Ooops!

Yes, it has been nearly 2 months between posts, and yes, the only reason is that I'm crap. Although, I have actually been busy AND have photos to show for it.

I have 5 new garments which will be the start of my new range. It was incredibly exciting to do a photo shoot with a real photographer, and to see my designs being worn by somebody other than Diana (my dress-making dummy).

Thus far the collection is:

The skirt...

The spotted hoodie....

The dress...

The jacket....

and finally the bib/jumper/neck warmer...

And during the last few days of work, whilst painting an enormous 1.2 x 1.5m canvas for our boardroom, I have been inspired to pretty up our house a little (which is always a challenge when you rent). So I've put together a TO-DO LIST, and the plan is to tick off as many as possible this weekend. My man is heading up to the snow to use his new snowboard that he got last season, so I'll have plenty of time to be creative. The list goes a little something like this:

• Hang the clock (that's been sitting on the buffet for the last year) on the dining room wall.
• Make a fabric covered letter holder/corkboard and hang at the front entrance.
• Choose photos for a multi-windowed photo frame and hang in the lounge. Also hang a painting on canvas that I've mounted.
• Repot my orchid so that maybe, hopefully, please God, it might turn from brown to green.
• Empty my huge vase, which is currently full of pebbles and fake willow (from when Francis the Fighting Fish lived in there), clean out the dust, and fill up with colorful paper balls.
• Find some beautiful printed fabric in my stash and staple gun to 4 small blank canvases that I have - then hang in the master bedroom.
• Make some fabric covered corkboards/inspiration boards for my sewing room.
• Repaint an ugly timber shelving stand with white paint and put in kitchen for all of my cooking magazines that currently have no home.
• Repaint a bright blue gumball machine with grey paint and fill with bright red jaffas, to have on the shelf in my sewing room.

I'm sure there will be more projects that come to mind while I'm pottering around the house, but if I can get half way through this list by Monday, I'll be pretty pleased with myself. I WILL NOT SLEEP IN ON THE WEEKEND. I WILL NOT SLEEP IN ON THE WEEKEND.

Laziness + Drive = Productivity

Well I sure hope this equation has some truth behind it. This past week I've been so lazy that I haven't even been bothered to blog about my laziness. But then, I do have some semi-ligitimate excuses for not having started any sewing projects whatsoever.
Firstly, I am half way through finishing off 'thank-you' cards from our wedding - only 2 1/2 months later. And the design that I came up with for these cards involve sewing around the edges with a red topstitching thread. Once these are finished off and in the mailbox, I'll have the sewing machine free again to concentrate on fabric-based items.
Also, I have been waiting very impatiently for the Clegs HUGE remnants sale which starts at 8:30am Friday 8th June (tomorrow!). Every day I walk past Clegs on my way to the office and stare longingly at the sign plastered to the window, counting down the days. I will be making sure that my alarm is set ultra, ultra early tomorrow morning so that I can be standing with my face pressed against the glass doors as they open. I know it's not exactly the Myer Mid-Year Sale, but for people such as myself who can't generally afford the $69.95/metre pricing that is Clegs, it's a big day and I want to be first in.
Next week, I'll have finished the 'thank-you' notes, I'll have piles of beautiful new Clegs fabric, and there will be nothing stopping me!

Up, Up and Away

This is the first experimental blog for BackRoom. A brief rundown of BackRoom and myself is probably the polite thing to do, so here goes…

For starters, BackRoom is my clothing label, which is my reason for starting with this whole blogging business I suppose. It will be my motivator, since nothing else seems to really be working for me. I made a promise (to myself) at the beginning of this year that by the end of ’07, I would have my first full range for the label, and my retail website, up and going. This grand plan has proved to be more of a challenge than I first anticipated. Between working full time, spending most weekends mostly drunk, and getting married in March, everything was on hold for obvious reasons. Now, there are no obvious reasons or brilliant excuses that I can fall back on, so I will procrastinate no more!

Myself, I am a semi-nerdy IT office manager during working hours, and after hours, a wannabe seamstress/designer, lover of preparing and consuming fine food, lover of producing and listening to good music, and lover of my crazy, hard-working, big-hearted husband.

There is no extensively planned out structure that this blog will follow. There is no particular focus for the entries. There is no guarantee that I’m going to remember to update on a regular basis. But it is here now to hopefully keep me inspired and motivated and maybe even keep other people entertained for 5 minutes a day.