Stuck in the Heat (or New Studio)

Well, it's supposedly 37 C outside and we're now hiding in our one a/c room, baby's sleeping, and I do not dare make much noise, so that rules out tidying the room!

I spent some time last week setting up my new studio space at the Blue Pony, studiomates with DCBS and my husband, as well as other fabulous artists. I actually spent most of the time trying to figure out the orientation of things so that I could see the baby from wherever I would possibly be (on account of the multiple roll stage and lots of lovely things to put in mouth).

So here is the space before unpacking:

and after:

I've decided not to unpack all my boxes, or even bring them to the Pony, on account that I'm sick of setting up spaces and unpacking stuff only to never be able to use it. So I'm hoping this time I'll actually have a chance to dig around for something because I'm producing work.

I went in this morning with Xi just to drop some things off, and ended up staying and working for a bit which was lovely and unexpected. My space is upstairs, which is very hot when it's hot, so I moved my knitting table downstairs and just hung out in the relative cool for a while with another artist. Nice to have some company, and I actually started the collaborative project I'm involved with at the South Australian Museum (which I was getting more and more worried about). ....more about that later though....

A spot of emergency sewing

Well, another blind finished.

I'd had the top of this completed before christmas, just was delaying the actual putting together of it all, but when we came back from holidays, our neighbour had trimmed the tree adjoining our fences (which I was totally happy for him to do) and we discovered that our bedroom, which has the only window facing that direction, actually does get a lot of sun - it was just the tree making it dark and gloomy.

But dark and gloomy were perfect for settling a baby, so I needed to do something about it quick smart.

The fabric is cottons that my mother in law brought back for me from China (since I couldn't fit any in my luggage). The cotton is a really nice weight, not quite as heavy as a drill, but just nice and sturdy and soft to boot. The shop assistants thought it was pretty funny that we were interested in it, because apparently it's the standard material and patterns for waitress' and shop uniforms.