A Rocking Day Out!

I was lucky enough to win a

 "Rocking Day Out in Bendigo" 

on radio 3AW.

Wednesday was the day. 

We had an early start and left home at 5.30am to 

catch the train to Southern Cross. 

Then onto another train to Bendigo.

We were hosted by David Mann aka "Mann About Town" 

and Bronwyn from 3AW.

First stop was the Elvis: Direct from Graceland Exhibition. 

It was fabulous.

Priscilla's wedding dress.

 

Some of the items on show have never 

even been displayed at Graceland.

There were many of Elvis' costumes.

The amount of decoration on some of them was amazing.

Then we were off to Balgownie Estate for lunch.

This is Jack Gatto, Australia's greatest Elvis impersonator.

 He also plays guitar with the Wiggles and

 is the stand-in for Anthony, the blue Wiggle!

He just happened to be at the exhibition as he was there 

for an interview on Sunrise earlier in the morning. 

David invited him to join us for lunch which was a lovely bonus.

 Jack treated us to a couple of songs.

He showed us one of his costumes. 

It is an exact replica of one of Elvis' and he had to 

get permission from the Graceland Estate to have it. 

It is quite heavy.

After lunch it was off to the 

"Shake, Rattle and Roll Cocktail Tram"! 

There was a cocktail (or two!) and lots of singing. 

I filmed Jack singing but it's too large a file for Blogger. 

Such a pity as he is great.

We even had a bit of a dance!

And another one when we got off the tram! Haha!

They had Elvis playing over the loud speaker. 

We're a bit rusty as we haven't been dancing for a while.

Then it was time to catch the train back to Melbourne. 

While waiting at Southern Cross Station for our train 

home to Diamond Creek, we chatted some more with one 

of the couples while we waited. After getting to know each 

other a bit more we worked out that Boris and I went to school

 together over 40 years ago! We both remembered each other's 

names but not faces as we didn't really 

"hang around together" at school. It's such a small world.

 

What a fabulous day we had! 

It was a long day as we didn't get home until 7.45pm.

I had forgotten I'd entered the competition 

and then thought the prize was a 

double pass to the exhibition. But it was so much more.

I hope you've enjoyed hearing about our 

"Rocking Day Out in Bendigo"!

House of Dior Exhibition

I made it to The House of Dior Seventy Years of Haute Couture the second last day of the exhibition and 

I'm so glad I did. It was fabulous.

The Atelier (studio or workshop).

One of the highlights was meeting Catherine. Catherine is one of the Parisian Artisans at The House of Dior. I could very easily have sat and listened (through an interpreter) to her all day. She had some fascinating stories about what it is like to be in the Atelier. Someone asked Catherine 

how long it took to study to get to be able to do this 

kind of work. It was thirteen years of study!

 Demonstrating a sleeve. 

That little dark bag is Catherine's sewing kit. She kindly showed us the different sizes of pins and needles she works with, along with the different kinds of threads. I have never seen such fine or heavy pins as she had.

 These are some examples of her handstitched button 

holes. Look how perfect they are.

 Everything in a garment is stitched by hand. 

This is the red coat made by Catherine. 

You can see her working on it in the background. 

This one took her about 160 hours to make. 

Some dresses can be up to 180 hours to make.

 Only one seamstress will work on each dress.

Looking down on the Atelier.

 Watching fashion shows on the large screen.

 You could then go an see the actual dresses.

 These are a couple of my favourite dresses. 

Just the style I love!

 A close up of the embroidery. It was all so perfect. 

They are all gold stitches, not gold ribbon.

 More embroidered dressses.

 A close-up of the embroidery on the dress above.

 Then there were the shoes.

And the hats.

 Aren't these gorgeous!

 

 Perfume bottles.

 This was Miranda Kerr's dress for her wedding to 

Evan Spiegal earlier this year. 

 

Those are appliqued embroidered 

sprays of lily-of-the-valley.

Yves Saint Larent gowns.

John Galliano gowns.

The chartreuse gown was worn by Nicole Kidman 

to the 1997 Academy Awards.

 

There were so many amazing gowns. 

Just out of interest, did you know that the models had 49cm (about 19 inch) waists!

Making The Australian Quilt 1800-1950 Exhibition

Yesterday, Melody, Anne (no blog) and I headed into town to the Making the Australian Quilt: 1800-1950 

Exhibition at The Ian Potter Centre, NGV.

This is the Rajah Quilt that was made by convict 

women en route to Australia in 1841. 

It was so much bigger than I imagined.

This is in the centre bottom of the quilt.

There were lots of hexagon quilts.

This quilt was dated around 1830 and 

still had the papers in it.

This one was attributed to Elizabeth MacArthur c 1840.

The flowers were fussy cut. Everything matched up perfectly, even the thin stripes. I wonder if they made templates for the fussy cutting!

 

 There were so many beautiful quilts.

 

I've taken heaps of photos and I'm sure Mel 

will show you some different quilts.

Of course, we couldn't go to town 

without popping into L'uccello's!

Next up was lunch in Degraves Laneway. It was a bit squashy there but lots of atmosphere.

This is the window at the Hopetoun Tea Rooms in the Block Arcade. We were very good and just looked!

But we may or may not have stopped 

in at Haigh's Chocolates for a little sample!

It was a wonderful day out. I'm so glad we got to go to the Exhibition. It would have been such a pity to miss it.