I almost forgot

I promised a picture of the striped shirts.. No action shots, I forgot to take one in all the rush to have the shirts ready in time. My brother, the silly bugger, forgot to heat set the shirts before wearing them and they ink ran in the arm pits!

A Pretty Face

Just a little something I whipped up for Mother's Day.. It's amazing what you can do with coloured pencils, scrap paper, scissors and glue.

Quality costs

I've recently discovered that there is a good reason why a relatively small pre-made silk screen is so expensive.. Home made el cheapo silk screens which consist of $4 worth of timber from Bunnings and a few staples do not last for more than 6 prints. My silk screen is all striped out.

There are two Mime wannabe's going to this party on Friday night, and one of them is not getting stripes on his sleeves.

I am le tired, and too lazy to take download the pictures in order to post them so I'll try and do that tomorrow. Despite one shirt's lack of striped sleeves however, they still turned out better than I expected.

Brain fog is preventing me from producing a more stimulating string of sentences this evening so I shall bid this blog adieu, and call it a night. Before I go I have some advise for any budding printers out there.. wear an apron, and if rinsing one's screen outdoors, don't let one's fluffy white pets walk through the run off.

Sincerely sleepy,

Jessie MC
Black Is Not A Colour

Fun Fursday

It has been quite a while since I've had the chance to contribute to the millions of pages of drivel that exist on the world wide web... Acquiring a new puppy, celebrating Christmoose, New Years, Birthdays, Chocfest, and moving house do not a good blogger make.

As the title suggests, today is Fun Fursday. It's a relatively quiet day for work, the weekend is fast approaching, and there is late night shopping. What's not fun about that? It has been a silly day, and I have a niggling feeling that witnessing the death of good English and customer service in general every day is slowly killing off my brain cells. I have a fog over my brain which prevents me from thinking clearly, constructing proper sentences, and spelling or counting acurately. It also makes me laugh uncontrolably at my work mates making funny faces, and at my 'customers' failed attempts at human interactions. So it's not all bad.

I got my fabulous conflict free 'diamond' engagement earrings in the post today. Thank you to TaiLander for putting up with my eccentricities and saying 'Yes".

Thanks also to my best friend for the beautiful flowers, and to my work colleagues for the balloons and booze. You know me too well.

I must leave this blog short this evening, my dear brother is attending a fancy dress party as a mime tomorrow and needs me (a.k.a slave woman) to make his plain white t-shirt a black and white striped one. Fabric ink takes way too long to dry, and striping up a sleeve is not as easy as it looks. I'm sure thats something that is meant to be done pre-construction.

It's been an interesting experiment though, and has forced me to make the big silk screen I have been needing for some time now. I'll be sure to post some pictures once they are completed.

In the mean time, here is a picture of the latest addition to the Mac family. Tucker... he follows me around like a shadow, licks my legs when I get out of the shower, enjoys checking himself out in the mirror each morning, eats like it's always his last meal, and sleeps with his tongue poking out. Such a sweet little thing, and gets along wonderfully with his big brother Wilbur. My family is complete.. who needs kids when you have puppies?!

Sincerely needing sleep and waiting eagerly for the weekend to arrive,

Jessie MC
Black Is Not A Colour

Happy Wednesday

A short sweet note to wish all and sundry a happy Wednesday and to apolise for my unedited rantings in the early hours of this morning.

Also, a very happy birthday to my Dad who almost had me convinced he was God, and really does know everything. Unfortunately you have to wait until the weekend for your presents. Love and well wishes.

Briefly yours
Jessie MC
Black Is Not A Colour

The MEn With A Job and the Curious Case of Ms B.

I complained about my lack of sleep last night because the mEn with A job concerning a pole, some cable, the roof of my house and some heavy duty power tools decided not to do said job until midnight. Yet tonight, well on my way towards tomorrow morning, I sit here dutifully writing on my blog. A friend of mine said she felt like blog was a dirty word. So cliche and sounds so similar to that four letter word that doesn't have an 'L' in it. But here I am.

There are often so many thoughts in ones mind that when asked, "What are you thinking about?" you don't really know what you are thinking about, if anything. Maybe you just don't know how to respond. I wonder if the answer really is that you aren't thinking about anything important? Sometimes all those thoughts get a bit too tangled and your brain decides that sleep is not so important anymore. I wish my brain thought otherwise, because I have to get up at 6:45am to get ready to go to work again. Work, Oh how I loathe thee.

Speaking of difficult questions though, Ms. B - a woman in possession of the most peculiar and inappropriate laugh I've ever encountered - asked me recently where I see myself in 5 years time? Or more specifically, what would I like to be doing in 5 years time? What once seemed like such an easy question to answer, now puzzles me. What has changed since those naive days of high school, when we all had our futures mapped out and everything looked so rosy? What happened to the girl who told me that she wanted to be married by the time she was 21, although she had never had a boyfriend. What about the boy who started a locksmiths apprenticeship and proposed to his High School sweet heart by the time the rest of us graduated? And what about the one who wanted to be the Queen of her Domain, with multiple degrees, an exciting career, a healthy bank balance, and the dream home with a husband and kids to ice the cake?

I've been told that constant change, impatience and an unwillingness to settle for anything less than the best, are qualities that define my generation. I think we all need to be a bit more patient, and definitely in relationships we need to learn to appreciate that they take time and effort and will never be perfect (because we are never perfect). But in our life's ambitions, why should we ever settle for something less that what we set out to achieve? As we grow and learn more about the world around us, we should allow those ambitions and dreams to grow and evolve with us. The kid who thought he wanted to be a police officer and then grows up and becomes just that, may well decide that it's not what he thought it would be. That his dream is really something vastly different.

Why is it so important to own an ordinary house in the suburbs, with a mortgage that prevents us from really living until we are retired? That's not to say I don't ever want to be a home owner. But why, if I want something less ordinary, should I settle for the sake of settling, just because that is what everyone else does?

More than anything else, I want to see the world. I want to see other cultures and people and learn about the way the rest of the world functions. I want to see, in the flesh, some of those great historical monuments and artworks I spent so much time looking at in a book. I want to be inspired and enlightened. This planet is adorned with so much beauty that no camera can possibly do justice to it, and I want to see it for myself. Or at least some small part of it.

I have a lot of respect for my parents and my upbringing, but if I ever decide to breed I want to be able to tell them stories of adventures and castles that I really experienced myself. I want to impart them with some knowledge of the greater world around them. To give them a sense of adventure and to inspire them to see what the world has to offer them, and to want to look after it too.

If that means I won't own a home for a while so be it. If I want to have a home that has a nice view, or doesn't look like something out of a Leggo Land catalogue, then I may have to wait a little longer, but I will still strive towards it. Nobody should ever have to settle for second best.

Pursue your dreams, however lofty. You may just end up ruling the world. At the very least it will give you something to look forward to.

Jessie MC
Black Is Not A Colour
(But if your ambition is to make it one then you have my blessings)

Famous, Infamous, Soul-less and Sew-less..

Silly people who use their anonymous blog account to reply to a pseudonym's blog don't remain anonymous for long. Bah! Who needs to be anonymous anyway. A wise person once pointed out that nobody on the interwebs is really real anyways. Our blogs are a carefully constructed pastiche of our real selves, parading around like we are deep, insightful and have something valuable to share with the world wide web. If you, like me, consider my ramblings insightful, meaningful, and of value, or you are just a bit bored, then please continue reading. I'll try to make it interesting.

I made a guest star appearance in one of my favourite blogs recently. I was once told by one of those 'beautiful and she knows it' types that you are nobody until you're talked about. I am somebody now. For good or for bad I am not convinced but give me a few more cups of coffee, make me listen to a few more lousy customer service reps trying to communicate with labotomised customers and I could yet turn my fame and success into world domination.

If only my new found fame was accompanied by fortune. And by that I don't mean good luck, I mean cold hard cash. I'm not ashamed to admit I heart capitalism, I heart material things, I heart beautiful things and I am not really satisfied by minimalism (which I hear is going out of fashion and is due to return in 10 years time when the economy is booming again and people have money to spend on large portions of nothing much at all). If I had more money then perhaps I could replace the dearly departed with something new and shiny....

My hard working comrade died a slow death today. No it wasn't a person (they can't always be replaced by shiny things). My 30 something year old faithful sewing machine that has aided me in my endeavors to revolutionise the meaning of the word 'craft' sewed its last peice of material today. Actually it didn't sew it at all, wherein lies the problem. Perhaps it had something to do with me feeding paper and cardboard through it, or forcing it to use that thick heavy denim cotton. Or perhaps it was the plastic shower curtain I used it to hem. It may well be fixable but I can no longer justify spending just as much on repairs as I would a brand new sewing machine. Maybe my sewing-challenged mother will offer up hers until I find a replacement. Maybe I should tell her I have a blog so she gets the hint.

To those I promised lovely hand-made (by hand made I mean I made them with my sewing machine) gifts for the holiday season, you could be waiting a while. On the bright side, I am forced to find other ways to express myself and continue to create those cheap but invaluable masterpeices I palm off as presents. Perhaps the easel will make a comeback before the year is out. Time to moisten the brushes and dust off the palette.

R.I.P Mr Empisal Fee Arm Deluxe. Your cream and silver exterior and Harlow Italic font will be sorely missed.

Sincerely Sad,

Jessie MC
Black Is Not A Colour