Where do I start?

I've been a bit busy lately making costumes for several shows here in Wellington.

First there was last minute work for Phantom of the Opera. I had never seen Phantom so it was really confusing working on all sorts of styles of costume, one scene had crinolines, another had bustles. I was really confused and had to rely on a theatrical designer Rachel Hilliar for help knowing what it was all about. I understood about the plays within the play when I went to see the show which was fantastic! Here is a Youtube video that the cast has made and it shows quite a few of the costumes which I worked on with costumiers Helle Rosenberg and Amy Mackaskill.

After Phantom I worked on costumes for 'Gypsy Baron' which is currently showing. Last weekend they played in Palmerston North but the show was cut short by 5 minutes on Sunday when the theatre was evacuated due to an earthquake. The theatre is considered an earthquake risk so no-one was keen to stick around. I missed all the action as I was in Taupo at the quilt symposium.

Taupo Quilt Symposium was last weekend, Ronnie Martin, a textile artist from Nelson, and I did a road trip up to Taupo stopping wherever we wanted. neither of us took part in any classes but we looked around all the exhibitions and did quite a bit of shopping. The weather was lovely considering what it had been like the previous weekend.

I've taken photos of this weird tree before. It is the real 'one tree hill' and you can find it on the back road from National Park to Wanganui.

Tripping to Japan, Sweden and the UK

Yippee!
I am managing to pull together all the parts of my trip in September.

I have booked the Japanese part
I have booked my way as far as Stockholm but not back to the UK yet, as I am wondering about catching the ferry to Tallinn

I have 5-7 days in the UK to visit relies and I fly out from Heathrow

Let me know if you visit my blog and are interested in a textile tutor in any of those places!

clare

Lux light festival sculptures, Wellington storm, Textile Fibre Forum article

Today I recieved my copies of the magazine Textile Fibre Forum with my article about the Vertical Dyeing project' from last year. I think the article looks good!

The LUX light sculptures are all around the central city , the exhibition ends tonight. They were meant to be up on Friday but the weather was too bad so the opening was saturday night.

 The moon was very large and very bright, it was too bright for most photos so I took a picture of it separately. It would have looked nice with some tree branches in the foreground or some sort of silhouette.

We had a massive storm on Thursday night and Friday. By saturday the wind was down to the normal Wellington gale force winds but on Friday night the wind was gusting up to 200kms on the top of hills. Here is some of the tree damage at our local park (Willowbank).

There is a house under this tree somewhere.

Here is a video that the city council made of the storm cleanup.

Photos of the Wellington luxfestival light sculptures

Learning to use blogsy!

Costumes and photos

I'm still doing more costume work than quilting at the moment. I spent yesterday helping put finishing touches on costumes for a photoshoot and today helping with costumes for the Gilbert and Sullivan society here in Wellington. In the end I ran out of time to take a photo for a photo challenge during daytime and spent the last half an hour trying to take a photo inside the house. The theme is 'One Bright thing' . The picture of the glowstick wasn't very successful so I ended up taking a picture of the log fire - which says it all really - it is cold here and has been raining all weekend. Next weekend is the shortest day for us here at the bottom of the world.

glowstick 

Keep warm everyone

With my costumier hat on!

Over the last few weeks I have not been making quilts but instead have been making costumes for several productions. The most recent has been The Phantom of the Opera which starts in Wellington on Wednesday night. I have been working with two other people from 11am-11pm to finish work which was started by a team who ran out of time. there are over 180 costumes and it really is a massive task.

if you know the production then you might understand this - we finished off the bride and mirror bride, Mr and Mrs Firman's outfits, the confidante, some of the characters from the play within a play -Il Muto.

A few weeks ago I was doing screenprinting for another production and I am just finishing up some white floaty things for a photoshoot.

The don't think I can put any pictures here till after the productions start as I don't want to give e game away.

I am teaching a bookmaking class through chalkle on Wednesday this week, 2 spaces left. Google chalkle Wellington and look for the class on Wednesday - it is only $16 per person.

Clare

Photo of the Day

The photography weekend showed up the inadequacy of my tripod and camera lens (the original kit lenses) , so I splurged on a new tripod and a new18-270mm zoom lens and today I filled in 15 minutes while waiting for friends to arrive on the ferry from Picton, by trying out my new camera gear. Wellington seems to have been invaded by fluorescent (alien) codes, why?

This week I have been screen printing fabric for vests for the chorus of an opera, making white dresses for a photoshoot, designing a new workshop called 'Design Your own Modern Quilt', and sewing prayer flags onto tape for a schools project run by Pataka, Whitireia and artist Tiffany Singh.

I love the variety, costume/textile/quilt...