Drama in a Jacket...

I made this jacket back at the end of April, before the weather was really cold enough for wool jackets, and some of you may have seen it pop up in my Flickr pool back on the 4th and 28th of May, during MMM13. I've really struggled to get attractive photos, so finally I'm just going to post what I have ;).

For so much drama (ie so much collar and shaping) in a jacket, it's (surprisingly) an Easy pattern (Vogue ratings), and only took about 16 hours spread out over about 10 days in a "that's good enough" frame of mind.  16 hours - does that sound a lot? The jacket really is an easy make, but each easy step takes time because no seam is left exposed (well none I can think of). Everything is flat felled or French seamed, darts are stitched down, and there's top stitching too. A good part of this time was also spent working out which parts of the (really big) pattern pieces represented what so I could adjust the fit.

My fabric is a 'hairy' kind of wool that I was lucky enough to find second hand: $12 for 2.3 metres minus a small rectangle in one corner.  The pattern called for 2.9m for my usual 12-14 size, but obviously the jacket can be made with less. To eke the jacket out my fabric I pieced the sleeves half way down and very slightly narrowed the lapels.  

This fabric felt unbearably itchy (the jacket is unlined) when I wore it over a t-shirt in early May, but it's perfectly fine over long sleeves and a scarf (phew!)

The pattern is V1263, a Donna Karan for Vogue pattern. You can see that the front extends into a ginormous shawl collar, and there are also side front dart seams extending into pockets that (mostly) hide in the lower collar facings. The upper back has princess seams, and the 'skirt' of the jacket has no side seams.

The darts on this jacket are absolutely glorious - darts to shape the collar around the neck, darts around the pockets, and darts to shape the 'skirt'. Love, love, love the darts.

 The other feature I love is the pockets - I love that they're nearly completely hidden on the inside behind the collar facing! AND they're functional.

It's described as very loose fitting, but that's not what you're seeing here...  I wanted a more exaggerated shape; snug up top and loose below (like a coat version of the Elisalex dress), so I consciously used the size band down from my usual (ie I went down to size 8-10) for the shoulders, neck and upper bodice.  To be perfectly honest it took me quite a lot of playing with paper pattern pieces to work out which parts of the paper pattern were going to end up being the shoulders, upper bodice and neck, but I'm glad to have spent the time working it out as I really like the shape I've ended up with:  it's fitted around my upper back and chest but not restrictive, and the original loose fit around the waist means I can wear all kinds of skirt shapes underneath.
 

It was a pleasant surprise that this fit me so well but I've been thinking about fit late at night lately instead of counting sheep. Years ago I used to be a size 10 in Vogue patterns, and I assumed my shoulders wouldn't have grown much since then... 


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And even though it's unrelated to this post, I'm simply busting to share some good news on the technology front :). 

For the past 6 months I haven't been able to see my navbar, haven't been able to touch my blog layout, haven't been able to see my dashboard, haven't been able to add or remove widgets - I've had really limited "publish a post" access and that's about it.  Finally last night I decided it was time to crack the problem - and I did it!  I can see everything now! 

Turns out my page views have gone up since last year (sweet). And turns out there were 17 comments awaiting moderation - I don't know why they didn't just publish automatically, but thank you, thank you if you were one of those commenters, and I'm sorry if you felt like you I didn't want your comment (not sweet).  I'm on the front foot now, and I'm going to try to stay that way.

PIA and PSA

source

Firstly for the PIA - let's get the bad news out of the way.

As you may have guessed from the photo above, this was supposed to be a post about the Sydney Sewists High Tea on Sunday.  I took heaps of photos: sewists at the table, Gail and Maria and I posing in our new frocks, tiers of food, several combinations of darling little cakes, a macaron and lemonade scones on a plate, Gail's first cup of tea whose only ingredient was hot water, Lizzie strutting her stuff at the second High Tea venue, my new DKNY dress and coat) - you can imagine it, right???

Thank you to the chief organiser, Kristy, and also to Christy, whose blog post alerted me to the get together in the first place (and it only took me about 4 weeks to RSVP, sorry Kristy). We had so much fun - cakes, champagne, great company, inspirational sewing in all directions, a pattern / fabric swap, then a second venue when the first kicked us out - that I wish I could show you some of it here.

After so much photo taking my hardworking little camera's battery needed to recharge, so I took the equally hardworking smartcard out, popped it into its reader, plugged them into the computer and started transferring photos. And... drum roll....  disaster struck. Card, reader, USB port - I don't know which is to blame. But ALL of those photos have been corrupted.  All those high tea photos, plus a couple of special birthday girl photos that I hadn't yet moved to the computer.

I'm so sorry Maria, Gail and Lizzie too that I can't email you the photos I took of you.

I've now spent hours testing demo versions of different photo recovery tools (RescuePRO, Stellar Phoenix Photo Recovery, and PhotoRescue PC) and while I seem to have been able to "recover" some files using RescuePRO, they're so badly corrupted I can't see the images, which feels kind of pointless. I've messed around with file repair software too, but the results are looking hopeless - mixed up strips of photos combined with large expanses of grey - and I still can't see any of the photos I wanted to share.

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And now the PSA.  If you still subscribe to this blog through Google Reader, you might want to quickly look into some other options before Google Reader disappears in a few days time! If you search on Blog Readers you'll see there are a lot of options, but I've chosen to follow the herd and have signed up with BlogLovin'.  My blog subscriptions were all automatically copied over and it's been completely smooth: everything is just there :).  Bloglovin' is quite different to Google Reader in the way it shows your unread items, but it turns out I really like seeing a preview photo for each new unread post - it helps me prioritise what to read next!  

Cleansing the Palate

A quick project after some kids' leggings (too boring for shared photos, to be honest) and before sewing anything complex: some Tessuti Anita pants made from a gorgeous ponte fabric (also from Tessuti). 

This photo proves I've been wearing them outside of the house, but it doesn't show you the wonderful colour - so unfortunately I'm back to the side balcony photos :(

 That's better - but there's not much to say about a pair of ponte pants, even if they are blue!

Let me see. The Anita pants pattern is simple and quick to make.  The shaping (crotch, legs) seems pretty realistic, and since it's sewn from thick stretch ponte fabric you don't have to get the fit exactly right. I sewed the size that matched my measurements and it's quite a snug fit, so for a thicker ponte I'll probably go up a size. For me the waist is a tad long and the legs a little short (both normal for me and easy to adjust), but the pants are ultra comfortable and I know I'll be making more.  I even have the fabric ready!

And since I have nothing much to say about sewing these pants, I'm going to ramble about the colour these pants approximate. My latest favourite - International Klein Blue:

Blue Venus, Yves Klein

I think it should also be known as Matisse Blue though:

The Fall of Icarus, Henri Matisse

Blue Nude, Henri Matisse

 

Matisse prepared the Jazz prints (including The Fall of Icarus, above left) in 1947. The painting on the right is one of Matisse's Blue Nudes, from 1952.

Klein's painting career began, apparently, as a 19 year old (around 1947?) 'on the sand with friends, he looked upward and “signed the sky” as his first piece of art'.  He started painting monochromes in around 1949, but they weren't only blue. He apparently decided to really focus on the now famous Klein Blue from around 1958, and his gorgeous Blue Venus dates from 1962.

Looks like the same blue below though, and this one's an even earlier Matisse, from 1912-13:

Portrait of the Artists's Wife, Henri Matisse

As usual I'm running behind with my posts. This afternoon was the Sydney Sewists High Tea (yay! cake!), which was just as much fun as you'd expect, and perhaps more, but I can't post about it properly till I've transferred my photos to the computer and had a sleep.

And finally, it's probably time to move... everyone else has left the building... 

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Reddy, Steady, Go!

Is there anyone out there who really has pants fitting sussed?*

* If so please, please, please chip in and tell me how to fix these pants!  

These red pants were made in time for Me Made May, but by the end of May the pants were feeling a little less than awesome (sorry pants, not your fault. If I need to eat more chips to fill you out I will, promise).

Although the pants looked OK to me from the front, my photos showed me there was some excess fabric in the back. And now that I've noticed, it's really bugging me :(

I have made three pairs of pants that fit well (here, here and here)... but all three were all made from the same pattern. And now that I'm using a new pattern, I'm thinking those pants fitting 'skills' were pure luck :). 
 

My new-ish red pants, made just in time for Me Made May, use Vogue 1293, an Anne Klein pattern for "Semi-fitted, tapered pants ...[with] contour waistband, carriers, side front pockets, fly front zipper, hem slit, and narrow hem."  The suggested fabrics are Linen, Crepe, and Dupioni, but I used a lovely stretch cotton from Tessuti fabrics (bought last year). Oops!



I muslined the pants in a vile pale blue shiny stretch fabric (no, there are no appalling photos). There was a truckload of excess fabric in the front (perhaps necessary for non-stretch fabric) so I removed a triangular wedge, widest at CF and tapering to nothing at the sides.  I adjusted the pocket pieces to take out this wedge too. I removed a smidgen of length from the waist at the centre back to make the waistband stay level all the way around, and removed some width from the side seams to make them taper. 

Then I sewed them up in my lovely red fabric, with organza strips stabilising the pocket openings. The pocket bags are cute polka dot rayon, but I've misplaced the photos. I love how neat the fly looks, even if I do say so myself...

When I wore these new pants in early May I thought they fitted me really well, and I was really pleased to be part of the red pants trend. The photos make it very clear there's still work to be done, but interestingly (and GOOD news) the fit is a million times better than that of my two favourite pairs of RTW pants:

Exhibit A - look at those folds of fabric!!

and Exhibit B - look at the unintentional harem effect!

 

With all this room for extra luggage, do I even need a handbag?  

Hmm, but seriously, I would like to improve my pants fitting skills - I want to make this pattern again in an even louder fabric, but I'm holding off till I know how to correct the problems. If you have some advice - nothing nasty, mind - I would really appreciate hearing from you!

Thank you!

- Gabrielle x

Poppies & Tulips Dress

Lately I am bored with black and craving colour - can you tell?

I finished this dress late on the night of the 30th May - in time to wear as the sewing version of "thank you" flowers to Zoe and all the MMMers on the last day of May - with an artificial sunflower as a little extra je ne sais quoi:

Thank you for all the photos, Marylene):  I still can't quite believe we found such a colour and camera coordinated backdrop (I know that's completely off topic, and I'm getting straight back to it now). 

The amazing and rather loud fabric is "Poppy Filled Dreams", a stretch digital printed jersey from Tessuti fabrics; I'd bought just 1.5 metres of the delicious stuff. Since the poppies and tulips grow along both selvedges of the fabric - you can see this if you click on the above link and look through the pics of the fabric - I wanted to use a pattern that could work with a border print.  I obviously also wanted something that wouldn't compete with the attention seeking fabric.


Enter Vogue 8511... an oldie and now very much OOP...

I'd previously sewn this as an unlined blue merino wool dress that I wear heaps in winter, especially with the cashmere jacket pictured below (photos from MMM12, taken down at Barangaroo).

It turns out 1.5 metres is not quite enough, and that's why my sleeves have wide bands on them. I spent a long time on pattern placement for the sleeves to get a tulip just above each elbow, but those specially placed tulips aren't particuarly noticeable against a flower jungle backdrop. 

Don't worry, I'm not taking up the pigeon toed stance; I'm just mid-clumsy twirl

Adjustments:

The pattern is an easy one, but I've come to think the "easy" Vogues are a lot less well drafted than the Vogue designer patterns (d'oh - that should have been a no brainer, shouldn't it!). I do find the Vogue sizing pretty consistent (and is it just me, or is Vogue sizing reasonably similar to Australian RTW sizing?) so I'm now making a couple of simple adjustments for my shape on all Vogue patterns: shoulders "in" a size, and waist "out" a size.

I knew from experience that the sleeves were unnecessaerily wide and floppy so I folded out two 1+cm sections from the full length of the sleeve pattern piece (ie taking a little width out of sleeve front and also a little width out of sleeve back), smoothed out the resulting sleeve head shape, and also went down a size in the shoulders. Narrowing the sleeves this way rather than taking all that width out of the middle of the sleeve, where the sleeve head is tallest, meant that (1) I didn't need to gather the sleeve to fit it into the arm scye, as you do with the pattern as is and (2) I didn't need to alter the shape of the sleeve head as it still had the original height. The sleeves still feel loose.

Because the dress is stretchy I left off the centre back zip (as before), which means cutting the centre back piece on the fold. I added a wide band to the sleeves (to make up for length I'd had to lose due to buying too little fabric )and a narrow band around the neckline too.  If I make this again I'll add a smidge of length to the bodice and more length to the skirt, play with the fit around the shoulders and upper bust, and narrow the sleeves and arm scye. Obviously only if I remember to buy enough fabric though.

And the skirt was shaped; not right for a border print. Easy fix. I laid the skirt front pattern piece on the fold and pivoted it so as to have the bottom hem along the selvedge. The shaping at the waist had to also pivot down from a curved shape to a straight line, keeping the pleats aligned with their original spots. In retrospect I should have taken a photo - I am not explaining this very well! Anyway, whatever it was I did for the front skirt I also did for the back :).

Here's a view of the insides of the bodice; I thought you might like to see that my lining is just as loud as my outer fabric. My lining is rather stretchy and a bit heavier than the outer so I treated it like an underlining and held it taut as I sewed it to the outer fabric pieces.

And that's it!

See you anon,
              Gabrielle

To the End (of May), and Beyond!

Made it, phew!

To recap, I pledged

1. to wear a handmade garment each day in May with no repeats (oops, I mis-remembered and thought I'd said no repeat outfits! I ended up repeat wearing my new red pants, my new grey wool coat, my green merino dress and my blue cashmere jacket)
2. to sew at least 2 more garments in May (yessssss! I made two merino tops and a dress)
3. to wear outfits I like and that I'll wear again after May (I think so.... I'm not looking back with regret at my MMM13 outfits the way I did with MMM12)

PS the "beyond" part of the title is about my long term pledge - and wearing those (loud?) outfits through the year. 

I thought I'd save time by not doing many MMM posts, and that I'd use that time to blog my new red pants and new grey wool coat BUT the Flickr pool was HUGE (412 members... 5,952 photos...) and I was spending a lot of time most evenings checking out everyone's outfits and photos. Which means more for you to look forward to from this blog ;-).


Here's my me made evidence from the second part of the month (first part is here) - and my Flickr stream is here if you want to see the daily comments and chatter:

Day 15 

Wearing my Elisalex dress (blogged here), looking at a flower stand in Martin Place, Sydney. My team had had a shocker of a morning, so Marylene and I went for a walk to clear our heads, buy a treat (I got some nougat) and take the daily photos. This is the first time I've worn this dress for an extended period... and the bad news is that the bodice is overfitted. Truth in advertising and all that: I ended up wearing the zipper half undone under my cardi! This doesn't seem a sustainable practice so the dress may have to change.
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Day 16

A lunch time walk yesterday took us to the area of the Sydney CBD near the Botanic Gardens. This photo is taken on a corner of Bligh St I think. Beyond the cafe and sculture is an imposing modern building. 

Wearing my teal blue merino wool dress (Vogue 8511, a great basic that doesn't seem to be available anymore). I didn't make the red trench, but I'm trying it out as an alternative to my matching teal blue Vogue 1098 cashmere/wool jacket (perhaps too matchy matchy). This is quite a loud outfit but the sculpture in the background would win any shouting match.

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Day 17    

Yes, I could have worn a hat to work (I own a few) but I wanted an excuse to come here, to the Strand Hatters in the Strand Arcade, Sydney :) This is a really friendly place to buy a hat, and they seem to have a great range of sizes in normal hats. As well as some lovely eccentric hats like a Pith helmet, an OTT Peruvian beanie and a Davy Crockett style hat. 

Wearing Vogue 1194, a DKNY pattern, in a thick and cosy black wool jersey.

Thank you Marylene for the photos again !

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Day 18 

Yay for the weekend! It's been such a beautiful autumn day here in Sydney - "sunny and mild" is probably the way the weather man would describe it. I wore this self-drafted long sleeve t-shirt with jeans for most of the day (I changed into the top from day 6 for about an hour when I popped out in the afternoon and was feeling chilly). 

My daughter and I looked through a book on the history of fashion - she thought some of the photos from the 60s were hilarious. 

And this photo reflects my own mediocre camera skills with the remote - why can't my colleagues come over on the weekend to help with photos???? lol

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Day 19

Glorious Autumn - a Sunday in Sydney suburbia. Wearing the "pieced" merino top that I wore back I think on 6th May; the basis for this top is a Burda magazine pattern from a few years ago. I'm making another similar merino top at the moment - which will be mostly orange with a single vertical band of cream - but I'm put off by how chilly the evenings are in my sewing room / study.
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Day 20    

 

My camera had a meltdown over the weekend and I'm still trying to remember my usual settings... and my usual weekday photographers are off work sick. So today... thank you Stu! 

Wearing a brocade skirt with a bagged lining, which I made last year using V1174. I think my original blog post (here) has nicer photos; hopefully I'll have my camera working nicely again tomorrow.

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Day 21   

Wearing [my] Vogue cashmere jacket (as worn before) and a new-ish Vogue Sandra Betzina ponte skirt. My photographers were still all ill today so I took myself on a photographic adventure at lunchtime, stopping firstly at Hyde Park (where I took photos of tourists by the fountain and then they took photos of me - isn't this an absolute brainwave? I'm going to have to remember this idea of using tourists for selfies in future!) and then ducking into the Hyde Park Barracks for this photo (camera on a bench with the timer set...) when a strange man started following me. 
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Day 22   

My photographer colleague Marylene was back at work today, so after lunch (handmade soup dumplings, hot & sour soup, prawn & pork dumplings at Din Tai Fung) we popped into the Strand Arcade for some "old Sydney buildings" photos. And we did zero shopping, in case you were wondering. 

I'm wearing this dress I made a few years ago (when I was just starting blogging - it's included in my inaugural post) using Vogue 1013. I do wear this dress a lot because it's so easy to throw on, and I can fit a camisole underneath, but I don't really like wearing black that much... unfortunately I'm getting to the point where the choices are very few unless I either repeat myself or FREEZE by wearing something summery :).

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Day 23   

A rainy old day in Sydney - I had to remove a very cosy coat for this photo! This photo is taken on Margaret St, Sydney, outside a chocolate cafe and next to a popular food court (anyone interested in hearing about food? I had some divine freshly grilled chicken in a Portuguese marinade on warm baguette with mayonnaise, lettuce and rocket, then a hot chocolate). 

Wearing my Vogue 1220 dress made from a stretch cotton, plus boring looking neoprene shoes (waterproof) and a freebie scarf. I find this dress a bit dull - I don't really enjoy wearing grey - but I think the blues in the scarf make it a bit more interesting. 

Thanks Marylene for the photo!

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Day 24   

Sharon (Petite and Sewing) and I met up today at the Sydney Opera House for the Friday theme. 

In this photo (thank you, passing tourists for the crazy photo that makes me look a giant and Sharon look tiny) you can see Sharon and I in front of the Opera House. The road behind us was busy with workmen coming and going and deliveries being made, but in the evenings you might see performers being dropped off at the door to the Green Room (in that dark area under the steps if I recall correctly - as a teenager I was in an orchestra that performed here several times). 

Sharon is wearing pretty much all me made, and I'm wearing a merino top I finished in a rush last night, made from the 2 coordinating colours in my blue "Giro d'Italia" merino top (Day 6?). The basic pattern for the top is a simple Burda magazine pattern with the neckline dropped. Top stitching is best completed before midnight :(.

Sharon (Petite and Sewing) and I met up today at the Sydney Opera House for the Friday theme. This photo (thank you Sharon!) shows the tiles of the Opera House up close - such lovely geometic details, and the tiles are not all the same colour OR shape, as you might assume!
 ...


  

The view back to the city from the Sydney Opera House.

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Day 25   

The rain is stopping and we are back to lovely weather. 

I had a typical Saturday - taking my daughter to her dance class, doing some errands and pottering around the house. I wore this very loud striped t-shirt (no pattern) which gets few wears these days simply because it's too loose. But I realised I could tuck it into jeans just in one spot... and suddenly it's less ugly (what a simple MMM lesson to learn).

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Day 26   
 

Top made from a lovely blue and white striped Japanese cotton and a 70s sewing pattern (I forget the details but if I remember them I'll edit them in here later). 

I was going through my wardrobe this morning and had this one in the "send to second hand shop" pile, but I decided to try it one first. It was uncomfortably tight when I made it a few years ago, but hey presto, it fits me now! I even quite like it... 

Sorry about the poor details in the photo - the top seems to have suffered severe washout. It's actually NOT so muted irl.

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Day 27   
 

The selfies are getting a bit boring... so today I'm hamming it up, pretending to be shocked by something I've seen in the window of the Portico (Christian) bookshop in the old Scots Presbyterian church building on York St, Sydney. It's actually a lovely, unshocking and welcoming little bookshop but I try not to go there too often unless I really intend to buy books :). Or stationery. In fact I am trying to avoid most kinds of shops lately - know your weaknesses! 

I'm wearing a blouse made from pattern #125 of Burda magazine issue 2/2009. The fabric is a beautiful Japanese cotton I bought at Tessuti fabrics a few years back (from their old York St shop, in fact!) but its soft edged flowers are hard to photograph. I consider this an autumn / winter shirt even though it's short sleeved (does that seem mad???) but the puffed sleeves don't help with layering.

 

Now sitting down calmly on the edge of the old Scots Presbyterian church building on York St, Sydney. Why don't people sit here more often??

 ...

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Day 28   

This stairwell is part of the Ivy complex (George St, Sydney) and comes off Ash Lane, leading up to a bar I think. I haven't been there but the stripes appealed to me. It was late afternoon and raining outside - the light from the laneway was really dim.

Today was really chilly with an amazing thick fog in the morning, so I layered up. The dress is my Vogue 1257 DKNY dress ( worn before), which I thought I'd try with a cardi. The cardi helps with the fact that the dress design would better suit someone with a real bust ;). And the coat is my new unblogged V1263 coat which I wore earlier in MMM and complained was too itchy. Yes, too itchy over a t-shirt but fine on top of a cardi and a dress (phew, I didn't really want to add a lining). 

Thanks again to my colleague Marylene for photos!

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Day 29   
 

Another glorious Autumn day in Sydney, as you can see! Down at King Street Wharf at lunchtime today (after scrummy a vegetarian Thai meal at Peace Harmony restaurant on Erskine St).

Wearing my new Vogue 1293 red pants with a blue jumper (and my red trench, not shown), totally inspired by crab & bee's red and blue top :). This is a MMM repeat wear of these pants... not a repeat outfit though!

I love wearing colours, and only realised when I went to a meeting in head office how very UNcorporate I was looking. We don't have any restrictions on colours in our corporate dress code, but most people in head office dress in dark or muted colours. 

Thank you Marylene again!

My very lovely MMM weekday photographer, Marylene!
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Day 30        

I'm running behind - didn't get to post this yesterday because I swapped my MMM Flickr time for sewing time so as to finish today's dress :) which I'll try to post soon. 

Anyway, yesterday (30th May) I wore this summery looking dress, made from a stretch cotton/something else? from The Fabric Shop. The dress has an interesting neckline shape (which I like!) because I found I needed darts front and back to get a better fit... so I turned it into a "feature". You can see the details - such as they are - in the original blog post here. 

This photo was taken by the wall of a carpark on Kent St, Sydney, en route to meetings and lunch. Thanks Marylene!

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Day 31   
 

  

I know, I know - I've ignored the red theme - but I thought a cheery sunflower and a me made jungle of flowers would be a nice way of saying thank you :). So thank you Zoe, thank you SO much for organising another fabulous me made month, and a ginormous thank you to new and old sewing friends and contacts and fellow MMM-ers for your supportive comments, banter, your inspiring sewing, your interesting outfits, the glimpses into your lives, your lovely photos... It's been a terrific month and so wonderfully social, but I have to admit I'm looking forward to an evening away from the computer and a couple of days of wearing absolutely whatever. And a HUGE thank you finally to my amazing colleague Marylene who traipsed around the city with me most days taking photos, and who truly can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear :).

This year I committed to try to wear at least 1 me made item a day, not to repeat my outfits, but also (and this part is harder) to wear outfits I like and that I'll be happy to keep wearing later in the year.

I managed to wear at least 1 me made item a day, and I managed to avoid exactly repeating outfits, but I did repeat a few items (my new red pants, new grey wool coat, turquoise cashmere jacket, green merino dress).

Onto the harder part of the challenge. Probably in the last year I've realised that a bit of colour suits me better than greys and blacks, so even though pops of colour doesn't feel very corporate - and even though I'm normally just a jeans & jumper person on the weekend - I know I wore outfits I liked on most days and I hope I'll keep wearing those outfits through the year. By comparison there were a heap of sombre outfits I wore last year in MMM12 which I haven't worn since seeing myself in them back then :(.

This particular dress, finished last night, is a Vogue 8511 dress with a couple of small modifications as it's just not the world's most perfect pattern. I'll try to post details really soon on my blog. I'm standing in front of a Head On photo festival van that's parked at the top of Martin Place, Sydney.

Thank you again, good night, and hope to see you next year!
- Gabrielle xxx