I went wandering at lunch time today. Sometimes I just get itchy feet and need to escape and fantasize about an alternate reality where I can make enough to scrape by on and a little more (for fun, y'know) by utilising my itchy fingers.

The making process is a funny one for me and I think by understanding it you'll understand me a little better. Maybe that's all art is. The difference between the good and the bad is nothing more than how well we can articulate and execute how and what we're feeling and thinking and relating.

So, I get itchy feet and often the first place I'll go to dream is the Job Warehouse. It's lost a lot of its charm since the old man died. His son's just aren't as... exacting. I have so many lovely memories of the Job Warehouse. My favourite is when I was looking to buy some red corduroy in the autumn of 1993. The fabric for an a-line mini for my friend Shannon-Kate, to go with the blue body-shirt I'd made her a month or so earlier. The old man glared disapprovingly at me, trembling voice (and trembling head to toe) I asked if he had any red wide wale corduroy. Come, he motioned, Vee haf some in ze varehouse. So I followed him out the front door, round the side of the building past Paperback Books and down Crossley Street. He fumbled with a lock in a quite-frankly disgusting door. Up the stairs we went, feet picking over the detritus of years, nose wrinkled against the stench of stale urine. Creeping up behind the old man, we climbed to the top. It seemed like forever upwards.

I entered into a huge once open space, though the dusty piles and bolts of fabrics of every description stacked high to the roof had long since ensured you could but pick your way through. And you know what? The old man knew exactly where he needed to look. As we wove through the warehouse he would touch a peice of fabric her and another there, pointing out: zis iss a nice piece of cloth. When he located the cord, it was better than I thought I could get my hands on - primary red with alternating wide and thin wale. I would bet my life that fabric had been sitting up there since the 70's. And he knew exactly where it was. That room made me dream. It still does.

I have friends, and not just one or two, who have told me that they were never allowed in the door. The old man would take one look at them and shoo them: Go avay. you cannot enter. And he meant it. They're allowed in now that the old man is no longer guardian.

I bought this piece of fabric at the Job Warehouse today. I couldn't decide at first whether it was to be a kind of pinnie/frock or a swimsuit. You can't tell too well in this picture, but it's a thickish not-very stretchy knit (Hmmm... technical description there, you'd never guess I took four semesters of textile specifications) of finely sriped white and orange. Yeah, I have a bit of a thing for orange.

But I think it has to be a swimsuit. Bikini, of course and a bit retro inspired.