Shows of the week

ALL OVER TOWN

Now that we well and truly have the hang of the Baby Bjorns the ladies of HML with their sons in tow will be heading out into the world this week to catch some fresh art from around town. First up we'll be donig the Gertrude Street crawl to say hi to Pene and Abi, hassling Dan for the latest issue of Selvedge and popping into Lamington Drive to see the lovely work of Lilly Piri

Then we'll head into Flinders Lane to head up to Blindside to see another nutty group show titled B-Side. We don't often understand the artist statements (what does "in a post-medium age, the relocation or hybridization of one’s art practice can enable a re-interrogation of its conceptual underpinnings" actually mean??) but we are intrigued by the work of Ruth Fleishman - being big fans of bits of stuff.

If we can stand it and we aren't covered in baby gunk we'll trundle up to RMIT Gallery to see the Seimans Art award - just to check out what the kids are doing to get the big bucks these days.
Oh and we promised you some Christmas goodness. Don't think for a minute that we think up all of the projects on our own. We discovered this awesome blog that's connected to a fabric store based in Beaverton (!!) Oregon. Sew Mama Sew has generously provided an extensive list of homemade sewing projects - prepare to be overwhelmed! They've even gone to the trouble of sorting them into categories like Gifts for New Parents, Dads, Bookworms, Multi taskers, artists, cooks and sports fans. Remember too much christmas is not enough!

Lilly Piri The Finch and the Flower

until December 23rd

Lamington Drive 89 George Street Fitzroy

B-Side

until December 13

Blindside Gallery Level 7 in the Nicholas Building

Siemens - RMIT fine Art Award

until December 13

RMIT Gallery up at Storey Hall - the funny green buliding.

My winter look

Usually my winter look is all about coziness. I've always had a coat I could sotly wrap and fix with a wide belt, add a pashmina and feel like I am in a warm velvety cocoon.

This time I craved something completely different. I wanted structure, I wanted princess-like look and I really didn't fancy anything black. Of course, my first port of call was style.com where I studied all the autumn-winter 2007-2009 collections from my favourite designers to get an idea of what would suit me and be more or less in season.

I never really try to get the latest looks, though... My idea of a perfect outfit is something I feel happy and comfortable in, in one of my favourite colours and well-made. My dream coats was the one from Pringle of Scotland from fall/winter 2007-08, but of course it would be insane to even think of owing a piece like that. It was like a luxurious dessert for someone on a strict diet of reality. But then I knew exactly want to wanted to find and was prepared to wait for an opportunity to present itself. Even if it would take months and months...

It was a warm autumn evening, when after spending days searching for my perfect coat, I ended up with the one on the photo below. It looked so much like the Pringle one! Minus the price tag... As soon as I put it on I suddenly felt really attractive, playful and lady-like. Accessories (Mulberry bag, KG ankle boots and Aspinal gloves, all in tan) added few warm accents and I must admit, I was very happy with the end result.

Source: www.style.com

Christmas Countdown

baby blue You may remember way back in September Ramona made some pink decorations for all the little girls in her world. Turns out there are quite a few boys too. So Maxwell, Thomas, Silas, Kye and Clancy are all getting blue ones - sorry to draw such a trad line between genders on the colour front but blue really was best for the elephant with the green and red legwarmers on.

Market of the week

Wish We Were There...

It's not that we don't love our families, or indeed a long hot silly season filled with seafood (Ramona) and salad (Beck) but...we've been harbouring a Brooklyn bound desire for some time now and even though this one's in Chicago (go Obama) we really couldn't imagine anywhere we'd rather be this weekend than here. So to all those US readers (you know who you are!) get on down to Pulaski Park and buy up big for us!!!

Christmas Gift of the Week

moyra part oneFor some weird reason Ramona has three Moyras to make gifts for this year - two Aunts (one on either side) and a good friend. All of which need to be posted hither and yon. So light presents are in the order of the day to make postage inexpensive (nothing worse than when the post costs more than the present - here a tip - never send jars of jam or nuts to Perth).
You may all remember the stencilled stool from August - yes this Christmas insanity has been going on for months! Well here is the same design on a cushion with the addition of some french knots in the petals. The other two Moyras...you'll have to wait a couple of days for those ones!

PS now there are only 20 days to go we'll be publishing a gift a day for you to see as well as point you in the right direction of some great blogs and websites that are really crafting it up for the season.
fa la la la la la la la la...

she made them herself

Card Carrying Crafters


Most of you will be familiar with Ramona's brilliant Words and Pictures stationary range (check out her new website if you haven't seen it), but not many of you will be aware that on the odd occasion Beck also likes to get busy with pen, ink, printer and paper. Inspired by her partner in craft crime she's whipped up her very own range of Christmas cards. A wee collection especially created for Craft Victoria's 'Red Christmas' (regular readers might recognise a certain Viking motif from a pair of birthday presents a couple of weeks back). She's pretty happy with the outcome, especially given they were knocked off between little naps and long feed times. Now she just has to come up with some presents to go with them...

Potential craft find of the week

it's ok to get shirty... every now and then

Every year around this time the folks Kick Gallery have themselves a Merry Little Christmas show featuring limited edition tees by some of our favourite arteests (get it 'ar-tee-sts' oh my we do crack ourselves up)... We love a 'pop-up shop' especially one which has extended business hours allowing summer night strollers, restaurant and bar hoppers and busy nine-to fivers to make a purchase 'after hours' or while waiting for their table at Pizza Mein Leib.

Anyways this is a really great spot to pick up a silly season bargain for that difficult to buy for teenager, super groovy friend, even your hip nanna or maybe just a little something for yourself . We encourage people to work on the gift buying credo "one for you, one for me" wherever possible -at least it means there's something under the tree you'll like come Christmas morning.

Fresh Prints 4 - Annual T-shirt Exhibition and Sale

Kick Gallery

239 High Street Northcote

November 25 – December 24
Tuesday-Friday 12 - 8pm & Saturday 12 - 5pm

see you there.