From fishing boats to furniture

Greetings everyone and happy Spring!

I do have some exciting hat related news for you but first, and without further ado, about this furniture. (You may have seen it in the latest edition of ‘Good Magazine’.) Isn’t it beautiful. It’s all made from fishing boats salvaged from islands all over Indonesia. No longer sea worthy, many of these boats were being used for firewood! Until some resourceful person with a keen eye realised that they were ideal  reusable sources of some really hardy and slow growing woods such as teak and ironwood.

Transformed into beautiful and long lasting one-off pieces of furniture with a million stories to tell under layers and layers of gorgeous paint, they’ve become pretty irresistible. So irresistible that we have basically furnished our house with boats and have a few extra bits and pieces that are available for sale, including: a table, shelves, frames, and wine racks like you’ve never seen before. So please get in touch at moonshinewashingline@gmail.com if you are interested. To arrange a viewing if you are in the Wellington (NZ) area, please call 021-766-827.

 

Lucky-As!

Massive thanks to everybody for sending in their beautiful photos! It’s lovely to see the hats in action everywhere from Machu Picchu to Denmark to New York to New Zealand to The Amazing Traveling Photo Booth to Hawaii! Great to see that some of you have a Moonshine Washingline hat for every season and that some of you even wear them lining-side out, maxing them out to the max.

If you still have photos you’d like to send in, send them on over, I’d love to see and share them. Below are some of my favourites so far.

Now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for, here are the lucky winners of the lucky-as draw…!

Lucky 1st, winner of a $50 gift certificate, is Karen!

Lucky 2nd, winner of a $25 gift certificate is Dion!

Lucky 3rd, winner of a $15 gift certificate is Vera!

Wohoo! Congratulations guys. Thanks again to everyone for sending in photos. I will be doing this again so keep snapping.

Time for me to head to the coast of the South Island to get trained in the ways of the Dirt Doctor. See you when I get back. Happy equinoxoxox.

Cuba Street Night Market! tonight! last one for the winter

Getting ready to go to my last market for the season. And such a beautiful end-of-summer day for it! So come on down to the end of Cuba (next door to Thistle Hall) and get your burger and beer on.

ps. Poster below is by Tim Denee. Love it.

“The first season has come to an end and the Cuba Street Night Market will celebrate it’s closing night at Kreuzberg Summer Café between 5-9pm this Friday night 26th March!

It will be an extravaganza of Wellington art and crafts! Local and travelling musicians will entertain, including Imon Star and friends from OLMEHCA SUPREME. Other confirmed musicians are; travelling duo The Codebreakers and local talent Tant’s Quartet.

The market will showcase textiles, dress making, jewellery, silver work, harakeke weaving, leather work, The Amazing Travelling Photo Booth, live portraits, toy making, copper work, candle making, shell work, poetry, ceramics, painting, photography, felt work, zines, screen prints and more!

Vegelicious BBQ burgers from the night market stall and great food and beverages (including beer and wine) from the Kreuzberg Caravan. You can pay with Eftpos and get your cash out there too! Can’t wait to see you there!
Dont worry as we are only closing for winter and plan to re-open the Night markets in spring time!”

little bag of lace

Kia ora everybody

First of all, you’ve still got some time to enter the Lucky-As draw, so hurry hurry and send in a photo of you in your hat to moonshinewashingline@gmail.com. Have lots of great shots so far!

It’s been a busy few weeks and I’m somewhat relieved that market season is almost over (for me) and that I can get back into sewing rather than trying to coordinate transport and set up etc.

I’m also very happy to be able to look at and touch fabric again without thinking, “Could this resemble one of the layers of Mt Taranaki?”

Jake and I spent an intense couple of weeks making fabric models for a Absolutely Positively Wellington campaign. The due date happened to be the day of our 3-year wedding anniversary and also the day The Dominion Post called to take pictures of us with some of the models we made down at Lyall Bay. Click on the picture to see the article, which has a link to part of the animated advertisement for Australian television. There is a longer cinema version which is even more amazing!

While cleaning up the mammoth mess we had made, I came across a bag of bits and pieces that I picked up from my grandma’s house earlier in the summer. (And which I almost unknowingly sold at my garage sale!)

Turns out I had a treasure trove of beautiful antique lace on my hands, as well as unfinished embroidered linens, and a collection of salvaged zippers with seam-ripped threads still in place. Most of it was in a small canvas bag addressed to my great grandmother so I’m pretty sure some of it was hers and that some of it hadn’t been touched in about 50 years.

hand drawn, hand sewn, hand cut!

The most magical part of it all was that it felt like a collection–with a contrast of bright batik prints, quaint English lace and even the odd slightly 80s ‘punk ‘studded zipper–that I would have put together myself long before I was even born. What a valuable gift from my like-minded ancestors. I can’t wait to revive the lace and maybe even finish the embroidery while curled up by the fire over the winter months (yes after 3 YEARS of endless summer, I’m actually looking forward to winter!)

Knack Market and sore fingers

I will be at Knack Market this Saturday 9:30-2:30, at Berhampore School. Come and check out all the lovely handmade goods!!! You know you want to.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working working working day and night on a project for Positively Wellington. My fingers are so raw from hand sewing that it’s sore to type. Hope to be able to show you the results soon!

Craft 2.0 and three chances for you to win win win!

I’m running a lucky-as draw for those of you who send me a photo of you wearing your Moonshine Washingline hat! First name I draw will get a $50 gift certificate for my etsy shop, second name $25 and third name $15. This is a good opportunity to indulge in that second (or third or fourth for some of you!) hat that you’ve been eying, or to give someone special a lovely gift. Can be used for a custom order of course. So send your photos on over to moonshinewashingline@gmail.com and I’ll draw the lucky winners by March 30th. And I’ll share the photos with you here of course.

I’m super stoked to have a stall at the next Craft 2.0 on Saturday March 6th, 11-4pm at The New Dowse, as part of the Wellington Fringe Festival. Should be a real whopbanger. Check out the blog to see some of the awesome crafters who will be there!

ps. Splore was simply sploresome. I found it hard to leave the beautiful Tapapakanga Regional Park. Boogying underwater and swimming up and down the coast to go between playing the marimba and watching the main stage is The Life. So is living on chilled watermelons and pakoras. And I just couldn’t get enough of that lei-tree up there.

The costumes were a hit too. And hopefully only just the beginning. (pps. Meet Spartacus R, in a collaboration with Jacob Perkins & The Nobody known as ‘The Circadian Rhythm Project’: an avant-garde audiovisual spectacular, illuminating the effects of the day-to-day in dreamland with an interactive odyssey through the subconscious of a mind blown by the groove.” Fun times.)

Yippeeyiyay! Time to re-stock. Got some beautiful new fabric. Couldn’t resist.

two thousand and zen

love wellington

hello darling hearts

I’ve been m.i.a, at the sewing machine almost non-stop. Been making some new hats and now on to costumes for a performance at SPLORE consisting of capes, crowns and wings. Think kiss meets screamin’ jay hawkins meets the roman empire (!!!) I also made a  jumpsuit last week out of two old towels for a one-piece party and I think I found my new fashion passion. Stay tuned.

Am also working on new hat designs: cloches, cheesecutters, oh my! The newest design has been a hit so far. Loose and flattering with that great profile. So have the hats for kids and babies. Got some lovely light linens especially for the wee ones, and with the back flaps for added protection around the neck and ears in the blazing Southern Hemisphere sun.

And FINALLY have new hats up in the online shop! Check them out below and click on each hat for a closer look.

Will be making more winter hats next. Can’t wait to use some of these beautiful wools I have up my sleeve.

ps. I have a lovely new sewing buddy, her name’s Cedar!

pps. And! I have some lovely new hat stands, courtesy of my crafty husband

some things can’t wait

The end of the year is always a mad crazy busy time. Everyone trying to “wrap things up” in a frenzy, whether it’s year long to-do lists, last minute Christmas presents, or this year, some kind of worthwhile agreement on what we’re going to do about global climate change.

Well I’ve just made the executive decision to eliminate this pressure I’ve been feeling to get some hats up for sale in the Etsy shop before Christmas. Not gonna do it. Why? Because as much as it gives me great joy to see people rocking the carefully crafted, long lasting and one of a kind hats that I’ve made especially for you with the tenderest lovingest care, that can wait (having said that, I do have twenty new hats in the making, some just waiting to be lined, so if you need shade or warmth or style like, now, then get in touch like, now. Otherwise they will be up in the Etsy shop early January). “The season of giving” hardly has any room left on its bandwagon. Meanwhile, the garden can’t wait. My sewing station has been extended to support a small seedling nursery and we gotta get the mounds and compost ready to do some serious microbial magic while we go up north.

(Have you guys read Weeds, Guardians of Our Soil? To me it’s akin to the documentary Sharkwater. Time to take a closer look at the consequences of some of the myths we live with. Find out how Hollywood via Jaws is partially responsible for depleting plankton via sharks. Find out how weeds are often just plants we don’t know what to do with. Check out this awesome blog Wild Picnic: a gallery of edible and useful wild plants here in Wellington, NZ)

Most of all, I’ve been totally consumed with catching up on environmental policy and the goings-on at COP15. Despite the fact that I am indeed feeling the pressure of 4 heavy environment-related article deadlines before the end of the year, I’m also sharing the overwhelmingly real pressure that is being addressed in varying degrees all over the world right now: It Can’t Wait. And I can’t wait! No sleep till the end of the summit. And even then, maybe still no sleep. (I’ve also been trudging through the pack-rat-middens  and five-point-frameworks of Jared Diamond’s “Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed” (or Survive). Read an interesting essay about the book today. In addition to the myths mentioned above, find out how taboo wiped out the Greenland Norse and denial the Easter Islanders.)

and plus, this is the tempting view from my window!

So that’s what’s going on in the hat biz. Who would have thought. Have yourself a very merry Zzzmas! And don’t forget that the “season of giving” can last all year round.

ps. This site can now officially be accessed via moonshinewashingline.com

Participation in the Kyoto Protocol, as of June 2009, where dark green indicates the countries that have signed and ratified the treaty, grey is not yet decided and red is no intention to ratify.

new hat design!

here’s the prototype in lightweight cotton and silk. what do you think?

back in business

well hello!!!

It’s wonderful to be back, in the Southern Hemisphere, in Wellington, at the sewing machine, right at the brink of summer summer summer.

Many tales from the road, which you can read about at the Champ Tours the New World site, but for now it’s all about a room with a view over Lyall Bay from one window and an ever-changing garden full of artichoke hearts and tuis from the other.

Over the next few months we’ll be slowly settling down (FINALLY) to life in NZ. It’s so nice to be able to start long-term projects, to start to unpack, and…to have all my fabric together in one place!!! (on it’s way). While we look for a more permanent home, over the summer we will be helping transform the beautiful piece of land we are currently living on into an edible community garden. It’s a dream come true.

In the mail today I got my copy of the recently launched first issue of Extra Curricular, a lovely little publication “for creative folk.” What a great little book to have in hand, the perfect size, well-crafted, beautiful lay out, and best of all, full of  behind-the-stalls stories of all those clever crafty people whose work I’ve seen or heard of over the years. And! it features Moonshine Washingline, check it out! Click on either of the photos to get a closer look and find out where you can get a copy.

Meanwhile, it’s high time I got the sewing machine cranking to stock up the etsy shop and get ready for the Martinborough Fair!

Here’s a bo-peep at just a selection of some of the new silks, linens, buttons and threads I have in store for the next batch – which will include summer hats for adults, kids and babies, and woolen winter hats (for those of you in the Northern Hemisphere). So hang tight, and if you’d like to get in quick and make an order, let me know!