This semester I kind of lost enthusiasm for my uni subjects, but one assignment I did have a fun time with was for my Drawing: Approaches to Abstraction subject. I became a bit obsessed with patterns, especially tessellating ones. The patterns around my house and on daily travels became very interesting to me. I drew a couple of patterns in Photoshop and did a couple by hand. Below are the patterns I made in Photoshop. It was challenging to perfect seamless tiling in the tessellating patterns - I'd love to try some more. I'd like to turn the colourful patterns into tea towels.







Each pattern was printed at A3 size onto paper to resemble posters. I'm not really sure what I'll do with them now.

O c t o b e r :

+ I watched: Love My Way, 50/50, Dexter, Downton Abbey, To Kill A Mockingbird, The King of Devil's Island & Moonrise Kingdom and half of the Harry Potter movies (C had only seen the first two, so I felt it was my duty to force him to watch the rest).
+ I listened to: Beirut, Ben Folds Five, Foster The People & Milo Greene.
+ I consumed: Homemade smoothies, vitamins, cheesecake in a jar(!).
+ I made: Banana bread and carrot cake and bunch of patterns and little paintings and drawings for my last uni assignment (I'll likely not be going back for at least another year, so it was a bittersweet feeling).
+ I visited: Green's Beach, Deloraine, Penguin, Burnie and Wynyard.
+ I wore: Comfy, boring clothes. I probably applied make-up before going out a quarter of the time.

This month revolved mostly around food, illness, watching TV and drawing. Not hugely eventful and a month I'm kind of glad to see behind me, for my health's sake. It still surprises me how quickly time passes - I was just getting to know 2012. 2013 is a year I know absolutely nothing about yet. Next month I'll be going to Melbourne for a week and my 78 year old grandma will be staying with us in Tassie for a week too.

In November I'd like to:
+ Fill a scrapbook with pictures from our wedding picnic and assorted paraphernalia.
+ Join a yoga class.
+ Feel more well.
+ Finish reading To Kill A Mockingbird.
+ Have people over to warm our new house.

I hope you had a good month!

I really love Tasmanian souvenir kitch, they do it so well here. I've been looking for some fun crockery to put my succulent collection into. I was also thinking old, wide-opening teapots.


This reminded me of Kate.


I loved the pattern on the old photo album. The keys on the keyboard are about half the size of my fingers - tiny!




I'd seen crying boy prints around from time to time but this one was for a good price and I wanted a fun souvenir of our travels. When we got home, we watched the first episode of the new season of Fresh Meat and lo and behold, look who is in the opening titles:



Last week C's parents took us for a drive up into the North West and we visited Penguin, Burnie and Wynyard. I am particularly fond of Penguin (for its name and numerous penguin statues) and I liked Burnie's Makers Workshop and Wynyard has an awesome opshop called Mother Hubbards (where I got the crying boy and mail organiser and this jacket) and, of course the tulips!


A penguin in Penguin.


The Groovy Penguin Cafe.





The tulips were gorgeous, though perhaps not quite as spectacular as last year's.


Old folks made of paper at the Burnie Makers Workshop.


Sinister name, beautiful place.

I haven't been as frugal with my spendings lately as I probably should've been but I still have a pretty reasonable savings account for somebody who works part time and studies, so I'll forgive myself for some of my fun spending lately. We've been talking about buying a new couch for a few months - and not something vintage, something new and really comfy and well made. I love vintage couches, but ours is just the most uncomfortable thing to sit on ever. So yesterday, armed with my savings account, I bought us a new couch. It's red and vinyly and ridiculously comfy and gets delivered tomorrow. Taking large chunks out of my savings makes me hugely anxious, but C said he'll pay me back half and hopefully I can pay myself back at some point. I am a bit worried about how to keep the cats from destroying it - the store person suggested a water gun. C said that I would get carried away with it and just spray them for no reason, for my own amusement. That does sound like me.

s p r i n g from mushab00m on 8tracks Radio.

Hey there. I'm still finding it hard to find a rhythm to blogging again lately. I'll get there sometime. I have a bunch of stuff happening at the moment which is making daily life quite anxious and distracting but positive. It's one of those feels-like-you're-sitting-on-your-hands times. I'm a naturally worrisome person, so I'm trying to sit back and relax a bit more. Sorry to shroud things in vagueness, I'll write some proper stuff down soon. I thought I'd share some songs I've been listening to lately - driving around in our new little car, it's the first time I've been able to make cds for driving music. These songs have had a fair rotation lately, I'll definitely need something fresh soon, want to swap a mix?