Well, this has received a reasonable reaction on my facebook, so I may as well show it to my lovely followers too. Just for god's sake nobody upload it to youtube, and don't watch it if you're a musician.
I have really wanted a banjolele for ages, but they're very expensive
and the only one in the family is an heirloom on Paul's side so is going
nowhere. My stepdad runs a music shop so I can get a banjolele, but
figured I should learn on something cheap before spending a lot of money
on an instrument - I have a tendency to pick things up and make a good
start, then abandon them.
So I bought the cheapest ukulele possible, and taught myself to play six
chords on it in two hours this evening. My fingers hurt. I've also
never sung in my life, not even in front of my boyfriend of
four-and-a-half years, so I'm jumping in at the deep end here. Hopefully
I'll get better at both singing and playing over the next few months.
Enough stalling anyway... here you go, Astro Zombies by The Misfits.
Hello my darlings. It seems it's been a month since I last wrote a blog post - this is because I have spent the entire time either working or being drunk at festivals! I'm utterly exhausted.
I'll write a different post every day about all the stuff I've been doing, there's so much to cover. I'll start over a month ago, when Clare (from whom I have stolen a couple of these pictures) and I did a stall at the Bolton Tattoo Bazaar (they also run the Manchester Tattoo Tea party).
Here's our stall! I was just helping really so had a space for my hats on the end.
I saw my gorgeous friend Kitten! I'm wearing a dress I made and a lovely flower by Dolly Cool.
One of my hats graced the cover of Tattoo Revolution Magazine, on the beautiful head of my good friend Rachel Baldwin. She's pictured in her wedding gown, and the hat I made for her Las Vegas wedding! She married fellow amazing Tattooist Nick Baldwin, and their gorgeous work along with pictures of the ceremony were featured in the magazine. I'm so proud of her, she's been through a lot recently but shows such strength and puts so much love into her art. I'm also wearing new glasses! You can't see how beautifully green they are here, I'll get a better picture of them in all their Dame Edna glory.
I got new business cards! With my face on, because I'm vain, and my Twitter, facebook and blogspot address because I'm trying not to be such a huge technophobe. Please follow me!
That'll do for today, I need to ease myself back into blogging after such a long break! Coming up during the rest of this week: great bands you should know and love, fun at festivals, lots of pictures of me looking ridiculous and/or drunk, amazing leopard print capri pants sewing, vintage knitting, Aerospace Boyfriend's graduation!
I finally got a haircut! It only took me a year and three months. I went to my friend Bethany Davies, vintage make up and hair artist extraordinaire, who runs mobile beauty services, pop-up salons and has a gorgeous little salon in her home too. Here I am ready for Th'Legendary Shack Shakers / Dirt Daubers gig on Sunday.
Here's what I wore - my tiki dress and bolero, which I made a couple of months ago after planning it for over a year. It's already a bit too big for me, bah! (But also yay for bodily shrinkage!)
I don't know what that blur is on my mirror, it's been there forever, I can't tell whether it's hairspray which I've managed to miss while cleaning (OK, so I don't clean often), or whether the silvering is starting to deteriorate, it's a pretty old mirror. Also I really need to get a backdrop or something, I'm sure you're all sick of seeing the craphole that is my bedroom.
Even though I saw them a couple of months ago in Liverpool, I just had to go to see Th'Legendary Shack Shakers again, they never fail to put on a great show.
Supporting were the Dirt Daubers, the rather more traditional side project from Shack Shakers singer, raconteur, lowbrow artist and all round mountain music impresario Col. JD Wilkes, his wife Jessica and bassist Mark Robertson. I particularly liked their rendition of the old Appalachian murder ballad Down in the Willow Garden, and of course I can never resist a band with a banjo and a washboard.
They also had girls' t-shirts in different sizes! I almost burst with joy, despite them not having any vinyl records. It really annoys me how on the rare occasion that bands produce ladies' t-shirts, they are almost always 'one size', and that size is TINY. The lovely Shack Shakers had three ladies' designs from s-xl, so I bought two. Admittedly they had run out of xl in one of them, obviously because it is super cool and everybody wants one, so here I am after wriggling into a slightly scandalous large.
Here I am with my darling friend Natalie outside the venue, it was all finished and we were out by 10.45pm! We are old ladies, evidently. Best dressed old ladies in the nursing home, though.
My boyfriend's grandparents have recently moved, and from the clearout they have given us a few pieces. There's a wardrobe and small dressing table for when we move house in a few months, and this lamp!
It's a 1960s piece and has a load of marine detritus set in lucite - it's really hefty, it'd be the perfect weapon should I ever be the victim of home invaders. Apparently it used to terrify my boyfriend as a child. Well, despite it not being very vegan, it has now found a loving home with me! I love my creepy crabs, forever sealed in plastic as they eat their dinner of seaweed. My own grandparents had a paperweight the same, it now lives in my dad's bathroom. How I wish the little crablings could meet!
I added the shade, it's a vintage spun fibreglass one which cost me £3 for a pair from a vintage rummage sale, its partner is on the mid-century geisha lamp which I restored, you can see her peeping out at the back.
Today I finished this dress. It's for Paul's graduation next week, he is being awarded his masters degree in Aerospace Engineering, so I thought I would make an appropriate outfit!
This is just a sneaky peek, there will also be a bolero, hat and shoes for you to see, which I will post pictures of after the occasion. The pattern was modified from the ScissorHappy Sarong Dress, but frankly it's nothing like the original now - I added the circle skirt instead of a sarong skirt, the halter strap is of my own design, and I also worked out how to create petal busts, all on my own! Squee! The fabric is a soft twill, American Folk Fabrics 'Flying High' from 1995 which I scored on etsy.
Here's a glimpse of another one I did with a petal bust, my squid dress! Which is now known as the dangerous squid dress, due to its effect on certain males last weekend. I've used this pattern so much since I bought it, and taught myself how to make lots of modifications, I'm now on my fifth creation from it! Who knew boning and petal busts were so easy?
I am going to attempt to keep this thing semi-professional as the purpose of it is to gain wider exposure for my business, but I expect that all sorts of things will make it onto there depending on my productivity/creativity/unbridled rage levels. I will of course still be posting here, and will tweet about new blog entries.
Last week I was invited for afternoon tea by the lovely Susan of Old Fashioned Susie and the Vintage Manchester blog. It was a balmy day, and it was lovely to retreat to the cool and calm atmosphere of Bistro 1847, Manchester city centre's vegetarian restaurant. I love this place so had high expectations - I went for their Christmas menu, again for my birthday, and for Valentine's too!
We had the vegan option for our afternoon tea, as I am vegan and Susan avoids dairy. A vegetarian option is also available, which comes with clotted cream for the scones and different sandwich fillings. The meal was lovely! Here is Susan with the spread, we were provided with a refreshing glass of Pimms each, a large pot of tea, and an array of tempting sandwiches, cakes and scones.
