Busy Bees!

Yumi and I have been busily preparing for our first Souzou Market Stall! I thought you might like to see a sneak peak of a few of the goodies that will be on sale. We'd love to see you there...

Sunday 15th December

9am - 3pm

142 Addison Road Marrickville NSW

Addison Road Organic Markets

Souzou Day

Yumi and I met for a Souzou meeting last Sunday - less a meeting and more just hanging out and thinking of all the lovely things Souzou will bring to our lives really.

This is how the day unfolded...

+ A swim at Balmoral Beach to get our bodies relaxed and ready for forthcoming meeting.

+ The purchase of strawberries and peonies from the local fruit market

+ The meeting begins with "show & tell". Highlights included Yumi's library books (Lanvin), Frida Kahlo colouring in book, an Australian Vogue photo shoot with vintage hats and Japanese setting, Milk Magazine (French mag for kids) and a Charlie and Lola Activity book.

+ Ideas... once a month having a cultural festival eg. Tanabata Festival

+ Inspiration: Sparrow Kids, Lola et Moi

+ Public Liability - which to go with?

+ Planning our first Souzou Children's Birthday Party!

+ Selecting Sugar Plum circles for our Birthday Party headpieces.

If I were a robot...

I like Alex Noriega's illustrations. His bunnies are also highly recommended.

Room with a View

I always like seeing what people have in their bag or creative workspaces. This is where I work during the week and thought give you a guided tour... got to this link to see notations on everything in the pic... a riveting look into my day-job...

Book Report

After being overwhelmingly inspired by the textile students work at the Renew Lace Exhibition, I spent a glorious 2 hours at Ariel Bookshop (yes Sylv, that's why I ducked away all of the sudden! A book-craving came on.)

Arial is my most favourite bookshop because of the following:

1. Great kids books

2. They sell Haigh's chocolate frogs

3. Lovely design and art books for the perusing

4. A good step to sit on when pondering over purchases

All very important criteria for a good bookshop.

One of the books I left the shop with is Oliver Jeffer's new "The Great Paper Caper". He is one of my favourite children's book authors/illustrators and I loved this book for it's quirky details, beautiful colours and a not too preachy eco-message. It is even printed on FSC paper (paper that comes from replenished forests), which makes me like the book even more.

Yumi gives flowers to her friends...

I Made You a Beard

Thank you Erin for your blog... it made me smile! And thank you Amy for sending it to me!

Re New Lace

For the past two years I lectured and taught Second Year design students at the College of Fine Arts. It was a great time - I love seeing the freshness and un-commericialised minds come up with such diverse solutions to design projects. And researching for the lectures each week kept my own learning about the design world rolling along.

One of my favourite projects of the year was Re-new Lace, where students were inspired by traditional pieces and then applied recycled materials to create contemporary lace. Part of the project was to visit the Lace Study Centre at the Power House Museum. There are some lovely ladies who volunteer their time with a wealth of experience, passing down their skills to the next generation. It's almost like adopting a grandma and learning from her.

I'm not teaching this year, but I received an invitation to the Re-New Lace exhibition from my friend Sylvia, happening on the 4th November. Let me know if you're interested and we can go together!

Late-comer

I think I'm a bit of a late comer to the enviro thing, but better late than never, huh?!
I've been sent this great video called "The Story of Stuff". It illustrates the impact of production, distribution, consumption, and not to mention extraction of stuff.

Farewell October...

So it turns out October had some great highlights on the Feeling Fuzzy? Blog...

- Most excitingly Souzou was born. I'm going to be posting all our progress in creating our place of creativity up on the blog. Yumi and I have so many ideas. Today where off to the Addison St Markets to do some contemplation and sourcing.

- The Consume Less Project also started with a bit of a rocky start, but you'll be glad to know I spent an afternoon at the dreaded Bondi Junction and was able to back away slowly from the claws of retail. Turns out shopping is quite boring when your not actually purchasing.

- NP turned 28 and we celebrated the old fashioned way (Cupcakes, Laser Zone and Karaoke).

- A brilliantly beautiful day picnicking on Shark Island hailed in Summer in Sydney.

- A gorgeous wedding of two gorgeous people happened on the South Coast.

All in all I feel quite happy with how October went. Thanks for joining me here and please feel free to send anyone who might like to have a peak at the Feeling Fuzzy? blog to come over and visit!

A sprinkling of Martha...

Over the weekend I packed away my wedding dress and veil in acid-free tissue paper. As I had some time on my hands I went that extra (some may say 'pedantic') mile and added blue ribbons and little snapshots of each from our proof photos. 

You have no idea how happy it makes me to see these parcels... should I blame the Virgo in me, my mum's influence, or those damn Martha Stewart magazines? I think it's a little bit from each.

Consume Less

Yumi and I went to an inspiring talk at COFA given by Liane Rossler of Dinosaur Designs fame. She gave the Al Gore presentation on Climate Change and then related it back to her own practice and home. We've decided this is something that souzou will strive for and felt that the best way to start this was by making some changes in our own lives.

So  I have a problem with consuming goods in a major way - I just love stuff. Which is fine, but thinking about how much energy has been put into producing the product make me a little more hesitant to purchase - magazines, clothes, anything packaged in a major way... it's all a bit over the top.

We've decided, over the next 3 months we will try our hardest to Consume Less by not buying apparel brand new (vintage is okay). This is going to be hard but I think it's an interesting experiement. Maggie Alderson of  The Good Weekend (did you know her husbands name is Popi Popovich?) did the same this year, and I have a feeling that buying less forces you to be more creative with what you've got already. I quite like the sound of that.

So far, 4 days into the Consume Less scenario, I have purchased a Vintage Dress (see below) from Eva's in Annandale, and 2 glass domes from Salvage 42 in Glebe. But I have to confess the awful truth. When buying said dress, I also bought a necklace thinking it was vintage, but as I walked out of the shop I looked at it a bit more closely and it was obviously new (tag and all still attached). And if I was stronger I would have walked right back into the shop and demanded they take it back. But I didn't. Because I love it, and it's such a lovely colour. 

I'm wondering how successful this project will be!

Red Rooster

After our first souzou meeting, this Sugar Plum was whipped up... can you tell that I was feeling rather expansive? It's a big guy, and unfortunately reminds me of a kid's rooster costume. But maybe that's just me?




I've relaxed a little about putting photos of myself up here... at first I was concerned that people would start recognising me on the streets, but I'm thinking that's not really a big deal considering the readership of this blog!

Hello Stranger!

It's been a while my friends, but I'm back on board! 

We had a day out last week with some great friends... a picnic at Shark Island to celebrate the impending arrival of Sarah + Bob's baby. The weather was glorious, and we'd never ventured out to this particular island in the middle of Sydney Harbour before. It has lovely shady areas to throw blankets down, and place to paddle and explore. A highlight was the commentary of the sights of Sydney with a very Sale of the Century-esque manner. 

Doshi Levien

I really love these seats... the colour and shape appeals to me no end. I would have these in my hallway (sea-grass on floor, danish credenza near by) or even better, in the Souzou Shop! Do you think you'd like to relax on these pieces while perusing a well-chosen book or magazine?

Images: Doshi Levien

NP's Birthday

Last week Nato turned "late-20s" and to celebrate we had a day of activites beginning with a BIG breakfast...



Cupcakes...




Followed by Laser Zone, beverages in the sun, Karaoke, and a feast of BBQ King. What a day! And on a school night too. This grandma was pretty pooped!

Continuing this year's theme for birthday presents I made 3 felted dinosaurs for NP to adopt. They're a bit funny looking, but that's half their charm (or so we tell them). 

The beginning...

Yumi and I have been working on something very exciting this week.We've been hatching a little plan for a while now and on Wednesday night we had a little light bulb go off!

I think both of us are quite keen to have our own creative nook in the world... somewhere where we can do all the things that come into our heads.

We've come up with a name which we both like - "souzou", a japanese word meaning "to create something new from your imagination".

We are going to spend the next couple of months trialing our ideas at market stalls and will keep you up to date as to when these happen.

Here are some nice pics of our creative evening... Yumi bought over a bunch of Ranunculus which inspired her paintings and my textile pieces.

Maria Bonita Extra

My new favourite fashion designer...

P+B Got Married!

NP and I were lucky enough to be guests at our friends Phoebe and Ben's wedding on the weekend. It was the most gorgeous event, with the rainmaking it even more special.

The wedding was relocated to an old scout hall in the South Coast and the reception was held in a marquee in the middle of vervant paddocks. Three loooong tables filled with flowers, a gorgeous 5 hour lunch, followed by much dancing and drinking.

The next day egg and spoon races, took place atthe brunch, and we ate freshly made crepes, croque monsiuers and delicious coffee.

There was such joy and happiness amongst their friends and family. We love you P+B!

N+E Got Married!

Get your own - Open publication

We picked up our wedding album a couple of weeks ago. So lovely
seeing all our memories so beautifully captured!

Melbourne Part 3: Art

It's in the streets. This is the primary difference between Sydney and Melbourne. Creativity is lurking around every corner, seeping into public spaces and getting under your skin. Sadly, Sydney tends to eat art up and spit it out in the form of casinos and commercial real estate. 

I so enjoyed the grafitti and poster art... please sample a selection below:

When walking along Gertrude St we came across a little exhibition of crazy birds and their homes, which made me feel nostalgic for the 3 years I had my Mum to myself and we spent days doing craft and drawing crazy birds.  The artist's name is Neils Oeltjen. These images are actually from when he exhibited the same work in Sydney. I liked it a lot.

The main point of going to Melbourne was to see the Art Deco exhibition before it closes (5th October in case you're wondering). And it seems the rest of Australia was thinking the same thing last weekend! The crowds of people actually made me feel quite good about the state of art in Australia. 

It was a pretty amazing collection... Egyptomania sounded like a fun time, and all the Oriental influences such as the  lacquer techniques were so beautifully utilised, especially by Eileen Grey (my hero).

Other stand outs were the bakelite handbags - black and mint! And a beaded dress that simulated draping. Lord!

Topped off with a trip to the Gallery Shop, and this was a pretty perfect way to spend a Sunday morning.

Melbourne Part 2: Literature

Whenever I travel I chose to purchase the heaviest and most unwieldily mementos.  Such as books. NP will attest to this as he had to lug my books (full of lovely pictures but nothing I could actually read) around Japan for 3 weeks, and I'll be forever grateful.

My first purchase came about when we were trying to find the Hat Shop (more on that latter) near Flinders St Station. We happened upon a dark little shop that sells hand made zines... something that just doesn't seem to flourish in Sydney. I picked up the artist Chay-ya's exhibition catalogue which she has handily uploaded to the net for all to see. It's a secret treasure. And light enough to travel well.

Get your own - Open publication

The next great read was picked up at the NGV gallery shop. Charley Harper is one of my favourite illustrators, recently championed by Todd Oldman (America's Tonia Todman). NP wasn't so excited to see that the letter N was associated with Nest... I think he was expecting something a little more exciting... 

Melbourne Part 1: Eating

We ate ourselves silly over the weekend...

Flew in, checked in and went straight to Pellegrini's Espresso Bar, a place I'd heard so much about, a "Melbourne institution". The problem with not being a local is not knowing which dish is going to be the best option, and when we saw a guy tucking into a plate of meat-balls we knew we'd made an error. The granita and coffee made up for our average, but over-sized Ravioli and Spaghetti Marinara.

Next up was dinner at Comme, recommended by a friend who's food radar is one of the best. We had the meal of a life-time - the food just keeps on coming if you go with the Chef's Selection, the highlight for NP being the fries (okay, my highlight too...).

A late lunch the next day at Little Creatures Dining Hall continued the good eating... beer and Pipsqueak Cider accompanied lamb shanks for me, steak sandwich for NP, and then the most AMAZING donuts with ice cream were scoffed down. A fun place to go with friends with the casual climate and open space (thought nice with someone special too).

Japanese in the evening in the interest of our digestion was had at Hak0 - found wandering the back-lanes (and mistaking Robot Sushi for a food venue, when actually a bar). Great meal - the hot pot was smashing, but let down by a diluted pot of tea. Which matters. A lot. But I guess when this is a low point in a weekend, it's a pretty good one.

NP continued this culinary journey the next day with a trip to the place claiming "the world's best fries"... Lord of the Fries. I think he's trying to figure out how to bring the franchise to Sydney. I have to agree they were pretty good. We've just sent an email begging them to come to Sydney.

So we've had our intake of potato for the year and we're on detox this week trying to recovery from our gluttony, but it was worth every bite. 

Pellegrini's: 66 Bourke St Melbourne.

Comme: 7 Alfred Place, Melbourne.

Little Creatures Dining Hall: 222 Brunswick St, Fitzroy.

Hako: 310 Flinders Lane, Melbourne.

Lord of the Fries:  Flinders St Station, Melbourne.