williamsews

We live twenty minutes away from the heart of the city, it's a beautiful place, founded on steel and coal, but experiencing a renaissance, a lot of construction, mainly handsome apartment blocks. The big fabric shop, (Spotlight), was very accessible, I'd travel, either by car or bus (the bus is so easy) to buy too much fabric, but the site was sold for a new apartment block and the store, has moved way over to the other side of town, just too far away. Anyway, that's not what this is all about. What I wanted to say is the town, second in size to Sydney is a charming place with lovely Art Deco and federation buildings. These are photographs of the old part of town,  West Newcastle is where the apartment blocks are growing like mushrooms. There is a harbour and lots of beaches, with coffee shops and bronzed people.  There is a dog beach, I used to take my Clyde there - not often enough. I miss him. The Art Deco town hall is in the background The Anglican Cathedral on the high...

  I had the privilege of seeing Judy Garland in 1964, when she visited Australia for concerts in Sydney and Melbourne. Her concert in Sydney was a knockout, she was a sensation, a perfect performance. What a difference a city makes, the concert in Melbourne was a disaster. Judy was hours late, and when she did arrive, she decided that she just wanted to talk, sitting on the edge of the stage, rambling on about her grievances.  She eventually sang 'San Francisco' - flawlessly, not a flat or missed note, it was enthralling to see her (even if briefly) at her best...what an amazing performer. On her arrival onstage, she wore a pencil skirt and perilously high stilettos but then changed to flat shoes and slacks.  After singing that one song so perfectly, she bounced offstage as they played the overture to 'Over the Rainbow' several times, but, then the announcement was made that Miss Garland wouldn't be returning to the stage. Heartbreaking, because I thought she was th...

 ...and try to turn it into a silk purse. That's what we did with an old church we bought. It was cheap to buy because it was a neglected eyesore. It was a Baptist church, built in 1950, a new church had been built, and they moved and put this place on the market. It was sold, but the new owners did nothing with it, not a splash of paint, nothing. They had it for about eight years, and in that time, it just became sadder and seriously neglected. We bought it about 25 years ago, and began to work on it, new guttering, painting the exterior and dividing a back hall into a large studio (I live with a watercolourist) and two bedrooms. The Back Hall, became bedrooms & studio The main hall became the living room Kitchen Bathroom The sewing room.  It took a while, but it became a comfortable home.  

                             Being an Imperial Guard on 'Mad Max, beyond Thunderdome' was an experience. I've done some modelling over the years, mainly photographic, also extra work on television and films, and my agent found me a part as an imperial guard, on 'Mad Max, Beyond Thunderdome', this meant having a Mohawk haircut. we were chosen for height, although the other boys made me feel good because they were taller and bigger than me. It looks like fun, but it was grueling work in the hot sun, filming took place at the Homebush quarry at the height of summer, with heavy rubber and leather costumes. Tyres were burned for dystopian visuals, not great to deal with, Well, it was fun to be honest... I remember one scene where I was on the roof of a building in 'Bartertown' with Tina Turner as explosions were happening, she was terrified and kept squeezing my hand. Her stiletto heeled shoes were interesting, they w...

 I was born in Melbourne, Australia, and in 1964, I travelled to London; "Swinging London" - Wow - or groovy, as we said way back then. It was a rite of passage for young Australians at this time to travel to the UK, as working holidayers.  It would be easy to leave Melbourne behind, it was an uptight town - the bars and hotels closed at six in the evening, hard to believe, but true. People left work at 5:30 and had half an hour to socialise,  no place for young people who wanted to have fun. Leaving on the RHMS Ellenis.  The trip took six weeks and stopped at exotic and wonderful places on the way, eventually arriving at Portsmouth, surrounded by ghosts - the English were so pale! It was a surprise.  Took a steam train to London - what a place London was, colourful and exciting, Carnaby St, Kings Rd, fabulous clothes, wonderful music, and later, Biba, just people having a fab time. Here I was, in a young person's paradise, I was a hairdresser at the time, but t...

 I have been working on two new blocks. This is 'Weave', simple to sew. This is a traditional block; 'Road to Heaven', I used 'heavenly' fabrics for this. Both are simple blocks to cut and sew; and don't use much fabric (great for scraps). The next video will be Weave. I am considering the purchase of Electric Quilt to design blocks. I shall study a few more vidoes before I decide, the alternative is to work out patterns on graph paper, but I can only buy the paper in metric here. Meanwhile, I have a few ideas that I'll work on. Visited my favourite charity shop today and found a lot of great fabric pieces, large and small. I am a fabric hoarder...nothing new in that. Back to the machine, Regards, Will.