All posts filed under: Miscellenia

Qantas 37 – Melbourne to Wellington and the spaces between

I’m on the flight between Melbourne and Wellington (unfortunately I don’t think they call it Melly, so I can’t say Melly to Welly), catching up on the Big Bang Theory, reviewing my week just past, planning the week ahead, and considering the Melbourne experience. Travel writers love to compare Wellington to San Francisco. And Wellingtonian’s love to tell me that “I’d love Melbourne — it’s the Wellington of Australia.” So somehow I pictured Melbourne looking like Wellington and San Francisco. It doesn’t. It’s flat. In fact, it’s not like Wellington or San Francisco at all. Welly and SF are both unmistakably themselves — they may remind you of other places, but you could never be in either and not know where it was. Melbourne is a chameleon, reminding you of everywhere you have been, hiding itself. It takes a while to see Melbourne, rather than bits of New York, Toronto, Chicago, Wellington, Oakland, San Francisco, St Louis, and all the other cities people said it reminded them of. But Melbourne is fantastic — not Wellington, …

Melbourne fretwork

Published by The Dreamstress

So Miss Theresa and I are engaging in mutual blogging. She’s blogging about the Great Big Sea night (all the bits that I was too bashful/restrained/euphoric/discreet/giddy/shy to write about) and I’m sitting next to her blogging about Melbourne fretwork. She said “didn’t you already blog about Melbourne fretwork?” And I said “only about the idea. I have’t shown them pictures! ” And I haven’t taken 200 images of buildings in Melbourne with amazing wrought iron (which is probably what it properly is, not fretwork) not to show you some. The fretwork just fascinates me. It’s all over the place: on almost every single house. I wonder who made it? Was there a whole industry in Melbourne? Or was it imported? When do all the fretwork buildings date from? I can do a reasonable guess at architecture dates in NZ and the US, but I’m not at all familiar with the architecture styles in Australia. Theresa also pointed out to me that many of the houses around Melbourne have names. We looked at the names together …

More teaching! This time in Wellington!

Published by The Dreamstress

Thank you all, Melbournians who are attending and those from across the world who have expressed that you wish you could be attending alike, for your enthusiastic response to my first international corset class. Missed the notification? Here it is: I’m teaching a corset making workshop at Melbourne’s fabulous craft lounge, Thread Den, tomorrow, Friday the 6th of April! To read more about the course, check out Thread Den’s class description, and then rush over and book it. And when I say, rush, I mean RUSH. Today is totally the last day to do so, and I think there is only one space left. The international corset class came at an exciting time, because I was already working on developing a series of courses that I can teach in Wellington. Yes Wellingtonians, you heard that right: I’m teaching! I’m very excited about this. I love teaching. I’m good at it (I know that sounds vain, but sometimes you need to just acknowledge your strengths, and this is definitely one of mine). And I want there …