Fascinator of the Week!

I am delighted with this wee number!  In fact, I absolutely covet it!  It is the first completely hand sewn fascinator I have made – something I have wanted to try for a while.  Previously I have pulled out my trusty hot glue gun and dived into a pile of feathers and sparkles to see what treasure I surface with.  I like the idea of including more robust ‘millinery’ techniques to give better structure, improve longevity and add, what I like to think of as, keepsake-ability.  Fascinators are usually worn on special occasions and for me they capture the memory of a day.  I have my bridal fascinator on my dressing table and I find myself fondly touching it as I walk past.  Millinery is a very highly skilled craft and I would love to learn more about this ‘lost art’.  I am not trying to claim any hat making skills were genuinely involved in the making of this piece, but it was definitely a step up from hot glue, burnt fingers and denuded birds.  It was very rewarding to make.  

Sweet 50’s style fascinator.

I made it as a gift for a friend’s birthday – she shares my appreciation for frilly, girly headgear so it seemed the perfect time to take on the Hand Sewing Challenge.  The design process was very ‘organic’ (ie lacking firm direction) but there were elements I wanted to include to reflect some of my friend’s favourite things.  She loves netting so that was a must have, the silks for the rose came from scraps and off-cuts to give it a splash of pink, and the silver thread on the felt leaves added the necessary bling factor.  This was a stitch technique I ‘made up’ while messing around trying out different ideas.  I love the sweet-but-prim, 50’s feel to this piece.  My friend is sweet, cheerful and embodies politeness and old-fashioned etiquette in a modern world.  I hope she loves it and wears it as much as I would (refer to my stated covetous feelings).  Luckily for me, it is an easy template to make other designs from – which I absolutely plan to do.  For years I have had the inkling that my Life Calling involved making some ‘thing’ that came in a box and makes the recipient feel cherished and special, I have just never been able to work out what was in the box.  Bespoke hats and fascinators may be that very thing.  Even though this one wouldn’t get me on Martha Stewart and it would pale beyond comparison beside a divine Philip Treacy, it is a start and I think it is quite simply yummy!

Get a life!

Yesterday I was told to get a life.  To explain, a friend who had been travelling for the last month asked the seemingly innocuous question, “What have you been up to?”.   To which I replied (as I have done all my life), “Er, you know, nothing much.”  “You need to get a life!”

I have never had a terrifically illuminating response to this question.  I tend to shy away from talking about myself and I have no ability to hype the smallest minutiae of my everyday life to racy and fabulous sitcom/drama levels.  Sometimes I think my brain forgets what I have ‘been up to’, maybe considering the elements of my daily life too unremarkable to be later regaled with great gusto.  Maybe my brain stumbles at the thought of being able to succinctly distill so many discrete events into one tale to summarise What I Have Been Up To and comes up with bupkis?  My husband asks me the same question everyday, and he generally gets a similarly garbled, unspecific response.  Maybe I haven’t been doing anything?

But I have been doing er, you know, stuff.  Life at the moment isn’t particularly exciting or remarkable.  I am a new expat housewife, which in my case tends to be hanging at home, some light shopping (usually groceries) and sporadic, unconvincing bouts of housework  rather than playing polo and sipping cocktails by the pool.  To be honest I wouldn’t mind sipping cocktails by the pool, I just haven’t found that niche yet.  I miss my friends and family, I miss my old job as a very busy event planner, I find this city difficult at worst and uninspiring at best.  It is a very drawn out acclimation process.  But everyday, I do stuff.  Stuff which is unremarkable which, by definition, is ‘lacking distinction, ordinary’.  If you break down the components of the word perhaps it could be understood as ‘unable to be remarked on’.  With my lifelong inaptitude at answering said question, has my whole life been unremarkable?  Well, no.  Not in the slightest!  

I am simply no good at telling stories.  I can’t tell jokes either.  Groan, chagrin.

There is another dynamic.  Maybe my lack of detail doesn’t fit my friends schema about what having a life should entail.  This is not her problem, I have no problem with it either, it is simply a difference.  She is a generous and gregarious person and I am certain it was one of those throw away comments we all utilise when not heavily invested in the conversation.  But there could have been other responses surely?  It just makes me think when you say to someone “Get a life.” you are in effect saying, “You should get my life.  It’s better than yours.” 

Over analysed?  Painfully aware?  Slightly defensive?  You bet!  Maybe I should stop worrying and get a life!

Why am I here?

Inaugural.  It is always good to start with a word that is fun to say.  A bit like nuclear.  It is always good to start a blog with a post.  So why am I here?  I have been thinking about beginning a blog for a while, a coworker a few years ago suggested that it is a great way to keep those back home ‘in the loop’ (see About).  I am generally a non participating observer of Facebook (in a very voyeur what-are-my-friends-and-associates-up-to-now? way.  What?  Drunk again???)  And I don’t often join in.  Er to clarify – drinking, yes.  Facebook, not so much.  Also, my mum isn’t on Facebook.  I am an old school social networker (the ‘pick up phone, have a chat/pop down to the local, my friends are already there’ type), which has some limitations here in Abu Dhabi.  I have found the information and interaction in other people’s blogs much like having a natter with friends about a great topic, without publishing dodgy photos of anyone.  Also, I like the blog format; it is a resource I have been using for quite some time to find out more about all manner of things in the world – everything from pollinating cucumbers to political controversy to personal crusades and curiosities.  It is a great vehicle for the expert as well as the everyman/woman voice.  I enjoy writing and I still like the sound of my own voice, so I am giving blogging a crack.  I have no apparent area of expertise to share with the world, so this will be diary blog.  Good luck to you.   Please note I will try to limit my usage of personal pronouns, parentheses and hyphens in future posts.  I am also a big fan of the ol’ dot dot dot…  We’ll see how that one goes; it might be a keeper…

Ectomies I have had

Motivationectomy

Grammarectomy

Humourectomy

That last one was painful.  I want my funny bone back.