I met the Pope of Trash, and made a new sleazy dress for the occasion.

Remember this post? The one where I pretty much ended up collapsing to my knees and wailing "WHY GOD? WHYYYY?" at the top of my lungs after royally ballsing up a great many times?

Well yeah, I tried again. Only this time it worked!

 

Hell yes. That's bright.

I had a stroke of luck, and the first time I visited the Liverpool branch of Abakhan Fabrics after moving here, I evidently had a stroke of another kind and bought another piece of the same cursed fabric which had led to the crushing of my dreams a few months before. I used iDye again, and despite the high synthetic content I used the all-purpose dye in bright yellow, and just ran it through a hot wash in my machine.

Here's the finished article! I added pom-pom trim and black facings to the petal bust and skirt drape as planned, and made a little kitty ears hat to match! I felt very Poison Ivy wearing this! You too can look fabulously feline in a kitty ears hat of your very own at http://www.kalandrajane.com/ and if any of you fancy one in the yellow leopard print, I have a little left for custom orders.

I wore it with my cropped fake leather jacket and some 1950s deadstock vintage black velour killer stiletto heels, and off I trotted with le boyfriend in tow to see John Waters! The performance was part of Liverpool's 10th Annual Homotopia event - a celebration of all things LGBTQ which even from the limited bits of it I experienced, seems a hell of a lot more inclusive and community-focussed than the commercialised 'pride' events of certain other cities *ahem*.

The Liverpool Echo gave the performance a great writeup, and I had such a good time! His Highness was as witty and acerbic as you'd expect him to be in person, keeping everyone enthralled and amused (and feeling a little bit guilty for laughing at some of his more ribald anecdotes), every bit the expert raconteur.

Then we got to meet him! Squeals of delight! The queue for book signing and photographs was rather long, luckily there were only about 25 people in front of us. Mr. Waters was charming and funny, sent get well wishes to a friend who'd been unable to attend the show due to an operation, signed a book for him, and one for myself of course! He sent me on my way with a fantastically bitchy joke I won't repeat here, and a sly wink!

PS. I read the whole book the next night, and will certainly be buying his new book when it's out next year!

Our gorgeous new family member! (don't worry, it's not about babies.)

We adopted a dog! This beautiful girl is Cindy, who joined our household from Dogs Trust Merseyside a few weeks ago, and has settled in very well.

After my little Scamp died in November, Aerospace Boyfriend and I decided to wait a while after moving before we looked for another dog, so that we could be settled in and so I could be ready.

We went looking for something like a Jack Russell or Staffordshire bull terrier, but as soon as this big gorgeous girl rolled over for us to scratch her tummy I fell in love!

Unfortunately Cindy was born deaf. Due to this and to her being 30kg of spring-loaded adolescent dog, she spent 13 months of her short life living in kennels. We were prepared to take on the challenge of adopting her and settling her into a proper home, but honestly she's been hardly any trouble at all. The only casualty was my amazing 1950s fawn lamp, she got stuck in our bedroom one afternoon and knocked everything off my dressing table. I was so upset, but I'm over it now our lovely girl is feeling more secure.

As she's very short coated, my mum has already been knitting for her and I've bought some leopard print waterproof fabric to make her a doggy raincoat for long Winter walks, so stay tuned for some ridiculous pictures of a huge dog in flambuoyant yet functional jackets!