A flying Melbourne trip - November 2009 - Day Three

It was pretty wet in Melbourne. I am not entirely sure what the weather was doing. It had been cold and wet in Perth before I flew out, and I had been holed up at home in bed or on the couch so I was in prime position to watch the weather outside. It seemed that it had followed me to Melbourne, and N and I wandered around tramping through puddles.

We met my cousin KF for breakfast in Lygon Street, Carlton. Lygon Street is known for the many Italian restaurants that line it, and N had taken C and I there for dinner when we were over in September. KF had arranged to meet us at Trotters where I had very tasty home made baked beans and toast. They were vegetarian too! I have still to try to make my own.

After lunch we wandered down Lygon Street and browsed the shops. There was a great toy store where N found some lovely wooden Christmas decorations, and a gourmet store selling a great range of organic foods. I was very jealous that we do not have similar at home.

Once we had exhausted the shopping on Lygon Street N and I headed to the Sunday Arts Market at the Arts Centre, just south of the CBD. N and I approached it from a different direction than C and I had, and I discovered a whole new section of the market that we had completely missed last time! I bought myself a a reversible bag from Minx Design, and a gorgeous t-shirt for a newborn from Retrobub.

The Retrobub t-shirt had this giraffe pattern on it. The t-shirt was red with funky fabric for the giraffe. One of the shoulders of the t-shirt had press studs, which I thought was a great idea to make it easier to put on!


We were just about shopped out now so it was back to N's apartment via the London & American Supply Stores and the Queen Victoria Markets. There I packed my case and we drank tea until it was time to head to the airport.

O Christmas tree

Early in December I was halfheartedly looking for a new Christmas tree, as the tree that I currently have is about 30cm tall and quite forlorn looking. Our mother bought it when E & I were both overseas for Christmas one year, and she happily passed it onto me the following year as I had finally moved out of home! I have been meaning to buy a new, more normal sized tree for a while, however it is not high on my list of priorities and having a tree that fits on top of a table has its advantages in a small house!

When I was last in Melbourne, N bought some lovely wooden Christmas tree decorations made in Europe. They were gorgeous, and I wanted some of my own but could not justify it without having a tree that was worthy of hanging them on. I controlled my spending urge and admired N's.

So... what better type of tree to hang wooden decorations than a wooden tree!?

This tree by local design store little design horse in North Perth.


The ultra trendy Buro Tree. Looks like a lot of fun but I am not sure how well my decorations would look on them!


A tree appropriate for your partridge - this pear tree by Pulp Creative Paper.

A flying Melbourne trip - November 2009 - Day Two

It has been a month, I am going to struggle now to remember where we went! However that is the point of this blog - helping me to remember where I have shopped - so I will give it a go.

We started with breakfast at Birdman Eating in Fitzroy. I had the yummiest Black rice, coconut, yoghurt and mango dish, and I am inspired to try and replicate the flavours at home! We then went shopping! We went to Queen Clothing, where both N and I bought items. They stock local labels as well as their own! We also wandered into Zetta Florence and Kami, two lovely stationery shops. We checked out the funky items at Third Drawer Down and enjoyed some of their more unusual items. There was a visit to Wilkins and Kent thrown in as well, a store with lots of interesting items! I had found their Little Bourke Street store on a rainy day when C and I were over, and bought a great Otto & Spike beanie!

Our (eventual) goal for the Saturday was the Rose Street Markets. My sister had visited Melbourne recently to my trip and had recommended a visit. I was happy that we did - I bought a couple of skirts from So! indesign and also ordered a t-shirt for C from shiften. The style of skirt that I bought is shown in this picture from the designers website. The t-shirt for C is similar to this picture from the designers madeit page, with a more appropriate tool. I cannot remember what colour I actually ordered, I suspect grey and blue! I have to catch up with N's sister and get that from her hopefully this week.


E kindly lent me her copy of the Melbourne Design Guide, a great resource for Melbourne design and art! It contains maps of many areas of the city and references designers of clothing, accessories, textiles, furniture and all sorts. I am so jealous that we do not have anything like this for Perth - at least that I am aware of! N and I made use of it while I was there to read up details on some of the stores that we visited. Read a review at The Design Files, the source for the picture below.


It was a fairly humid day, and pretty soon we were in need of some more sustenance - churros! N took me to a little cafe and we shared a dish of chocolate and churros. Yum! I took this opportunity to consult the Melbourne Design Guide and see if we had missed anything of note on our travels.

I am in the hunt for a bridal dress, and my friend D had suggested a place in the area that I would like - Gwendolynne. It was nearby to the Churros so we set out there to have a look. The dresses were gorgeous! They were however well out of the budget that I had set for the entire bridal outfit so for now it is a matter of looking and admiring.

Our walking finally led us to Dizingof, a collection of bold colours and styles. I found a dress that was my style, lovely soft fabric with a beautiful silk panel at the front. I justified the purchase of this dress by earmarkig it for a wearing to a wedding next year. We have three weddings to attend next year, as well as our own, so lots of excuses to dress up!

I now had two dresses, two skirts and a top, so it was definitely time to slow down the clothes shopping! I was happy though, as I had some more clothes to add to my work wardrobe, as well as a dress for a special occasion.

Christmas

We celebrated Christmas within the immediate family yesterday evening, once E had finished work and made it to Mum and Dad's. E arrived with her Christmas sack (that is, a green shopping bag!), and started pulling gifts out. There were a large number with my name on them. This is very exciting however I only had one with her name on it and was starting to get a bit concerned. Her presents for me were lots of smaller, useful items, and it was lovely to open them one at a time.


I received lots of nice useful items from E. The apple you see is made by Craftapalooza, a local Perth producer. I see them regularly at markets, and I love their apple pincushions. I kept telling E that I would buy one once we had more room for a sewing machine, craft etc. Obviously she decided to take matters into her own hands and I now have a lovely apple of my own!

To complement the apple, E also gave me a book, called The Crafty Minx. For once, it is Australian so directions and materials should be self explanatory. I hope. The projects in the book seem fairly straightforward, so I will hopefully find it full of inspirational ideas and a good start to making my own items. You can buy such lovely fabrics from local screen printers, and it would be nice to be able to turn them into beautiful items. There are also some lovely ideas for blankets and scarves using old woollen jumpers!


Making items out of wool reminds me of a Victorian label Maiike. They make lovely toys, blankets, scarves and other goodies out of recycled wool! Such beautiful products! I have seen them at Remedy in Fremantle and Leederville. Such lovely produts, they are also very inspiring.

Purses...

E and I went to the Unwrapped Market in Leederville today. It was fairly warm early on, and it was already 35C when we were browsing through the stalls. E's shoes were really not up to the task, and she was continually commenting that her feet were burning through the soles! I of course foolishly did not put on enough (any!) sunscreen so the back of my neck is pink. I do need to buy myself a hat that fits, so that shall be on my list to buy on Monday.

It was a fairly hot day and we felt for the stall holders who would be there until 5pm with no relief. There was an umbrella to share between each stall but it did not cover nearly enough of the table and stall holders.


There were a few old favourites and also some interesting new stalls. E's friend was there with her label Nashi and The Magpie and some cute bolero jackets. It was just too hot to try anything on! Plus, in an (unconscious) effort to not spend money, we had limited cash funds between us. We had both intended to visit the CBA ATM on Oxford Street but it had gone from its usual spot and we had no idea if it had moved or been replaced! Not a good idea to go to a market without cash.

I bought a new purse! It is by Little Tea Party, and the promo picture from the Perth Upmarket blog shows the purse that I bought!


The other product that I was really taken by was the felt being sold by B&M Felt. The product is 100% wool, made in Germany. I was thinking yesterday that I would like to get something nice to use as a centrepiece for the table when we have guests, to lay hot dishes on, and something a bit nicer than multiple cork mats from Ikea! I have to consult with C and see what he would like, and hopefully we can agree on some colours for our table! The table is 1500mm square and solid jarrah, so it would nice to have something square for the centre. My current thought is to have four pieces of the 50cm square felt but we shall see!

After we had browed the markets we headed back down Oxford Street. There are some lovely stores in Leederville, and a couple of my favourites are Remedy and Urban Depot.

A flying Melbourne trip - November 2009 - Day One

About a month ago I headed over to Melbourne to visit N. I had already been to see her in June, and since there was a good chance that she was going to be moving back to Perth in early 2010 I thought that I had better go and see her again and check out some more shops, just to make sure that they were good! The first time I went I had a budget for spending to buy items, and I stuck to it within I think a dollar! On that trip I mainly purchased homewares, and this time around I updated my wardrobe!

I was sick in the week before I flew out to Melbourne. I had booked myself onto a Thursday night red-eye, which seemed like a good idea when I had booked it but not such a good idea after a few days of not much sleep and weakened system. I still did not feel like eating rich food for most of my trip to Melbourne, but thankfully there is so much variety to choose from!

Originally I was going to catch the Skybus into the CBD and meet N for breakfast. She would give me a key and I would then catch the train or tram back to her apartment to drop off my suitcase. Even though I was only going for a few days I thought that a suitcase was necessary to bring my purchases home! Given my recent illness however I ended up catching a taxi from the airport directly to N's apartment. She let me in, gave me liquids and after about an hour of catching up she kindly let me nap on her bed, while she wandered off to work! N's flatmate F was sleeping when I arrived, it had been her birthday the day before and she had celebrated well the night before! She was awake when I woke up from my nap, and it was lovely to catch up with her again.

I had organised to catch up for lunch with my friend D; I went to primary and high school with D and we had both been to high school with N. Eventually it was settled that D would pick me up, it was shockingly hot that day (high 30s) and I was happy to be ferried around in my groggy state! We ended up eating near N's work, and she was able to join us. It was great to be back where good food is a rule rather than an exception.

After lunch D dropped me into the CBD, and my first afternoon of shopping was fairly tame, I headed into Myer, and was somewhat pleased to read the signs that said the store was being renovated. The building that the Melbourne Myer is in is quite old and awkward with different levels and escalators that do not make sense!

I also did some generic browsing in Lincraft, Dymocks, Haigh's, Kikki-K and looked for one of my favourite clothing shops Ink Clothing. I was disappointed to see that it was no longer on Little Collins Street, I had spent quite a bit of money there previously and was hoping to find some more wardrobe staples.

I also took the opportunity to purchase my Christmas Cards from the Oxfam Shop, and browse their products! I found an advent calendar Christmas card that was perfect for my sister!

N met me at Dymocks, and took me to the shop where she had bought tights. I was excited by the thought of tights, not many people in Perth seem to wear anything other than standard stockings - me included - and I was hoping to buy some thicker , patterned tights to wear to work to keep my legs warm! I was disappointed however, the designs that they had were a little too garish and bright.

Distracted and Dibbern

The eighth day of a Distracted Christmas turned out to be... Dibbern! Nice.

Distracted

My sister E knows many of the trendy shops tucked away around Perth. She is the one who took me to Distracted in Leederville. okay, so they are not really tucked away, however they are a little walk from the Oxford/Vincent Street intersection.


It was there that I fell in love with Dibbern. I have started to collect sets of teacup, saucer and cake plate, and when I saw the Dibbern colours I thought that I may just give up searching and collect all of their colours! I have two Dibbern sets at the noment, in Pacific Blue and Seawater Green.

I also love the look of their bowls and the soup tureen, and this photo is in my favourite colours! (The Dibbern pictures shown here are from their website.)

To check out the different colours available, go to the Beclau Homewares website and play with the styles and colours.

Back to Distracted... they are sending through emails for the twelve days of Christmas, showing different products that they have on offer. The seventh day is the cutest little robots! I just had to write about them.

Shoes

Surprisingly, shoe shopping is one event I do not really look forward to. I find buying sports sneakers easy, especially my hockey shoes, since I have been wearing the same style for around ten years! They just change the colours every year and probably tweak the design. For my runners I just buy the most espensive Asics runner that I can find and I am usually happy. And so are my feet and back.

Last Thursday E and I went to the Subi Street Festival. They blocked off Rockeby Road from the Roberts Road end down to the Crossways Shopping Centre! There were a fair number of stalls where local designers and producers showed their wares. There was also a section with face painting, animal petting and a giant turd that moved when people tried to pat it?? Strange.

Many of the shops were open - it was late Thursday - and of course E and I wandered into shoe shops. When we were younger my mother used to joke that E had as many shoes as Imelda Marcos - the wife of the former dictator of the Phillipines who was famous for having, amongst other excesses, an excessive amount of shoes. (Look her up if you have not heard of her.)

We went into Ginza, where amazingly I managed to find and buy three pairs of shoes - all the three styles that I tried on. The sales assistant was very helpful, showing me different styles that I might like, and of course E was a dependable critic! What was different was that they were all a middle height heel - so many shoes are either totally flat or have an awkwardly high heel that I would not find comfortable.

I was going to try and put pictures of the shoes for record online, but my first effort at visiting the website for Top End has shown me the collection for last winter!

Ethical Consumer Guide

I learnt about the following site today, Ethical Consumer Guide. I still have to check it out and learn more about what the site is all about.

I love shopping...

...and recently I have really appreciated the well designed and handmade product. It has been good here in Perth, there are so many markets popping up where local businesses can come and sell their products! My sister E is usually very good at ferreting out the latest market, and if we're both free you will see us browsing the stalls.

It is not just about markets though, there are shops around the place selling locally made and made in Australia product, and my intent with this blog is to try and keep track of the shops that I have been to and the lovely labels that I have seen.

I have visited Melbourne three times this year, and each time I have gone I have added to my wardrobe and homewares collection from local stores and markets. I have found it much easier to find Melbourne made fashion and pieces than it is here, and I would like to get a better appreciation of what is available in my own home town!!