Lady Date: Home Sewn Exhibition

Last Saturday Ria and I caught up for a lady date and went to the Home Sewn exhibition at the Dowse. Geeky sewing excitement!

As the name suggests this is an exhibition of home sewn garments all made by hand, with love here in New Zealand and there was so amazing and inspiring frocks on display.

Look at this one - I would love to make something like this now! That fabric is amazing - so bright.

Look at that fun to tone maxi - I LOVE it - I want to make something like that. The sheer pussy bow blouse is adorable too.

Look at the stunning embroidery on this lovely maxi frock.

The lovely frock on the left was made as a wedding dress - so pretty.

These dresses were both made in the 1980's - I love the tropical look frock, so perfect for a summer holiday.

Here's a back view of that lovely tropical dress and some more details of the sewist who made it - they had one of these for each dress.

I LOVE the 1980s - so all I have to say is "bum bow dresses forever!"

This is another wedding dress - this one is made of kimono fabric for a Japanese lady who was marrying a kiwi guy.

This amazing frock was made by a teenager for her school ball! How incredible - I couldn't sew ANYTHING when I was a teenager.

Look at this lovely dress, it was made by a lady in her nineties for her daughter to wear to a wedding. Amazing.

I love the colour of this frock and the bow and how its all asymmetrical - so amazing (also you can see Ria in the back taking pictures!).

 This was my favourite dress at the exhibition - its a 1950's ball dress and its just so beautiful. If I made a dress this magnificent I would want to wear it EVERY SINGLE DAY!

More and more and MORE beautifully made handmade frocks - I really love them all. So much hard work and love went into making them all.

The exhibition also had some patterns on display - I loved this plastic way hanging display thing. I wonder where you can buy one of these? It would look rad in my sewing corner (also would help me remember which patterns I actually have).

They also had a box of old patterns to look through - which as we all know, is ALWAYS a good time.

Finally for all of you have ever made a duct tape body form check this out - its quite a simmilar idea, except the tape is SHELLAC! Do they still sell this? If yes - why don't I own one and if no - why the hell not. Surely this is a thing loads of home sewists would buy?

The Big Day Dowse

On Sunday Rich and I decided to leave Wellington for the day and head out to Lower Hutt for "The Big Day Dowse" which is an annual festival organised by the Dowse Art Gallery.

 When we arrived some artists were putting some tape art up on the side of the gallery - I always love a good bit of tape art.

The festival was pretty fun - we got the check out some bands, a market and circus performers. I especially loved this girl band, I forget their name but they were a lot of fun. I loved their matching fluro sunglasses too.

Whist we were out in Lower Hutt we figured we may check out some of the exhibits at the gallery. I loved this globe. There was a mixing deck near it an your could change what was happening on the surface of the earth by using the mixing deck. It's a really fun interactive exhibit - the kids at the gallery loved playing with it!

I also really liked the "Play" exhibit which was, amongst other things, a display of contemporary design for children. I want to have the frog chair at my house!

I'm not actually sure what exhibition this was part of, but I have to saw I loved this T-Rex with the glowing eyes!

After checking out The Big Day Dowse and spending some time at the art gallery we decided to head down to the Hutt River for a walk. Seeing the river made me realise just how bad our drought is - it looked like a stream compared with the last time I saw it.

I hope you all had a lovely weekend - we have Easter coming up this weekend which means FOUR WHOLE GLORIOUS days off work! My week is already half over - yah!