Tinsel Town

So, the Christmas parties are done and dusted, the tree's come down and the diet's started. I for one an glad we're back to normality, though I am going to miss the lights!

I attended a couple of soirees, which I enjoyed immensely, though I had a bit of a damp Christmas, being really ill for most of it and thus spent New Years watching Buffy at home.

Fortunately, I did have fun in the pre-Christmas week. I went to a works do, where we had a lovely meal and more than one drink. I wore a lace blouse from Zara, an old charity shop find which only really comes out at Christmas, paired with my Nan's black velvet skirt - perfect for the cold, blustery evening. It felt odd wearing black stockings -  I've only worn tan ones for so long, but they're What Katie Did retro stockings, so I got to keep my seams at least.

Later the same week I went with friends to Blitzmas, a 40s themed dance in town. For this, I pulled out the Butterick dress I made back in 2010, but have only worn once! It didn't fit me that well back then, and I've lost weight since, but it's festive and just about the only Christmassy dress in my wardrobe, so out it came!

I accessorised with a handy bit of tinsel, and my trusty Clarks shoes (note to self, buy more evening footwear) I also wore my new MAC lippie, in Chilli, which is far darker and more orangy than my normal Russian Red, but actually a lot easier to wear. The colour still looks good and red as well as matte, but it's far less drying and not so flashy. It's my new firm favourite!

Blitzmas was a big success and I had a fantastic time with our friends, who not only looked great but showed off their mad swing dancing skills as well.

I have sworn that I'm going to try to get out more often in 2012!

What about you, any good parties over the festive season?

One weekend, two outfits

Yup, that's right, I wore two outfits in two days. Fancy.

What is worth mentioning is that I actually managed to take two pictures in one weekend. It's some kind of record. What probably isn't surprising it that it's taken me more than a week to post, but hey, you can't have everything!

Last Saturday I was at home, seeing my family. We spent most of the day preparing for a party to celebrate my Dad's 60th but in the evening I popped on my Simplicity 5594 blouse with my Heyday trousers (sadly this tweedy fabric is now out of stock but they have some lovely new wool based fabrics in instead) and my new red shoes and had a jolly nice time.

I'm loving my set now - it takes me about 10-15 minutes to do, usually sitting in bed watching catch up tv late in the evening. It does desperately need a cut though - my split ends are getting out of control!

On the Sunday we went out to see a couple of friends for coffee, and I threw on an outfit that I was actually very happy with. I'm less happy with the pictures - I took dozens and these are the best of a very bad bunch.

The cardigan is from Debenhams and is new - I'm seriously considering getting one in another colour , maybe this black and white one, because it's light and pretty and beautifully fitted. The blouse is very old and from a charity shop, I bought it years ago and 'rediscovered' it at my parent's house! Love it when that happens! The skirt is also very old, I bought it at Coast, on a massive sale years ago. It was the last one left and a size 8, but incredibly fit perfectly. I'm a bit bigger now than I was back then, but it just fits me slightly higher up the waist now, which suits me fine. It's a lovely heavy linen too which makes it swish beautifully, but keeps it cool for the hot weather. It's a great skirt. Finally the shoes are another pair I bought in the Clarks' sale, they have an ankle strap and a nice wide heel so they're comfy and practical. Plus, they're very similar to many 40s designs I've seen. I've worn these alot since I bought them, so I think it was money well spent!

I hope you all had a nice time last weekend! ;)

Setting and dieting

Well, that's another week over and done with, and typically, the rain has just set in for the rest of the weekend. I was going to go to the Chap Olympiad today but ended up selling my tickets on to a friend and buying tickets to a weekend event organised by friends. As it happens, I am now in bed with an upset stomach while hubby is getting rained on in a tent somewhere in Wales...So much for my plans!

I spent Tuesday this week working at home and took the opportunity to get some housework done.

Why do my arms look massive in this photo?

I also took the chance to set my hair while I was at home. I've put it up in foam rollers with a spritz of setting lotion and this'll last me about 2 days before it drops significantly. This is actually fine for me, since my hair tends to get greasy and limp if leave it any longer between washes! When I saw my Nan and Grandad the other weekend, I was chatting to my Nan about rollers. She finds it so funny that I'd choose to sleep in rollers, just like she used to but is amazed at how soft the plastic and foam ones are, not like her metal contraptions! My Mum thinks I'm mad, of course. She is of the generation that burned not just their bras, but rollers, stockings and all those other uncomfortable things I now use on a daily basis. Weirdest of all was hearing the conversation between my Husband and my Grandad about women wearing curlers to bed, all very strange! 

If I remember I'll try to get some pictures of my set one evening. It's very easy to do, surprisingly so for someone with limited hair skills like myself, and amazingly not at all difficult to sleep in!

These are my old faithful Freddies of Pinewood jeans, teamed with a new charity shop peasant style blouse. It has smocking over the whole of the waist area, which makes it very fitted under the bust, I'm a big paranoid about the attention this draws to my boobs, but it also shows of my newly slim waist, so I take it as a win! Since I started dieting about 2 months ago I've lost 19lb and by golly do I feel different. I now only have a few pounds, maybe 4, till I reach the goal I set for myself, never dreaming I'd actually get there. Sadly, this does mean that many items of clothing, like 2 pairs of Freddies jeans, no longer fit like they used too. Even these ones are getting a bit loose in the waist. This is especially annoying when it's clothes I've made - my 1940s summer dress is now swimming on me. I don't know whether to try to take it in (tricky with the pleats and tucks on the yoke), reuse the fabric for a skirt or pass it on. It has my first ever bound buttonholes and collar, so I'm loathe to do anything that would lose them! Opinions and bright ideas welcome!

I thought I'd share this book with you while I was at it - I picked it up in a little second had book shop they have at the National Trust property I visited last week, Tyntesfield.
It was published in 1971 and is worth the massive 50p price tag for the pictures alone!

It's also full of very handy hints about different sewing techniques, like collars and buttonholes!

Of course, I didn't really need it - I have dozens of books both antique and modern about dressmaking - I just couldn't leave it there. Does anyone else have trouble resisting vintage sewing books?

I'm a loser

This post is brought to you by the numbers 3, 9 and 10.13.
I've been dieting for 3 weeks now, and have shifted 9lbs. I've gone from 11st 8 to 10st 13 and have managed to fit into clothes I haven't worn for more than a year.
As you might guess, I'm one happy lady!
If you're interested, the diet is 'Diet Chef'. It's a calorie control diet, no fancy principles, but the important bit is that they send you meals ready made. They're not fantastic, but they're far from bad and you add fresh fruit and veg to them. I'd recommend it to anyone who struggles to stick to diets!

So, this outfit features a pair of Heyday trousers I bought about 18 months ago and couldn't get done up. In celebration of my weight loss, I've been wearing them all week!

My shoes were from Primark a little while ago, the blouse is one I made a little while back and the cardigan is an old faithful from Marks and Spencer.

I'm hoping to lose a bit more weight before I go back to scoffing the pies. I'm craving all the bad things like mad, but seeing the lbs fall off is helping to keep me on the straight and narrow!

There will be another week of radio silence from me - I have my second A-Level exam next week but after that I should be back to the sewing and posting. I'm looking forwards to a break in the studying!

New skirt and an Easter bonnet

I ran this skirt up yesterday, using some old gingham and Gertie's gathered skirt instructions.
Seriously people, if you have 3 hours and 2m fabric laying around you can make this too. It's the baked beans on toast of the sewing world.

I lined this skirt with some plain white cotton because it was too light to wear on its own. It's ended up with a nice weight and is still very soft. I'm really pleased with it.

I decided to wear it out today with my handmade top and a bonnet style hat I found at a flea market last year. My butterfly brooch, which you can't see to well here, got an outing too. I've been all about the brooches recently. They're great for dressing up an outfit.

We went out to a friend's bbq and had a great time drinking wine in the sunshine and setting fire to things.

Meg came to see me while I was taking the photos. She's spent the day hunting big game like spiders and butterflies and is now dreaming deeply on the sofa.

It's my Birthday and I'll shop if I want to

I turned 27 yesterday and was thoroughly spoilt by everyone, even though I went to work I had a really lovely day!
I decided to wear a home made outfit and so pulled out my bow blouse with my Simplicity 3688 skirt (I must make some more separates!) and threw a Marks and Spencer cardigan on. Pretty and comfy. I'm really pleased to be getting a range of handmade clothes into my wardrobe.

I'm so pleased to be going to work on my Birthday!

Since it was my Birthday I thought I'd relax my shopping fast slightly and get some more setting lotion. Yeah, I'm a rebel!

I saw my parents and grandparents at the weekend and had a really lovely family meal on Sunday. Everyone has given me lovely gifts too.
From my parents I got some Freddies 1940s workpants, Erin's book 'The Secret Lives of Dresses', 'Air Raids and Rationbooks' - a book on life on the homefront and 'Went the Day Well?' That's enough to keep me busy for a while!

My brother and his girlfriend gave me this great tea-towel and matching mug from Past Times. Aren't they cute?

My Grandparents gave me some money since they don't get out very much any more, and I'm torn over what to do with it...do I use it to treat myself to some nice new clothes, or put it towards my debts? Maybe half and half? I've been looking at not only summer shoes, but also sunglasses, having broken my last pair at the end of the summer...No lack of things to spend the money on, but I think I'd feel bad frittering it away when I have a huge overdraft!
My work colleagues gave me some gardening vouchers, a book on growing vegetables and some brussel sprout and beetroot seedlings. I think I'm going to be hard at work for the next few weeks getting everything in the ground!

And finally, this was Tom's gift

The Janome DM234 overlocker. Isn't she a beauty? It doesn't look as though it's ever been out of the box, although it was advertised as an ex-display model.
I'm really excited about getting to grips with using this and I'm hoping it's going to help me make my creations that little bit more professional. Tom bought it from Sewing Machines Direct. Terrible website, great service. It came with 4 free cotton spools in black, white a cream, a set of scissors and some sewing basics like an unpicker and tape measure. And a free carry case for the overlocker. Pretty good if you ask me!

I spent the evening at a local pub with some friends. Nothing flashy but it was lovely to have everyone together and just chat away for several hours.

Happy Birthday to me!

Watch this space for the winners of my giveaway and a review of my night out in Shoreditch on Saturday!

I've got designs on a pattern

Just a quick outfit post today. I'm prepping a post about hair this week - I went ahead and got my perm last week and have some observations I think might be useful. So watch this space!

 

This jacket is a 1940s one I bought from Etsy from a selling in America. The buttons are beautiful and sparkly and th fit is perfect. I wore it with a plain blue shirt and my trusty homemade skirt.

I've also made some progress on my tedious sewing-saga. Never have 2 simple jobs caused so much huffing and puffing. I'll be glad to get them done and crack on with something I can wear out! Again, pictures later this week.

It's fortunate, actually, as I've agreed to have a go at this pattern for a meet-up in London.

The dress is lovely, but the bodice is designed for the slim and boyish. My figure hasn't been described that way since I was about 12, so there's a LOT of adjustment to do. I don't know if I'll work it out before the meet, but I'm going to do my best...

Give us freedom or give us death

Another sunny but cold day today. I decided to go for trousers again and my crepe 1930s top I made last year. It's lovely for snuggling into in the cold! I also got to show off my new bag, a gift from my husband. It's only a cheapy from eBay but it looks fab and has loads of pockets on the inside. Best of all, it's lined in a leopard pattern!

As you may have noticed, today is International Women's Day. As before, today passed with with me barely being aware it was anything special, until I went out at lunch time.

Bristol has gained it's own temporary Speaker's Corner and I arrived just in time to see an actress (in very nice Edwardian style clothes) deliver a speech taken from this speech by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1913. Apparently we missed the 'I Have a Dream' speech by Martin Luther King just before this, which I was disappointed about - it's a great speech which I know fairly well and I'd have liked to have heard it given by a strong orator.

The Pankhurst speech wasn't one I'd ever heard before. It was beautifully delivered but I was most struck with how powerful her words were, and how they are still relevant to not only women, but anyone being poorly treated by their governments today. It's a long speech, so I've taken some of what I thought were the highlights, but I do recommend reading it in full. This is especially the case for Americans, as it draws heavily on American history, being given in America while Mrs Pankhurst was 'between gaol spells'!

We were called militant, and we were quite willing to accept the name. We were determined to press this question of the enfranchisement of women to the point where we were no longer to be ignored by the politicians.

You have two babies very hungry and wanting to be fed. One baby is a patient baby, and waits indefinitely until its mother is ready to feed it. The other baby is an impatient baby and cries lustily, screams and kicks and makes everybody unpleasant until it is fed. Well, we know perfectly well which baby is attended to first. That is the whole history of politics. You have to make more noise than anybody else, you have to make yourself more obtrusive than anybody else, you have to fill all the papers more than anybody else, in fact you have to be there all the time and see that they do not snow you under.


We wear no mark; we belong to every class; we permeate every class of the community from the highest to the lowest; and so you see in the woman's civil war the dear men of my country are discovering it is absolutely impossible to deal with it: you cannot locate it, and you cannot stop it.

They have said to us, government rests upon force, the women haven't force, so they must submit. Well, we are showing them that government does not rest upon force at all: it rests upon consent. As long as women consent to be unjustly governed, they can be, but directly women say: "We withhold our consent, we will not be governed any longer so long as that government is unjust." Not by the forces of civil war can you govern the very weakest woman. You can kill that woman, but she escapes you then; you cannot govern her. No power on earth can govern a human being, however feeble, who withholds his or her consent.

Human life for us is sacred, but we say if any life is to be sacrificed it shall be ours; we won't do it ourselves, but we will put the enemy in the position where they will have to choose between giving us freedom or giving us death.

If we win it, this hardest of all fights, then, to be sure, in the future it is going to be made easier for women all over the world to win their fight when their time comes.

Edited to say; And here's a video of the same speech, given by the same actress last year.

Brideshead Revisited, revisited

Ah, Monday again. How does the weekend pass so quickly? Still, this weekend was a pretty productive one for me so I can't complain.

Today's outfit - I made the blouse myself yesterday!
Cardigan - EWM, Trousers - M&S

I went to my German class which was sehr gut although I have come away with a slight fear of asking for directions, least someone responds with a stream of incomprehensible instructions. I do feel happier about shopping though (very important!), and explaining that I don't eat meat or fish, something that a lot of continental Europeans can't quite get their heads round! I think I'll have to do some hard work with Michel Thomas before we visit Germany, but I feel more as though I can learn now, which is a start!

I also watched 3 films on Sunday (no husband for the day so I got to catch up on all the films he's turned his nose up at!) while I was sewing.

First I saw Brideshead Revisited on iPlayer. I own the series with Jeremy Irons and love it, so I was curious to see how this modern version compared. Poorly, I'm afraid was the answer.

The costumes were pretty fab

Truth be told I found the original series hard to get into and very slow going at first. However, it wasn't long before I was drawn in, along with Charles, to the Flyte family's bizarre and dark world and I was hooked. Rewatching the first couple of episodes I found them more captivating, given the rather sad conclusion.
Sadly, there's only so much you can do with 2 hours of screen time and it just wasn't long enough to draw me into the story. Sebastian Flyte is, lets face it, not a particularly likable character. In the series, though, his friendship with Charles has time to develop and we come to see him as Charles sees him, mad and bad, yes, but also a dazzling and exotic wonder in Charles' rather drab life. It's because of Charles' growing love that we can sympathise with the horrifying mess that Sebastian gets himself into, the effort to which Charles goes to try to save him and, ultimately, the full significance of his return to Brideshead in the war.

In the film, none of this has time to develop and I rather wondered why Charles would bother, given how ridiculous a figure Sebastian is. In addition, I found Ben Whishaw's portrayal of Sebastian rather strained. His attempt to be effete and decadently camp seemed false and stilted, his mannerisms put on. Compared to Anthony Andrews' stunning performance (for which he won a BAFTA and was nominated for an Emmy) in the TV series it was just flat. The same goes for Charles Ryder, played by Jeremy Irons in the series - a middle class boy caught in the headlights of the decadent world of Oxford's elite and gradually coming to find himself in the madness of his lifestyle. None of that was evident in the new version. And I won't mention Laurence Olivier's Emmy winning performance!

The original and best!

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing intrinsicly bad with the film - the performances and the script writing are pretty good throughout, it just can't hold a candle to the series!

The other films I watched were Dorian Gray, which I thoroughly enjoyed and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I've never read the books, though I've heard so many people recommend them, so I thought I'd give the film a go, seeing as it's free with my Lovefilm package. I'm glad I did, it's a sophisticated crime thriller and stands out from large crowd of films in that genre. I liked Lisbeth from the start and found the mystery gripping. Both these films come highly recommended by me!

The other thing I managed to find time for was more cat-fussing. Meg and Deryn are getting on much better today and they even had a slightly frightened game last night where they chased each other around for a bit. While I think they both wanted to play, neither seemed totally certain that the other wasn't attacking them in a rubbish way, but they seemed to have fun and I think it bodes well!
Also, I saw Meg sitting down for the first time since she arrived! I think we've finally managed to tire her little kitten legs out!

Berets and Bows

Another quicky tonight with an outfit post.

Cardigan - Monsoon, Skirt - handmade, Shoes - Primark, Beret - M&S

I'm so glad it's the end of the week. This has been one of those weeks where I wasn't sure if I'd make it to Friday.

I have a day class tomorrow in 'Holiday German', so you can expect a riveting post about booking hotels and buying cheese in German at some point soon. Hopefully I'll be able to finish off one or more sewing projects on Sunday so I can post something interesting, and get out of this sewing rut I seem to be in.

Other fun things today include a pledge to stop spending money on myself for Lent. Have a look at Midnight Maniac's blog for details!

I have other, exciting news to post this weekend so do stay tuned!

Where's spring?

I was chuffing cold today, see your own breath cold. I'd hoped that by March we'd be seeing a few more balmy days but no such luck.
As a result of the toe curling cold I wore my cashmere socks with my WKD seamed stockings and my cashmilion (best invention ever) cardie over a new ebay purchase - a pretty vest top that looks like a very old fashioned camisole. Fortunately with the addition of a wool beret, wool scarf and a heavy coat I didn't freeze to death.

Cardigan - Marks and Spencer, Vest - ASOS via eBay, Skirt - homemade :)

I managed to finally make some moves towards getting a perm. I've found a young hairdresser who works at a salon near my office and seems to have good perm experience. I'm going to book a consultation with her to discuss what I'm after and see what happens next... As you cans ee from the photo above, my hair has nothing resenbling a curl in it when it's unstyled and resents holding a curl for more time than it takes me to do my makeup. A perm is probably drastic measures but I feel like it's my only option, other than doing a full set every single evening, which just aint happening!

In other news, I've downloaded my first Burda pattern, a blouse and if I ever get past the trousers and dress that have been holding me up for the last month, I'm going to make that next I think.

Hope you're all having good weeks so far - only 2 days to the weekend!

Outfit for another cloudy day

I managed to get up in time for another outfit post today - twice in one week - fancy that!

This is my Simplicity 3688 skirt, worn with a Marks and Spencer cashmillion cardigan and Clarks Cuban Hat wedges.

I've spent some time today sorting out a whole bunch of patterns to sell on etsy. They're all from the 70s and 80s, as these were given to me by my mother in law, who's been a keen home sewist. There are some amazing patterns, and a couple of unbelievable 80s jumpsuits.

Keep an eye out for these, plus some shoes and clothes that should all be going up in the next couple of weeks!