Earlier in the month I wore a silk dress for general gardening.  Today I have selected black lace… to clean out the garage and shed.  Don’t worry, it’s not expensive lace just cheap-ish polyester-y stuff.  But it is lace, meaning cool and open to breezes; a priority.
Every six months local councils around here organise a verge pick-up.  That is, you get to toss out all your unwanted old junk onto your verge, and theoretically the council will come around and pick it all up for you to cart off to the tip.  Theoretically.  In reality however, everyone’s rubbish pile is reduced to a fraction of its original size by the time of the pick-up because this is just the best neighbourhood re-cycling scheme ever devised. Cars cruising very slowly up and down the streets become a common sight; people checking out everyone’s rubbish piles and periodically hopping out to retrieve a few treasures to stash in the boot for their own house and garden.   Kudos to the clever cookie in the public service who thought this one up.
And for once, this time we have managed to not pick up anybody else’s junk, although we had a close call when Sam spotted an old TV on the way home from volleyball yesterday… and I had to talk firmly and convincingly about how not only did we not know whether it actually worked  (sometimes people put a helpful note on the top telling you whether things still work; not this time which tells me it probably didn’t) but that personal TV’s in one’s bedroom are unsociable and unhealthy and not conducive to study, blah blah blah.  None of these points of view being particularly relevant arguments to the teenage mind.

Details:
Top; Butterick 4985 with different plainer sleeves, black lace and blue nacre heart-shaped buttons
Shorts; Burda 7723 modified, ivory corduroy, details here
Nail varnish; Santorini Sunset

Later: I lie.  We just got an old beautifully decorative ironwork gate from next door.  Score!

It’s actually too hot to be wearing my new shoes today, but I don’t care.  Wore them anyway, because I  just couldn’t resist their ever-so-slightly blotchy ivory leather, their pinked-edged, laced-up, strategically placed cut-outed charm.  Wore them to volleyball (we won).  To the supermarket.  Now they are off because my feet were swel-ter-ing and crying out to please be free of hot closed-in footwear… but I am already looking forward to wearing them again, soon.  Tonight, in fact, at a family barbecue…
All the other garments today are basic old favourites, all made years ago, including the necklace.  Comfort dressing.
Me-Made March has held an unexpected challenge for me in that we have had such an unprecedentedly long hot summer.  This first month of autumn has brought temperatures more like we would expect in January, meaning pretty hot.  So I haven’t been able to even think about wearing some of my old or new autumn things as planned, some of which haven’t been shown in that me-made group before.  I’m a little disappointed that most of my outfits have been just plain… well, plain.  I like to play around in my wardrobe and layer and mix things up, but when the days are an unending parade of 35C* one is limited to an unimaginative unlayered approach. Even so I’m pretty pleased with myself I’ve managed to (so far) not have any repeats, apart from my beige, sorry, sorry! nude petticoat.  The obvious inference from the fact that I am even able to do this is of course that perhaps I have too many clothes…

Details:
Top; my own design based on the basic shape of NewLook 6483, ivory cotton and crochet trim
Skirt; Vogue 7303 lined, ivory wool mix
Necklace, my own design
Shoes; Bronx, from Zomp shoes

*35C=95F in the old measurements

…  shopping and lunching with my mother and my two sisters-in-law.  Simply delightful.  We had a cocktail with lunch as well as a load of fun, and I spent a birthday gift voucher for Zomp on some totally adorable new shoes!  Will be showing them off here soon, for sure.

Details:
Top; my own design, made from an old pair of three quarter pants, details here
Skirt; my own design, charcoal jersey knit, seen first here
Sandals; Pedro Miralles, from Soletta shoes
Nail varnish; Pouty Purple, BYS

I quite like the utilitarian edginess of this outfit, with vaguely military overtones, thanks to the trench skirt.  When I first tried this top on with this skirt I was a bit struck with the unusualness of the look.  Sort of  intriguingly different.  It’s all quite boxy and not shaped to flatter my body at all.  But I’m OK with that.  After all, I dress to please myself; for both comfort and appropriateness to the weather, as well as to look nice.  Today is another hot one, so the airiness and unfittedness of the outfit allows for breezes.  And “nice” encompasses many things, pretty not always having to be amongst them.  This is more funky.  It’s not a very feminine look, but I don’t want always to look feminine.  I like an edgy unconventional look too; and I think this has that appeal.  So yeah.
The necklace is another I made a few years ago, during my beading fad.
Re Vogue 8333, the jacket with the “inside secrets to luxurious custom couture construction” (this is verbatim from the envelope, I’m actually not making that up); I bought some wool/silk mix while in Japan specifically for this jacket pattern and made a tiny start today.  I cut out the paper pieces today and read through the instructions.   Well, I did say a tiny start…
Has anyone else got this pattern and read through these instructions?
Some new concepts here; hair canvas… pad-stitching… er, bridles? I always thought bridles were for horses, apparently ladies wear them too, just in a different form, tucked away inside their lapels… ha!
You learn something new everyday.

Details:
Top; my own design, made from an old pair of ivory light cotton pants, details here
Skirt; Burdastyle magazine 08-2009-107, khaki cotton, close-up details and my review of this pattern here
Necklace; my own design
Belt; Country Road, had this for about twenty years
Shoes; Betts & Betts Brazilian collection, had these for about twenty years too

Me-Made March; Day 21
I may have been more influenced by Collette Dinnigan’s collection from Friday’s fashion parade than I realised as this morning I felt lace-y and nude and feminine was sartorially just what I craved.  The images of those pretty lingerie -y dresses have been simmering and percolating in my brain over the weekend and slowly settling in and I just had to go there.
“Nude” as a colour; one that has been bandied about in fashion circles as being very “in” a few years back when I made this dress.  My very stylish friend J who works in a boutique informs me quite seriously that “nude” is the word to use; no one uses “beige” anymore.  “Beige” is out out out, one must say nude, or alternatively stone or putty or sand or one of a small collection of more aesthetically pleasing variations, but never never beige.
Beige has “connotations”, it seems.
So I do still love this dress, whatever colour it is.  The lace has black and metallic silver in it, and I used a smudge-y purply silk chiffon for the ruche-d midriff section and the sash.  The dress has been seen here on the blog before; an oldie but still a favourite, a used-to-be-good dress for smart semi-formal does, now relegated to a day dress that makes me feel extra-specially feminine when I wear it.

Details:
Dress; based loosely on NewLook 6699, lace, border lace, silk chiffon and swiss voile lining
Sandals; Vincenza, from Soletta shoes
Nail varnish; Pouty Purple, BYS
(woops, I just realised… I did have a vague feeling of deja vu about this picture… and look here… snap!)