Swellington

I'm just back from a week in Wellington and what a whirl wind of a week it was. Once again I did a class and talk at Handmade both of which turned out to be pretty popular. By Sunday I had come down with a stinking head cold and wasn't feeling the sharpest so I truly apologise to anyone who came along for being a bit on the fuzzy side. As always it was a real pleasure and I got to meet so many lovely people. I miss teaching a lot and it's nice to have a taste of running workshops again.

In my drawing class with my 1 minute self portrait. It's hard to tell us apart I'm the one on the right.

I might have an opportunity or two to do some teaching in Auckland later this year, if you have any ideas of what you would be interested in me teaching I'd love to hear your thoughts. I feel like digital illustration would be a great option but I'm not sure I can get access to a computer lab.

I haven't been to Wellington for a year, in some ways it felt like nothing had changed and in other ways it felt totally different. I got to try out a couple of new restaurants, Thunderbird a tex-mex which does great breakfasts and even better dirty milkshakes (dirty with booze not actual mud). I also went to the charming Loretta's on cuba street. Its name has left me with Nick Cave's 'Curse of Millhaven' stuck in my head but the restaurant is a lot sweeter natured than the murderous little girl in that song.

Maybe my favourite foodie find was the Chai Tea cart outside of Floriditas. What with the head cold and all, the lemon and honey was a bit of a saving grace. Plus how lovely are the graphics, hand painted by the owners wife. nice job.

I also finally managed to get my hands on a cronut about two years after them being a 'thing' (thank you Moore Wilson's). Ok what ever, I live in Dunedin trends take a while to reach us. They got a bit squished on the flight home but both Scott and I enjoyed them all the same.

Goodness this post is turning out to be more about food than Wellington, I guess that tells you a lot about how my brain works. Anyway this is the last culinary related item. How lovely is my friends beautifully renovated kitchen. They started the job about three years ago just as I was moving down south. I can't get over how amazing it turned out. The photos don't do it justice, it honestly should be on the cover of a homes and gardens magazine.

Something else I always enjoy about Wellington is the street art. Quite a lot of new cool additions in the past year. 

Finally my sweet boy blow his Air Points (thank you Scott) to let me extend my trip for an extra three days so I could stay for the opening of Swonderful's first Pop-up shop. I've know Evie of 'Evie Kemp' and Amy of 'Mylarke' for a number of years now and it's really wonderful watching their businesses grow and evolve plus all the things they are achieving together. I'm pretty jealous of their union it can get lonely being self employed and I can see it benefits them both having a creative alliance. Their work looks fantastic in the pop-up shop and just Swonderful on it's own merits is well worth a visit. The Swonderful Pop-up shop is open through out June at Swonderful Boutique, 241 Cuba Street, Wellington.

Other Wellington highlights included shopping in Khandallah's new home ware shop Tea Pea. Dropping by Matchbox and reading zines. Seeing behind the scenes at iko Iko. Meeting a whole bunch of tweeter people in person (even if I could only recall twitter handles and not full name in most cases) and generally having epic catch ups with my Wellington friends.

I have a pretty busy few weeks ahead, I'm back in teaching at the polytech next week and have really got to get cracking on my Christmas range. Having some time in a different city and away from the computer has been so worth it though. I'm feeling full of ideas and energy. I guess this is where I say something totally cheesy like watch this space.