'm seriously knocking myself now for not buying it then (it's not listed anymore) but we were in the middle of our summer here and keeping my head warm was the last thing on my mind. Then I got myself some mittens (not gloves), some apron dresses and this, and googled for more traditional ones and found Plainly Dressed, a company that specialises in making clothes for the Amish community.
Then a friend came over a few nights ago with a copy of Vogue Italia February 2008 in her bag and everything fell into place. What a lovely cover and fashion spread by Steven Meisel.
Of course it's all been done before but the layers of high-collared tops, long dresses and aprons in clashing prints, mismatched colours and varying textures (some pieces of which might already be in the wardrobe) are still both inspirational and aspirational, modesty-protecting or not. But as much as I love the look, I think it's the essence of it that grabbed me for I can't see myself going for the works. Umm... no.
Sharin Foo, looking like Debbie Harry, Kate Moss (with fringe) and Wendy James all rolled into one, was resplendent in a vintage-y black beaded dress. Together with Sune Rose Wagner and a drummer on the Twin Peaks-esque red velvet-curtained stage, the music is a cross between the sweet harmonies of the all-girl acts of the 50s and 60s, the twang of Dick Dale, the fuzziness of The Jesus and Mary Chain, the slight-cheesiness of dangdut and a lot more - some of our favourite sounds all in one band! Collectively known as The Raveonettes, they are in Australia to promote their brilliant latest album Lust Lust Lust. We saw them two years ago at the Laneway Festival but the boyfriend, the happy beer guzzler that he is, couldn't remember very much of that (and chatting with the band on our way home on the sidewalk!) so for him, it was like seeing them live for the very first time. They played quite a bit from the new record (well, it being a promotional tour and all) and old material but their cover of French Disko by Stereolab (which I so so love too) really made my night! They didn't play the boyfriend's all-time favourite, Twilight, during their set and we thought he was going to go home disappointed unless they were saving it for the encore but bands just never play the tunes that we want do they? But it turned out to be our lucky night - they did! And it was a one-song encore.
I wasn't expecting much, to be honest, but boy, was I surprised when I walked through those modest two-panel glass doors to be greeted by a huge (well, for rent-high Surry Hills) shop space filled with tidy racks and racks of clothes, all colour coded and "departmentalised", with narrow aisles in between, a homeware section on the mezzanine level, a furniture and electrical appliances corner...it was like a mini supermart. And I've never seen so many people in an op shop at any one time - young local hipsters/scenesters types, suits from the office blocks nearby on their lunch breaks, yummy mommies with babies in pram (not a good idea - the very narrow aisles), foreign students from the language school next door and the less fortunate people that these opportunity shops were originally meant for.
The first thing I picked up from the shelves flanking the entrance stacked full with accessories was this huge geometric print silk scarf in one of my favourite colour combos - brown and different shades of all the greens I love.
Bows! Bows! Bows!
A tiny old purse. Reminds me of deckchairs - thick stripey canvas and dark brown vinyl.
