These are a few of my favourite October things ...

Why bother starting every blog post with a 'sorry, it's been long since..'

I'm not going to excuse myself, I've been busy.

'Busy' is my favourite mode.. perhaps, masochistically so, even 'a little bit stressed' is good.

I like having a full day, when the mind just has no option but to stop wandering and focus FOCUS.. if I relax I do not create.

When I relax, I drink cocktails and eat, a lot, go out, a lot .. there is no way in hell I'm going to be in a right mind to create if I'm relaxed. So, fuck relax.

This is possibly the best looking thing I've done in a long while. Don't get me wrong I love almost all of my commissioned work; I love sketching and making every piece. I'm lucky  because, to a certain extent, in my line of work I can be selective as to what commissions I accept. However, rarely do I get to meet someone with such similar taste and the best figure to carry off the dresses I constantly dream about. I hadn't experimented with simple flat Japanese cutting in a long time so this dress came as a most welcome distraction from other (only slightly) less palatable work. I was so excited about the prospect that the fact that I had to make it out of such delicate silk didn't even worry me one bit.

Just for the record - this is very much the direction I'd want my ready-wear collection to take..
and I hope I'm not giving away too much when I say that.

*thanks dad for taking over the 'throwing' duties since I'm still struggling with that* meh

 And whist my sewing room at home was inundated with scraps of ivory chiffon (more about that later) .. back at my parents' I was getting my hands dirty once more for a wedding gift commission. A rushed order that made me hold my breath and cross fingers several times throughout the process. Making it just in time didn't even come as a relief.. I'm still high on the adrenaline of last week. Proof of that - insomnia made worse by late night teleshopping channel browsing!

I insist .. everyone needs Marilu' (or equivalent) for a friend.. a very very thoughtful friend who commissions the most wonderful (if I may say so myself) personalized gifts. This hand painted 50s themed breakfast set intended for newly-wed couple Mr. and Mrs. Fifty (we'll call them that because from what I can understand, almost everyone else does as well) has a (also hand-painted) dedication at the bottom of each item. Emblazoned with their nicknames and polka dotted all over, let's just say I would have really liked to hold on to this set and *hiss* at whoever touches it! 

Out of the kiln .. we made it just in time!

and whilst I was at it (in Maltese we have the most useful saying ‘kif kont fiz-zifna’ .. I really like this saying by the way) I made a mug I had promised my friend Rachel ages ago. She needed one for work.. one that said ‘ Hey, this is Rachel’s mug and I’m really not into sharing bacteria’. I opted for a teenage-angst-fuelled dripping-graffiti font to ward off anyone who dares disturb Rachel's sacred first-tea-in-the-morning ritual!

Rachel loves squirrels - Rachel does not love sharing mugs

This is one of several sketches I made late one night in a bid to compensate for the fact that, after all, I never became an Egyptologist. When I was younger I had promised absolutely everyone, including granparents, teachers, tea-sets and stuffed bears, that I'll become 'an explorer'. At 25 I'm finally coming to terms with the fact that this, along with many other things I had thought possible in one lifetime, is in fact pretty much impossible/improbable. It's ok .. at least I can sketch these things out to exorcize them. Wouldn't want to wake up in my 40s with my dreams of being an Egyptologist all bottled up and hallucinating about scarabs in my cereal bowl.

So I'll be off for now. Will leave you with a few snapshots of what's going on in my sewing-room at the moment. Of special importance is my recent breakthrough with scallop edging, crafty experiments with some novel materials and just a hint of what Halloween 2013 has up its roomy black sleeve.