Saturday October 31st was an extremely early start, with a
6am flight to Adelaide. Everything went swimmingly, from security clearance to
a nice neighbour on the 'plane, to an easy car pick up and early arrival at my
abode. Here I was greeted by the lovely hosts , who have beautifully restored
this 50's apartment, right down to the kettle and the couch!
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| Loved these sculptures in the dunes |
They were also
amazingly generous, leaving half a dozen
eggs from their own chooks, milk, butter, a bottle of white wine and the most
delicious bread from Boulangerie 113. Wow - such thoughtfulness and delicious
kindness!
After settling in, I thought I would take advantage of the
nice day, and after quickly visiting the (very small) Flinders St Market, drove
out to Glenelg, looking for delicious noms. The parking gods were on my side as
I found the perfect 3hour park (may have had to do a slightly illegal turn to
get to it...) then headed out to assess all the luncheon opti
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| Why aren't the cafés on this side?!! |
ons. The Marina
area was weird - all the restaurants faced only the marina, yet they all went
through to the beach side, which is where I would rather be. The Surf Club
looked OK, but I kept going to the Jetty Hotel and scored a table by the
window. However, once I found a menu and decided that I didn't want a $22
burger, or a hotdog, I left, and ended up across the square at the Mosely. Here
I was served the most delicious warm bread with olive oil - it was better than
cake - and n
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| Goodwood suburban streets |
o matter how I tried, I was powerless to resist it! I could barely
finish my pressed chicken (meh) but made sure I consumed my duck dumplings
(nom)! I walked the precinct, noticing that Glenelg had clearly not seen
platform sandals for some time, nor, apparently, pink hair, or perhaps a
leather jacket? Whatever the hook was, I certainly felt like I had my second head
on, as we like to refer to this experience. Maybe they're a bit less obvious
when I'm with Matt?... I picked up supplies on the way home, and settled in for
some relaxation, a small walk around the neighbourhood (picking up coffee for
the morning as there IS a plunger) and going to bed by 8pm. The flat at the
back was having a party, which was a tad disruptive, but I eventually drifted
off.
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| Loved the rusting on this pylon |
Sunday began with some quite lovey 'Laneway' gumboot water (plunger coffee) and some stretches before heading out to Black Hill Conservation Park for some
bushwalking. I expected to head out
there, find a main entrance/parking site
from which to begin, but there seemed to be a lot of closed gates and no
parking areas. Eventually I found one at the end of a suburban road, and headed
in to do the Black Hill Summit track. That was a pretty hard core climb, on a
very narrow pathway stacked largely with rocks. Towards the top I found myself
under an electricity pylon - the buzzing was quite unnerving, but the rust on
the metal was quite fabulous. It was a
little further to the top, then it was time to come down again - honestly, it
was way worse than going up - at one stage I did slide and end up on my butt
and hands, but luckily didn't hurt anything! I started chanting the usual
'eggs, eggs, eggs' on the way down, and when I got home, put an enormous one on
to boil. It was then that I nibbled a corner of the loaf of bread, and was in
danger of devouring the whole thing due to it's wonderfulness!!
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| Hahndorf |
Moving right along..... I decided to heed mah Bunneh's
advice and head out to Hahndorf - again, like Glenelg, only half an hour away.
Again, I was blessed with a wonderful park, and walked the picturesque street.
Although the buildings, the trees, the street itself are beautiful, many of the
shops are full of imported goods (or is that bads?), so apparent that I knew I
didn't even need to
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| Giant Bunz! |
cross the doorway. If you're not after a stodgy German
dish, some fudge, or an Indonesian import, just soak up the lovely street
atmosphere. Whilst ev
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| My kind of graffiti! |
eryone stares at you. There were 3 'real' shops - the
craft co-op, and actual gallery shop with work in it by Penny Eamer and Denise
Lithgow, and the Museum Shop. There was a highlight at the leather shop, where
at the back they have a Bunneh enclosure!! Here I saw two enormous Bunz -
apparently NZ giant Bunnehs! Also some baby giants - squeeee! I proceeded on to Mount Barker, then headed
for home, driving through Stirling on the way back, and getting slightly lost
on the way home. Absolutely no matter - I love driving through the streets and
looking at the different houses! There are so many Colonial Style houses here -
I do wonder where they keep all their stuff when they have no 'under-the-house'
as we do in Queensland, and where my entire studio is housed! After a lunch of
boiled prawns and Pinot Grigio, I spent the afternoon intermittently reading my
Dawn French novel, and looking across the street, before going for a last walk
of the day around the neighbourhood. It seems so amazingly quiet, and neater
than Queensland - rose bushes, especially white ones, seem to be de rigueur if
you have a Colonial stone house! I love stopping to smell them - the red ones
are very rich, the pink ones very sweet.
I've had several weeks at home since my return from Adelaide, which already seems so long ago. Within the first week, I had spent a great deal of time in the studio making felted and nuno felted wraps. I enjoyed trawling through my stash of wool, silk, and embellishments, finding cohesive elements to bring together. Here you can see a lovely piece of dyed silk organza which just happened to go beautifully with some wool I had - from layout to finished wrap. It felt really good to be 'using up' all these bits, which simply means I can 
dye/buy more! The green and blue piece to the left was made with wool I had managed to matt together during the dyeing process, (I must have managed to boil it!) which was able to be rescued when I bought a comb for removing matted hair from pets, and worked my way through it - I can't throw it out! Sadly, RSI in my arm kicked in after a while, and I had to stop, so I moved on to ice dyeing for a while. I really enjoyed working on these, working out how to fold the garments to get the best effects (quite different to just dealing with plain material or scarves) and how to mix my new palette of dyes.
Dealing with powdered dye rather than liquid means that the dye doesn't always look like it's going to, so I'm really glad I invested in a colour chart as well - very helpful! All this effort was in aid of ensuring I had a varied amount of stock for the Etsy Made Local market, held last weekend in Brisbane City Hall. Sadly, it was all in vain, as it was a fairly unsuccessful day for me. The venue had a bit of a weird vibe, (just look at that carpet!) the poor crowd looked dazed and glazed by the time they had made their way in through the large queue in the sun, and 2m x 2m with no space between neighbours sure was small! I certainly noticed the difference between that and my generous allowance previously enjoyed at the Craft & Quilt Fair, and most noticeably, the lack of walls! It was a long day, but there was a silver lining - my neighbour was the lovely Juliarna of Carpe d'Art, which produces fabulous hand painted sneakers. We had a hoot! Both of us were also supported by our mothers, who came to visit and offer encouragement!
