Hey Plain Jane

Lookie! On Saturday afternoon I got John to pick up a new trestle table for me from Bunnings on his way home from work. I was all a-flitter and decided to stage a practice run of how the stall would be put together. The above photo was taken on our back deck that leads off our bedroom, late in the afternoon of a very long day, the culmination of a very long haul of stitching, for what seemed like months, but possibly was only six weeks.

Then the day of the inaugural Hey Plain Jane market debut, I was so excited to turn up at silly o’clock at the the market place. John packed up the Ute with me and we hooted off. The market location was the grounds of the Tank Art Centre, a converted WW2 oil tank storage site—some five massive concrete oil tanks— set in amongst the lush rain forest. It is a pretty special place. 

My three friends Soo, Kevin and Sarah were holding two stalls as well, and we all bunked in together. I don’t know what I would have done without them there. All three of them are old hands at flogging crafty, groovey stuff at markets, so they were so supportive of my first foray. 

Jack, bless him, had a Limonade stand (no, limonade, made from limes from our prolific back yard lime tree). Aged four, dressed in his best Norman Rockwell impersonator gear (jeans, stripy shirt and baceball cap turned backwards). He was milking the nostalgia factor without even knowing it. Japanese tourists were taking his photo and coo-ing over him. I must admit he was a champion; he was barking out his wares, accosting people left right and centre, working the cute factor, pouring out the limonade with a host’s aplomb. John was standing by to help.

I had a great day. Seriously. Friends rocked up. I got a few good support purchases from my friends, bless them. But complete strangers were enthusiastic as well. I worked it too.

Soo Kevin, Sarah and I were all buzzing with customers, constantly. Good feedback, good vibes. Hey Plain Jane had a lovely first outing. And wow, a nice financial profit that cannot be sniffed at! All goes to the mortgage.

Best sellers? George the Swimmer sold okay, the collage covered books, and a lot of the ‘hot bunnies’. Not a single cushion was sold. How sad.

Next month’s markets have a children’s toy theme, can you believe it! Right!!!!

Collage Covered Book

Originally uploaded by palefella

This was such a last minute thing for the market stall. Literally two days before the market I re-discovered a bunch of these wood-covered books that Officeworks had been throwing out the door for a pittance.

Late Thursday night I started putting together pieces of collage onto the wooden covers.

I was quite pleased with the reaction people had. I sold three out of four collage-covered books I put together. Sadly this one failed to sell, but strangely, it was my first one and my favourite.

Usually prototypes are a rum job. But this one was so cool.

One of the customers who bought a collage-covered book was a young girl, no more than ten with her mother. She was shy and pretty and the second she laid eyes on these books she clearly needed one. The whole time she was deliberating on which one to buy, she barely said a word, even to her mum. I hope she does all her most beautiful drawing work within its pages.

The days whizz past in delirium of business, none of which is especially interesting.

I cleaned Jack’s room and enjoyed it enough to take a few photos of the outcomes. I have a stack of little wooden boxes that I use to display his best toys, and arranging them is more like assemblage art than housework.

Superman often poses majestically in front of the globe. Show off. He knows how to balance so well on the edge of the boxes. I love those little metal aeroplanes. But they are a complete pill if you happen to stand on them.

His book case, which features one of his favourite books The Incredible Book Eating Boy. He can recite it, a sure sign of his devotion. The wooden shield with the lions, we bought in England on a particularly beautiful Spring day. We had a picnic —my mother, John, Jack and I— in a lovely green grass grounds of a 12th century ruin of a castle held by the National Trust. We bought the shield and sword in the castle shop and  Jack played for the longest time like the truest knight of the truest kingdom of all Old England. It is one of the happiest memories of all our stay in England. 

Little Jack the Terrible playing at knights and dragon-slaying.

Little Jack the Terrible doing some practice sword-weilding with his father in the grounds of the 12th century Brougham Castle near Penrith in the unseasonably cold Springtime of the north. How many children Jack’s age did exactly this in exactly these same surrounds over the many centuries since the buildings were first made? Jack took to the idea of sword-swinging in the ruins of a castle so quickly and so well it was spooky. Dad on the other hand remained quite nervous of the whole dealio.

For I so loved the fabric that I was prepared to stand there and hand-paint out each and every one of those hundreds of tiny rust spots that refused to come out no matter how much lemon juice was used. You know you are addicted to fabric when this sort of Sistine Chapel restorative approach is even contemplated.  

But that was yesterday and that could explain yesterday’s certain profound lack of craft achievement.

But this is today and I cannot explain where the time evaporated to nor how the time was spent. I do know I spent far too long trying to get my sewing machine to sew without missing stitches. Checking and re-checking the bobbin tension, changing the needle, rethreading, oiling and even cursing didn’t seem to make a bit of difference.

I know I paid two trips to the accountant to finalise last year’s tax; signing stuff, getting John to sign stuff, trapsing documents back and forth, you know the bureaucratic drill.  The latest tax returns are essential for the adoption file. We’re getting closer and closer to the final crunch with all that.

I know that each outing for the accountant was also preceded with a thrift store rummage in two different stores. Not much. Sniff. Some nice black wool fabric, some ancient black lace (an unopened packet of about 5 yards!) and some dower wool check. Why for all the black? Ah-ha! a Little project I am cooking up. We shall see about the dower….

Zoinks! as my son’s favourite dog owner would say*. I hurried in to the thrift shop to do a quick rummage for vintage fabrics as I was on route to the bank where I guilty planned to get a cash advance on my credit card to pay for the long arm quilting I’ve had done to my patchwork quilt.**

And ZOINKS! in a big way. I somehow had managed to beat the vintage-hunting crowds and I scooped not just a couple of so-so dubiously vintage cottons, but about fifteen lengths of  genuine and genuinely sublime vintages. Gagging with joy, I was!

The joy was a bit tainted when I got home to find three of the most lovely of them were utterly covered in rust marks. I did a wash, but since have read that the only way to do away with rust on fabric is a method involving lemon juice and paper towels and copious sun. 

It called for a paint brush, a lemon squeezer and some lemon juice left over from some serious cheese cake baking session this morning. I felt certifiably insane, standing on our back deck, painstakingly painting a sheet of fabric with a kiddy brush dipped in lemon juice.

I don’t think there was enough sun at the time for the method to work. I’ll try again tomorrow because I am desperate. This fabric is so outrageously good. Ain’t no rust gonna bring it down, not iffin I can help it.

There was a craft meeting this afternoon with my friends, Dan and Tia. God bless her, Dan gave me a thrift store find to die for…..this pristine, crisp and deliriously retro tablecloth.

Never been used! A thick sweet linen fabric, with chunky orange flowers set against that relentless and unforgiving 70’s brown. Shut up. 

The patchwork quilt finally came back, after what seems like months. After all this time, I’m now vaguely under-whelmed by the pattern itself. After all this time working on it and dreaming of how brilliant it would be, there it is. I suppose that’s just what happens to you after a long term craft project. 

I made it for my daughter or son, the one who has not yet joined our family, the one who is coming. I hope he or she loves it. I shall offer a photo of the quilt when I finish the outer binding.

It was John’s birthday and our wedding anniversary, hence the cheese cake baking. Now that recipe is a keeper. I found it in the weekend magazine from a couple of weeks ago.

We went out to dinner fairly impromptu-like when John arrived home from work. We collected Jack from his day care, took off to town and had pizza on The Nard. Jack was beside himself with pizza joy. These are the good old days. 

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*Oh, Shaggy, of course, from Scooby Doo. 

** One year ago it would have surprised me greatly to write this sentence; talk of patchwork, quilting, thrift shop. I don’t know who I am any more!

I’m becoming a thrift shop junkie. I’m leaping over that stage when I can only just manage to drive past one at any given time and now I’ve developed a compulsion. But I’m getting better at knowing what I’m looking for when I go there. 

Most of all I’m looking for fabric, and I go directly to the fabric boxes, usually at the back of the store, and sadly quite picked over. There is a group of people in this town who regularly scour for vintage fabrics too, so the pickings, when you find them, are real finds.

After months of rummaging hard, I’ve only found two fabric lengths that I called eureka! over.

Today’s finds were non-such. I dashed into a Life Line store while waiting for John to finish at the psychologist’s testing we have to do for the adoption process.

(She gave us both a Rorschach Ink Blot test, which was fascinating and fun, but I’ve since done some reading on the test’s reliability and it seems to be the subject of much maligning for its lack of credibility. Oh great.)

I walked away with this charming ceramic deer, a real deal retro item as opposed to knock-off, and a printed muslin scrap of fabric which was likely once part of some fancy packaging for Japanese tea.

The fabric has a destiny as a cute table runner for sale at Hey Plain Jane.

And even though I call it a thrift store here, I wouldn’t normally say this out loud in real life. To me and mine it is called, most definitely a second-hand store. But Second-Hand Junkie is not quite as zippy as a self-title.

So many ribbons, so little time. If you are anything like me, you have squirrelled away great lumps of ribbon in your home. It tangles merrily in stray bags, languishes in old shoe boxes, drapes itself languidly over items yet to be trimmed. Yet when you need a good ribbon, it will not be found.

Enough, I said late, very late, last night. I grabbed the first thing to hand, which happened to be the inner tube of a al-foil roll, and I began to wrap. Wrap and pin, wrap and pin. Totem poles emerged, colourful and long.

I roamed about the house gathering more spare tube rolls ( I usually keep them thinking I will give them to Jack’s Day Care Centre) until I had rolled and pinned all known ribbon in my possession. So pretty. More than pretty, glorious. It’s probably bad for the ribbon to be pinning it, but at least now it will be easy to spot the one I want at a glance.

I went visiting a craft friend this afternoon. We had tea and snicker-doodles, spicy sweet cakes that I think originated with the Amish. She gave me a bunch of old second-hand store children’s books with fabulous illustrations. I don’t know what to do with them. Just glow at them perhaps.

But the big news is that the gallery shop manager has emailed me back in response to some photos of Lula and the Cat Faces that I sent. She is happy to ahve them in the shop. Oh. Bit scary! I shall tidy up the stock this evening and make ready for my first public foray into art sales.