Love and Other Catastrophes

These photos (and coincidentally the stills on our telly) tell a story, so I'll let them do (most of) the talking.

p.s. it's a little bit sad - keep your tissues handy ;)

All is good in my little world. The house is clean and sparkling (I'm a Virgo - I love clean and sparkling) Annie (Betty Hutton) and Frank (Howard Keel)* are in love. I'm happy.

Storm clouds gathering...

An omen of dastardly things to come???

Oh Annie! I'm about to feel your pain! 

If I knew this was going to be our last few minutes together, I would've held you closer and said goodbye properly...

Noooooooo!!!

Bye bye Bitossi. Sob! Bye bye blue rimini! Sniff!

A memento of carefree, happier days

R.I.P.

We had ten good years together. I loved you!

* Annie Get Your Gun 1950

"Mum, is that a maternity dress?"

(Annabel, 17 years)

I'm on holidays until early Feb and while I haven't made any proper resolutions for the new year, one of the things I want to do in 2015 is to sew more clothes for myself. 

Here is my first frock for the year. Fresh off my little old Janome 360

146 photos later!!!

(I am a shocker in front of the camera! Honestly, you've got to see 'em to believe 'em! It's I'm scary!)

And no Annabel, it is not a maternity dress! Nor is it a sack. Or a toga. Anthony! 

It is a lovely, simple (and yes, okay) voluminous dress, reminiscent of those gorgeous smocky frocks you see in Japanese sewing books. Well IMO it is anyway. And best of all, no translation required ;)

Here it is without me in it

looking even more Japanesy hanging off our ply wardrobe.

Here's a close-up of its thread loop closing

I am very proud of that little crocheted loop!

Here's the back

"box pleated, loosely draping", nice and cool for Summer.

It has a bow (it threads through openings in the side seams)

(no baby here!)

and great big pockets to stick your hands in.

It also has that whole mullet thing going on - you know, "all business in the front, party at the rear" (except the other way around), but the less said about that, the better!

What do you reckon?

Maternity smock? House dress? Or is it the muumuu for you you?

(Mc Call's M6553 if it is)

x

p.s. these girls are sewing pretty frocks too and so is this one.

   

Tinny Tree

tinny

ˈtɪni/

noun

AUSTRALIAN/NZinformal

noun: tinnie

1. 1.

   a can of beer.

   "let's crack open a tinny, mate

I know I've missed the boat timing-wise as far as the following pics are concerned, but they are too good not to share (and I don't want to can't wait until next year!) 

Anthony and I went for a walk this arvo, and saw this 

??? tribute to Christmas (and beer!) on somebody's verge!

Feast your eyes on on the work of a creative genius

(committed recycler, die-hard Emu Bitter drinker, et al!!!)

Have a good one (2015)

but not this good...

it might be detrimental to your health!

x

  

Happy Christmas

this is what it looked like at our joint...

there is a similar snap of Anthony - except his mouth is wide open. Not pretty!

We're a bit fuzzy around the edges IRL too!

and we get things upside down and back to front sometimes quite often.

It's been a while(!!!) and I cannot, for the life of me(!), work out how to get these pics the right-way-round. And my 'helpers' are all asleep! Bah humbug!

I hope you had a lovely one and all the best for 2015 too x

Who says Pigs Can't Fly?!

this one did. All the way from Broken Hill! (thanks Jane x)

The coffee table I've plonked it on is new to chez Oram too.

Made in 1977 this baby was offered to a lot of people before it made its way to us. Can you believe no one wanted it and that the word ugly was used to describe it?! 

Some of you probably can, but as far as this beholder's (get it?) concerned it's...love!

Need to shuffle things around a bit to make room for '77

In addition to handsome Germans, dollies, Australiana, and (oodles!) of other stuff, I have a small collection of sea-side paint-by-numbers. 

These wonky (but beautiful and painstakingly done) little paintings are my take on The Secret (which I haven't read so I'll scratch that) I'm hoping if I collect enough of 'em that whole visualisation + affirmation = desired outcome thingy will work.

(can you guess what I'm hankering* after?)

Anyway, a few days ago I found another painting of the sea (not by numbers) to add to my collection

this one (apologies for dull photo - it has been quite overcast here in Perth) for two dollars in an op-shop. Turns out I hit the jackpot! 

not in an Old Masters way...we're talking more your 1930's artist with cred...we can't quit our jobs yet and we're still hankering* 

Perhaps discovery or treasure would be a better word? It is a very special find regardless, especially as far as suburban West Australian op-shops go.

I know it's special because:

a) it just is and 

b) someone has scrawled some info about the artist on the back which allowed me to do a spot of research.

This (grubby) little oil is called Rough Sea. It was painted by Alice Maude Fanner in 1930. Google tells me that Alice (1865-1930) was a renowned painter who specialised in marine landscapes.  She was tutored by Julius Olsson and her paintings were exhibited at many galleries including the Royal Academy. There is an Australian connection too - she married an Australian business man named Arthur Edward Tate - I'm wondering if this has something to do with Rough Sea turning up at an op-shop here...

Alice's paintings sell for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pounds(!) which makes finding it quite thrilling, but I'd love it even if it was worth nothing. It looks quite at home with the p.b.n. - although they're nervously minding their P's and Q's with such posh company in da house ;)

And while I've (hopefully) got you here, please don't forget to chuck some money at Julianne's Frocktober campaign. So far gorgeous (pop over - you'll see!) Julianne has raised nearly $600 for research into ovarian cancer! You're a super-star Julianne!

Donate here. 

Thanks for reading and thanks in anticipation (hint!) for your Frocktober donation x

In our garden. It's a Leucospermum. Cordifolium yellow to be pre-cise. Isn't it lovely?!

It's Frocktober Again...

but I'm not frocking up this year because frankly...I do not have 'it' in me.

Pathetic really because I definitely, positively, absolutely do not want Ovarian Cancer in me either!

And nor do you. Obviously!

I have started to collect dolls. Most of them in national dress. I know, but I can't help myself! Nearly every time I spot one in an op-shop it comes home with me. They are so cheap (and cheerful) I can't bear the thought of them being chucked out like yesterday's rubbish. Some of them are really, really old, and all of them are really, really beautiful. Originally I bought them for the kids at kindy (we have a multi-cultural table) but the more I looked at them, held them (and played with them!) the harder it was to let them go...
I have nowhere to put them, but they don't mind - as one of them said to me "we don't take up too much space" - and she was right ;)
  
Ovarian Cancer is an insidious disease

insidious

ɪnˈsɪdɪəs/

adjective

1. proceeding in a gradual, subtle way, but with very harmful effects.
2. 
   

3. it has no cure or early detection test  (early detection is key to saving lives)  however, funds raised during Frocktober aim to change all that, so it is vitally important that you (me, we!) support this extremely important cause. Agree? It would be lovely, lovely, LOVELY! if you could pop over to Julianne's blog, Sister Outlaws, and give her a bit of the same Frocktober love you gave me last year. You'll be in for a treat because nobody I know wears a frock quite like Julianne. For example, this is what she wears to pick up her kids from school! You put me and my tracky-dacks to shame Julianne ;) The stories Julianne tells to accompany her fabulous frocks aren't too shabby either! An Hawaiian surfer named Ace! Hollywood movie stars! Coburg Trash and Treasure! And it's only day five!!! As Julianne says "no donation is too big or small"  (actually I've added the too big bit!) Even your coffee money for the day would do very nicely (hint!) Please sponsor Julianne here  (and feast your eyes on her fabulousness here) Thank-you x p.s. thanks for your lovely comments on this post. Talk about a cheer-squad! I have replied to nearly all of them - there are a few "no-reply" bloggers I'm still to get to, but I will x  I call this one Imelda (Marcos), I'm sure it's her. What do you think? (she is not wearing shoes, but that's because she has no feet!)

I know it hasn't been very long since my last post, but it feels like forever to me...
I'm writing this one because (I've got that feeling in the pit of my stomach. You know what I mean, don't you?) if I don't, I may never go near this blog again. I can feel lucy violet vintage slipping away from my tenuous grasp as each day passes. I'm holding on, but only just. 

I like my little blog - especially the friendships I've made because of it,

(and I really miss the blogs I've loved over the years, whose writers have slowly, one by one, given up the ghost (most of the blogs on my - very long, blog roll in fact) I have struggled to find blogs to replace them - and reading strangers blogs just doesn't feel the same. It doesn't feel like belonging to a gang anymore like it used to...does that make sense?)

and I really don't want to let it go, but sometimes the words don't come and I'll find myself having sat in front of the computer for an hour with nothing to show for it! On screen - or around here at Oramsville! This even though I've got stacks of things to show and tell e.g. for starters: I've got an awesome post on retro Marimekko fashion in my head, another one on some incredible homes I'm lusting after here in Perth currently for sale...AND I haven't even shown you our renovated kitchen yet! (I feel so guilty about this as Abigail Ahern chose our kitchen to kick-start her Style Surgery series - something I see she hasn't persued...could it be down to my haphazard blogging?! As if! but a proper blogger would've got good mileage out of this pretty special opportunity...hmmmm???) 

Anyway this post is an attempt to keep my hand in.
A random collection of photos accompanied with brief descriptions. It's the best I can do at the moment - I think this might be the way forward...or not. We'll see...

a handsome German for my birthday from 

this GORGEOUS creature.

(wearing a dress - this one - made by ME!!!)

I have sealed the bricks in the passage-way (a hideous job) and repainted the remaining walls and ceiling. Lucy Violet's basket ball banner has finally got a home. I like to see it blowing in the breeze when the front door is open. It makes me happy.

a sign, and building I like.

a sunny corner of our kitchen

(that little white shelf used to hang outside Lucy violet's back door. She kept pot-plants on it)

And while I've got a pic of our 1979 Parker dining suite on screen, look how awesome the same suite looks upholstered in a different colour!

I spotted this baby (made in 1969 - the table doesn't extend like ours does, but apart from that, not a lot changed in ten years) at 20th Century Salvation. I mean I love brown (even though I was tut-tutted by a rather famous Australian interior designer for saying so) but gee I wish our chairs were orange too! Seriously, how much better would they look under that Orangina poster?! I showed/said this to Anthony and he pretended he didn't hear me?! Guess I'll just have to plonk a bowl of oranges on the table and be done with it ;)

(upholstery ain't cheap!)

psst! there's some great stuff for sale at 20th Century Salvation, including this original mid-century toy beach house (I'll take a life-sized version too. Please)

I found this kookaburra sculpture at a local second-hand shop. The second I saw it I knew it had to be mine! Some might say it's just a big lump of clay and to use the word sculpture to describe it is...well blasphemy (Anthony?!) but I love him. Just look at that fine aristocratic beak!

Trinity Church, in the little country town of Meckering. Built following the Meckering earthquake of 1968. You know why I love this building, don't you...I would like a house like this actually.

We bought three of these old plywood water skis at a tip shop for five dollars. This is the first one we've hung - and it won't be the last! 
(and it won't take us three years to hang the other two either! Ahem!)

Thanks (alot) for reading x