Inside the temple of doom
(...fear not, it's essentially just a 'Services' page)
Costume MAKING
I’m using the historical use of the word “costume” as a title here, I just mean clothing. Clothing that I make & often also design. I have a blog post explaining the how & why I utterly fell in love with soft engineering, but my creativity is dominated by dressmaking. She is my passion & my obsession. Be it my everyday wardrobe, movie costume replicas, historical recreations or the designs I create for a wonderful local group Cartwright & Coy huge chunks of my time & energy is taken up by thinking in terms of fabric, trim & thread. Absolutely nothing beats shutting out the world, putting on my favourite music & getting my teeth into a project with my ride or die sewing machine, Jillykins, a 10 year old Brother Innovis 350SE. She’s belligerent, contrary & sometimes downright rebellious but she’s perfect to me & I would be lost without her!
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Artwork
Very much a baby artist*, if honest, but it’s fast becoming a very big part of my life, I have absolutely no idea what my personal art style is & think that I don’t think I will, purely because there is just too much fun to be had exploring everything. Why limit myself? That said, my favourite thing to do is basically low key forgery, haha! I absolutely adore making studies of my favourite artworks. Working out colour mixes, recreating brushstrokes & trying different mediums than those used by the artists. Art play is also really important to me, regaining the glorious joy that we all had as kiddos when making art. We didn’t give a rats ass about reality or scale or even how good, bad or indifferent what we create was, we drew & added colour just for the sheer joy of it - we need to bring that shit back…
*as in, I’m very new to creating 2d art… I don’t exclusively paint babies. In fact, I have never once painted a baby, maybe I should?!
Crafts
If you haven’t made the connection just yet, making things is my jam. It’s epic & I heartily recommend it to everyone, it’s very literally good for you… I am yet to find a creative pastime that I don’t like & really do want to try them all, but, as a quick list of my current other hobbies I knit, crochet, embroider, design & make costume jewellery, beadweaving, card making, lazy scrapbooking, Needle felting, photography, spinning, creative writing, bobbin lace making & pyrography. Not only that, I also have plans to add filmmaking, stained glass, wood working, sculpture, scrimshaw, illuminated manuscripts, leather work & goldsmithing to my repertoire, and honestly if I could afford a kiln I’d already be a potter too (very much to the relief of my long suffering husband!).
Other Stuff
Other stuff is mostly my love for Jack. Jack is my sunshine yellow 1973 VW Beetle. I’m (very) slowly restoring him single handedly. He’s been part of my life since about 2010 & will be with me hopefully forever. I have wanted a Beetle since I was a kid & never thought I’d ever be able to afford a vintage Beetle until, knowing my love for Beetles, a friend & workmate messaged me out of the blue asking if I wanted to buy hers! If I remember right, Jack was off the road at the time & being stored in her parents garage but they were putting their house on the market & wanted their garage back. I absolutely jumped at the chance & fell in love with him on sight. The original plans were to restore him evenings & weekends while I was working full time & had the money to get the parts he needed - I gained my IMI light vehicle maintenance qulification in 2011, which helped. Except, working full time while raising our son & everything else working parents do, I didn’t have the time… Then I got sick, lost my income & the last vestiges of my energy. Now I’m better at pacing & have a bit of income coming in, Jack & I are spending more time together & I’m loving every second (though I don't think he's forgiven me yet for taking so flipping long to get round to sorting him out!)
