aka R’acquel

See how busy we’ve been? Look at the state of the lawn in our backyard. Hubby has been so caught up with manufacturing his whistles that I ended up challenging my refusal to learn how to start up a lawn mower. I’m the one always cleaning the toilets in this house, because my husband doesn’t know how to use a toilet brush. The embarassment of owning weeds and scottish thistles gowing up to 1.5m high in the front lawn of this house, in a “Garden Village” for crying out loud, finally got the better of me.

The flies have been so psycho up this way, that i had to invent my new Woztraylian Bushwoman’s (Reverse Swagman’s) Hat for protection. The psycho flies were attacking my ears so badly, that i created some protective ear flaps out of sticky fly-catching paper. Instead of shooing flys away with a regular swaggie hat, i designed this one to attract and kill them.

The front lawn before i started to learn how to start the mower. Take note of how the quality of light in the sky begins to change with the next photo! It’s the early beginnings of a new afternoon storm approaching.

The front lawn after i learned that there’s no point in pulling the string thingie if you haven’t pushed the accelerator throttle down thingie first. The down side of finishing all the mowing, was that the sound of the motor was no longer drowning out the sound of the dying flies stuck around my ear flaps screaming “help me, help me, help me, help me!” in stereo! 555

It took me about 60 minutes to mow our lawn. This new hat of mine reduced the entire psycho fly population of Leura by close to 150 flies. That’s approximtely the equivalent of one psycho fly attacking your ears every 24 seconds. Can you see why i had to invent this hat now? I was hoping that i could send them a very strong message of “fuck off” - that maybe they could tell their friends to,

“Stay away from this woman’s ears! She’s dangerous!”

…but they seemed to be somewhat aloof to this.

It is no longer a myth for me that the sign of sticky psycho flies attacking your ears in Leura, now means that there is going to be a fierce storm that will be brewing in the afternoon. The more psycho & sticky the flies are, the more volatile the storm usually becomes.

Some shots of the orange hazed clouds post-storm. This is about the 4th time that i’ve seen this phenomena across the last 2 years. You can see more orange-sky phenomena photos from My First Storm Chase in Feb 2006.

It’s been the coldest summer i’ve ever experienced in my life. I had to wear my winter coat a number of times during December(our summer here), and we’ve had to put the heaters on for some nights as well.

The dought has broken in many parts of oz with the La Nina weather pattern returning. Very high levels of rainfall have been having a significant impact on my plants.

Napoleon has never flowered for 2 years, just as my dwarf palm hasn’t given birth to a new stem either.

I’ve had this breed of succulent for close to 6 years. The first time i ever saw it flower was last year, where it had no more than 5 or 6 flowers. This time around - it’s a a full blown explosion!

This other succlent, has never looked so pregnant in my entire life of getting to know it over the years. The intensity of it’s colour has never been this saturated or explosive in it’s display. Old plants once deemed as potential dead - have been rising from the dead in my front lawn as well.

What has been the most striking across this summer, is the weather pattern of hot mornings with clear blue skies, that are consistently followed by the formation of electrically charged storms in the afternoon.

I’ve found it fascinating how the storms always form between 3-4pm on average so consistently. As for why i’ve been able to register such a time frame? It’s because these cloud formations start to occur when it’s time for me to pick my son up from school.

We had another hail storm the other day. My son never enjoys the thunderstorms because the electricity blackouts upset him a lot. It scares him. He thinks it’s going to be the end of the world (without electricity) and he’s also seeing the news reports of the climate getting worse, with many floodings and all sorts of other natural disasters revolving around the weather on TV.

I decided to try and divert his negative regard towards the weather into something positive. Here is part 1 of measuring the Leura “Floods” at the front of our house:

After the storm subsides, my son does a more accurate reading of the water level with his red K’nex stick.

For now - i must return back to life & work/work/work ~ and learn how to take more time to relax. It’s been good to be able to pull out my camera… but *sighs* ~ i have to get back to my work. Life’s great - but there’s a lot of amazing things in my life that i have to get back to achieving.

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Lots of hardcore pattern engineering of late with my first formalwear piece. It’s been quite an adventure to generate a piece/pattern that tapers closely to all the curves. Ergonomics to the max - i love designing for comfort of the human body.

This endeavour is primarily for the sake of artistic expression alone. My end-goal is to make people scream (like a girl) when they see it. I have a knack for doing this to people with my work ever since i was a child, so that’s the goal. To make people scream as soon as they see it, and then when they read my reason for making this garment is to make people scream - the desired effect is that this it’s going to make them laugh - because they just screamed a lot, so therefore - the garment has done it’s job well.

For now - i have to continue tweaking the first fabric mock-up a little bit more and will be heading out to purchase the fabric on Monday. I’m very determined to make a strong impact and look forward to scouting the ideal place for a bit of photography up in the mountains somewhere.

Enough talk-it! Must continue to walk-it!

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After much trepidation & stress over this house move, due to being forced to uproot ourselves with the sale of the former house - I am relieved by the amount of tension that has subsided upon settling in our new home.

Welcome to the new front yard, which features a waterfall fountain that we have no intention of using as I’m unsure of how things stand with the current water restrictions here, so for now - it’s functions as a 24/7 mosquito farm. The garden is more low maintenance than the former place we were at, so that’s a relief.

A shot of the other water fountain at the front of the house, which i can’t help but laugh at - a lion who dribbles water out of it’s mouth?! Ah well, at least it’s not a pissing cherub. *lol*

The move was a great challenge, as we had a strong male back who was unable to help us out so the burden was left entirely on the shoulders of my husband & me.

My preparation work for the Oz Whistles office. It was a huge mess of boxes but we had a pretty tough challenge ahead of us with regards to the transportation of the 24 inch geeky computer nerd rack my husband acquired a few years ago, so the room needed to be adequately cleared in order to get the ruddy thing inside. It made me laugh when i saw Debbie show hers off during a recent TIT because at least we only have one of them! *lol*

Ah…yeah - much to our relief, we managed to get the bloody thing in without dismantling the bugger. Thank goodness that the truck was equipped with a trolley as there’s no way we could’ve done it without one! *phew* My husband was impressed by how much stronger my body has become since we first got together. *blush* Let’s just blame that on motherhood for now, as my son currently weighs 24kg and we still carry him around in an “uphug” at times (…and oh! How heavy i thought he was as a newborn!). I was equally impressed by my husband’s skills in tying ropes to hoist the giant in and out of the truck, but i’m not sure if i got around to complimenting him back - so i’ll be sure to return it upon his arrival back from the St.Alban’s Folk Festival.

This house is a lot smaller than the former one, so things were looking rather cramped once we got everything in.

…but it’s certainly starting to shape up rather nicely and i’m beginning to enjoy the really pleasant vibe in this house. The new space is really intimate, warm & cosy. Pictured above is also the sofa that i designed & built together with my husband way back in 2001. When i first suggested the idea to my husband, he thought i was crazy (like, completely bonkers) …until he saw me designing the floor & elevation plans on my computer and began to see how achievable it was, which then got him hooked onto translating the design into 3D using Lightwave. We spent a lot of time sitting on heaps of sofas in furniture shops and got all the key measurements for what constituted as the most comfortable sofa in the world. Just about everyone who sits on it, often comments on how comfortable it is, so it was a dream come true to design a truly ergonomic piece …that could function as my retreat during those nights when my darling husband used to snore so loudly once upon a time.

I can also finally shit in peace now, because the location of the toilet paper no longer requires a feat of muscle straining gynmastics to reach for it. I haven’t had this kind of comfort with reaching for the toilet paper for nearly 7 years in the last two places i’ve lived in, so as you can imagine - it’s been a greatly welcomed relief & creature comfort to both the heart & “down under”. =D

View outside of the driveway. As so much of the house is west-facing, i guess this will be the first of many sunsets to start enjoying in the next few months.

Looking forward to getting the rest of the house shaped up, so that’s fair amount of things to be getting on with my TITs in the meanwhile! ;D Enjoying the new space and looking forward to the adventures ahead.

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This is a conceptual draft of an original piece i’m working on for a dear friend, who’s body has very voluptuous curves and she also faces the challenge of having one leg bigger than the other (so this makes the journey of finding pants that fit well on her really difficult!). The goal of this project is to model an elegant evening dress based on the Disney character known as “Ursula” from “The Little Mermaid” movie. As you can probably gather, i have a particular passion in designing for “other-bodied” figures that live outside of the conventional norms you see parading down the catwalks on TV all the time!

In Search of Fine Fabrics From Around the World!
My chief problem here in Australia, is being able to source good quality material that’s original & refreshing. As we’re located in the Asia Pacific, a lot of fabric is imported from Asia. It’s not that Asia isn’t capable of producing nice fabric, not at all - but sourcing it the shops *here* - well, what else can i say but the collections can be fairly mundane & boring so i’m keen to source nice fabrics from around the world! Moving out of Sydney hasn’t helped me either, as gaining access to the material stores here is equally difficult due to transport issues. A long term dream would be to travel the world to source the finest yarns, but for now - the dream remains a distant goal until life finds a way of sourcing the funds for travel overseas.

As i’m currently stranded on this continent, maybe there’s a way i can still travel the world in a virtual way and still be able to source nice material from around the world!

The Offer!
I would like to offer the construction of a tailored, custom-fitted outfit for anyone, for the exchange of 2x the material it requires to get the job done, and a photograph of yourself wearing the garment through a post on your blog online when the garment arrives. You get the garment, while i can get the opportunity to receive fabrics from around the world by using the leftover material to make other unique & original pieces. I’ll also take photos & link to your blog as i proceed with the journey of making something for you too.

So - does the deal sound fair? Interested? If so, then please start shopping for your desired garment by browsing the online Burda Main Collection and search for something you like! If you can source the pattern where you live (in English), that would be great - but if not, i can see if i can find it here.

Initial details required:

This offer is open for both men & women!

I’m very passionate about the use of ergonomics in my design work, so I highly value the end result of a good fit with great comfort and look forward to the challenge of getting the detailed measurements to create something that will fit well on you!

If you’re interested in taking up this offer, please feel free to comment, let others know about this, or send a direct email to mrs_smith @ akaracquel dot com with the details!

I can still probably manage some special alterations to match something you’d like from another photo if the design is close to an existing pattern I can find, so feel free to forward any pictures to me by email if you’d like me to review if it’s possible!