Fibreglass splinters, fabulous finds, fire, and a little fright…..

Another huge weekend of good times and creating, and I am feeling just a tad happy about it all. It had recently been the 9 year anniversary for Matt & I, (which we as usual forgot) I thought we deserved a set of champagne flutes.!! 

Royal Dalton luxury

And some everyday ones for general smashing good times…..

After a night celebrating with several bottles of Veuve Cliquot in said glasses, we all retired, to awaken refreshed (gosh, how good is Veuve, and here’s to being paid for creative jobs in it!!) to embark on a few adventures.  A trip to Chermside shopping centre was in order after some gazing at several brilliant arrays of purple, pink, and orange platform heels and wedges – drool, drool – but what’s with the suede, peoples? – I dropped into Martin the Mechanic of Bernina to fix my dodgy bobbin. Of course, Magic Martin doesn’t work on a Saturday, but the kind lass there gave me a swap bobbin to keep me going. Cheers.

From there it was a trip to Trad’s. Next door is the fabulous Aid for the Blind charity shop, where I discovered  an absolute FIND – a Svenja-Pink pure silk corset and slit-pencil skirt that fits like it was MADE for me.

Pink silk glamour outfit

How much? At the half price special, $12.50. This may be what I wear to WoW this year! (Did I mention we have booked our flights for 10 days in September – whooooot!!)  Going past again on the way out, I had my attention caught by a beautiful bridal veil. On closer investigation, it had beautiful embroidered edges, was a lovely fine cream bridal tulle, was extremely long, and at half price - $15! PP bought it for me, as I had bled the coin purse dry, and I love it, love it so much! Matt nearly had a heart attack when he saw me putting on! But it’s just so pretty!! We hope to use it on some photo shoots – we can just see it dancing in the wind…..and I have visions of a fantastic dress to create to go with it…… then perhaps another shoot after I dye it some interesting colours….

Wanna get married, hun?!

 Back home and it was time for some WOW work. I needed to reheat some glue with the heat gun, and as I plugged it in, I didn’t notice that the wire holding up the powerpack on the overhead beam had slipped to actually cross the plug holes…… ZZZZZZTTTT!! Sparks, and some black smoke. A few moments, (1,2,3..) and Matt charged down from the workshop (as of course, I had tripped out the entire circuit) – “Svenja?!!” Ooooops. All ended well though, and everything still works!

Sanding the fibreglass is indeed pretty awful (NOW I get what you were all warning me about!) and I managed to spear myself with a shard in the meaty part of my thumb, which I could not locate. Overnight, it got quite irritated, which at least enabled it to be seen, and surgeon Matt did a fab job of slicing open my hand this morning to retrieve it. Much better.

Today, a bit of a late start – listened to the start of the jazz show (8am) still in bed!! It wasn’t long until we both decided a trip to Bunnings was in order – gloves for Matt, and some kind of scrubber for me to help me remove the cardboard mould from inside two of my fibreglass shapes. Although I painted it with paint then mould release, it wouldn’t budge, and after 3 days soaking in the bath, nothing happened. A bit of internet research and I discovered that Liquid Caustic, Sulphamic Acid or Hydrochloric acid was what was used in industrial recycling situations to break down cellulose. Luckily, we run a chemical company, so all of these are on hand! 

Damn. Bloody. Cardboard. Whose idea was this?!!

A soak in the caustic helped, but after much scrubbing, a lot still remains. Grrrr. So I’ve left those for another (stronger) soak.  Who would of thought cardboard would be so indestructible?!!

The highlight of today (and yes, being WoW, this description has to be kind of cryptic) was drilling the holes in the ********* and locating the ^^^^^^ in them! 

A hole exposing work from months ago

A big moment. I even got them fibreglassed into position, too. I had to wait until Matt had finished fixing the brakes on the Valiant before we could do it – there is no way I could have done this on my own, it was all about angles, and I trust him much more than me to get that right! He is, after all, an engineer! ( It’s all a bit “The Castle,” with a twist ,around here – waiting to shift the Daytona to bring in the Valiant then work on the Kombi or the International,etc.)

Finished those brakes yet, Matt?!!

Both shibori pieces are now wrapped around their buckets ready for steaming, and we brought up from Studio 5a a massive boiler to do it.

Gilded, shibori-wrapped skirt pieces ready to steam

It was a huge beast, and I scuffed a heel pulling it out, :-( as I wasn’t quite dressed for the occasion - what a surprise! Shame it won’t fit over the fire pit, or we would be out there cooking it now, toasting it with a few drinks! Mishka of course loved getting inside and investigating it.

I also sewed together the bias-cut skirt, which I have been absolutely dreading, but it went without a hitch! Even got the zip in no troubles! Perhaps because it has been pinned to the mannequin and hanging for several months, therefore dropping out all the give.  I’d forgotten to cut out the lining, no probs, can take care of that this week and then sew on to the waistband. The corset has been sewn, boned and eyeleted, ready for the decorative bits.

OK, we’ve had the fibreglass splinter, the fabulous finds, the little fright – what of the fire? Well, this evening I’d put the potatoes on the stove to cook and walked over to the computer. I turned around when I smelled a nasty burning smell, to see my new pot mitt on fire right beside the gas ring. F*&^ing gas, just once more reason to hate it!! Never bloody starts, uncontrollable, open flame – burns things!!! Wrong wrong wrong in a domestic environment!! Anyhoo, fixed that promptly – alert, but not alarmed!

So, 12 weeks to go, and I have to say I am feeling reasonably happy with it. It’s basically time to turn it over to Matt for his engineering work on it, and just decorative stuff for me now that the structure is just about made. I still don’t anticipate actually socialising with folk until this thing is done – sorry Kit! It’s just too full on! Not to mention, I have a week off in 7 weeks to head to Grampians Texture. That may turn out to be a very well timed sanity break!

So, it’s roll on with yet another Monday, but at least we know Friday won’t be far behind! Have a good week, 

XXX

Svenja