Tag Archives: Mmm12

Day Tre…

03/05/2012 9:03 am \ 23 Comments \ Carolyn

… one has to say it the Italian way to get the poetry in my title there…
Another gal over on the me-made May challenge posted the weather stats on her photo, which I thought was a terrific idea. It helps to gauge the appropriateness of the outfit when you have an idea of the temperatures, don’t you think? Helps you to put yourself in those shoes and imagine whether you would be coping or not. In my case, usually not… I’m a hopeless wuss in the cold!

So, yeah. 🙂 As well, I’m ~~incurably nosy~~ harmlessly interested in life in other places and I just like to know.
On that note…

This picture taken around 3pm; Temperature at the time 24C.
Overnight low: 16C; Today’s high: 26C

Mostly sunny, some cloud cover, showers were forecast. Do you think we got any rain at all? Nope, not a drop. Actually was a bit humid with that cloud cover.

Still incorporating “new” things into my me-made challenge, although this linen/silk dress, like my maxi dress from Tuesday, doesn’t feel new any more. It got worn massively over summer. Today in a nod to the autumn weather I’m wearing it over my burnt orange silk skirt for a bit of extra warmth. And check it out; the wavey welts and the skirt match each other… like a set! (hehe)

In sewing news: I’m brewing a new project in my head. It’s a bit wacky. I’m fully prepared for people to hate it 🙂

Details:
Dress; Burda 8511 modified to have welt pockets, duck-egg blue linen, orange silk welts, details here, and my tutorial for making the wavey welts here
Skirt; Vogue 8363 modified; burnt orange silk, details here, my review of this pattern here, and this skirt styled in 6 different ways here
Shoes; Bronx from Zomp shoes

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, MMM12, random life stuff

Tree, with sunrays

02/05/2012 7:13 am \ 11 Comments \ Carolyn

Heya!
Hmmm, what to say; well maybe something about the photograph…
I was glad my list of daily activities took me past this spot today. It is usually deserted and to my mind utterly, ethereally, beautiful. And I managed to set up to capture a little bit of a sun-ray effect in my photograph. I’ve said before; I am no expert on photography, but I’ve learnt one of the most important in terms of a good outdoor photo is the quality of the light. I lucked out with my timing today!
The sun-ray effect adds an air of drama and magic to any photograph, and makes me wish I was wearing something more… er, magical here, and not an ordinary rather prosaic little outfit like this! But anyhoo… this is what I am wearing so that is that.
Although we are well into autumn now, and colder temperatures are definitely on the agenda… er, sometime soon maybe, today is a beautifully balmy 28C. I picked my little sludge-y skirt with those fab deep front pockets. I’ve read them described as being like a waitress’ apron, and really this is a perfect description! I made the skirt using purple denim and with black waistband and hem edging, and dyed the whole thing brown. I started out the day in a different, more autumnal top, but after coming home from my early morning walkies with the dog I threw that one off, sweltering; and substituted this cooler billowy shirt. Perfect! This is my “pirate” shirt with the silver skull buttons. I bought those buttons in Tokyo on our day out shopping with Yoshimi and Novita, and whenever I wear it I think about that day. How I would love to have another shopping day like that one!

Details:
Shirt; my own design, using elements from different patterns, black cotton mix, details here
Skirt; Vogue 1247, purple denim with black detailing, dyed with iDye in Brown, details and my review of this pattern here
Shoes; Enrico Antinori, form Zomp shoes

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: daily outfit, MMM12, photography

May Day

01/05/2012 7:15 am \ 24 Comments \ Carolyn

… and the first day of Me-Made May ’12.
And thank you all so much for that lovely feedback yesterday!
I’m actually excited today and feeling motivated about taking the photographs again. This is good, hopefully that tide of enthusiasm will carry me along for a while… 😀 I’m also very keen to see everybody else’s outfits over on the Flickr group. Thinking about that, I decided it would be sensible if I made a further addendum to my pledge; that I try to incorporate mostly garments that have been made since the last me-made challenge, so that I am not going over old ground, so to speak. Don’t want to be boring, hehe…
Today is a beeautiful sunny autumn day but with a bit of a nip in the air; so I am wearing my chiffon maxi-dress made last October, and my little black snakeskin cardi, that is a few years old now but is a good match shape-wise and style-wise for this dress. Actually, I experienced a marvellous moment this morning; marvellous, that is, from the point of view of a middle aged woman such as myself. A young twenty-something girl stopped me in the street, and said “That is a completely awesome jacket! I LOVE it!” Oh, man, call me sad, but that moment really made my day. So sweet! Which made me think; unprompted compliments, and especially when they are about something one has made oneself (not that she knew that) do give such a disproportionate lift to the complimentee, over and above the good intentions on the part of the compliment-er. And the importance of paying that forward. So, when I trotted down to the supermarket later I said something nice to an elderly lady about her hand-knitted cardigan. Her bright happy smile made my day even more bright and happy too!
Zoe upped her pledge by stipulating that someone in her circle would also be wearing something made by her every day this month, as she sews a lot for others. So, imagine my joy when Cassie emerged this morning wearing this calico jacket made by me (below). I can’t promise that this sort of synergy is going to happen very often since I have absolutely zero say in what my family wears any more, but it is good fortune that someone in my family is wearing something made by me on this first day of me-made May as well. It is a sign!

Details:
Dress; Vogue 1355, polyester chiffon, lined with lightweight cotton, details here
Cardigan; plastic-coated jersey knit stamped in a snakeskin print, my own design, details here
Sandals; Joanne Mercer for Micam, Hobbs shoes
Nail varnish; self-mixed , ruby-red with gold

Cassie’s jacket; my wearable muslin of Vogue 8333 sewn with all the hand-finishing details, calico, details here (which reminds me, I really should get onto my real version of this pattern…!)

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: Cassie, daily outfit, MMM12, nail polish

Random stooff…

08/04/2012 8:48 am \ 13 Comments \ Carolyn

1: I saw this idea for seedlings on Better Homes and Gardens and thought awwww, how cyooote! So had a go myself…. these hold sweet peas (yup, planted on St Patricks Day, thus earning myself a gold star for being “traditional”) and parsley. After this weekend, the bottoms will get lopped off to give the roots somewhere to escape, and they are going in the garden. But in the meantime I think they have made quite a nice Easter-y table display, yes?
The two whole eggs were my failed attempt at natural egg dyeing. The mustard-yellow is a result of being boiled up with turmeric, and that rather grotesque, emo, splotchy, Addams-family-grey one on the right is dyed with blueberries. I lost heart after this one and didn’t bother trying out the spinach or the beetroot or the red cabbage; this what you can expect when the only eggs available are brown eggs. I searched high and low for white eggs, even going to the drastic measure of peeking inside the boxes of caged-hen eggs (eeek, caged?? quelle horreur!) but no dice. It seems there are simply no white eggs commercially available any more in the whole of Perth.
So… the half shells were painted with acrylic paints.
Random stooff 2:
My husband likes to cook, and I graciously let him, whenever he wants to 😉 He is a very good cook too. Way better than I. Way more enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is good.
Fired up with the urge to create after a Heston Blumenthal programme on the telly, he decided to have a go at the famous lemon tart. Not just an ordinary ol’ lemon tart, but one cooked the scientific way. The one that goes purely by temps and times.
So, here is Heston’s version….

source, and recipe

And please admire my husband’s version, cooked to exactly the same recipe….

and btw, I am happy to report that it is absolutely delicious!!
So; has anyone else ever tried this or any other of those scientific recipes of Heston Blumenthal? how did you go?

Random stooff 3:
The perfect nail varnish for Easter? BYS White with One

And finally, Rs 4; I’ve signed up for Zoe‘s me-Made May…

I, Carolyn, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’12. I endeavour to wear all me made clothing each day for the duration of May 2012′

although taking part in the challenge this time will hold an added degree of difficulty for me, the specifics of which I will not divulge right now but will become blatantly apparent as time unfolds. I may not blog each day, like I have done previously for these months, and I may not be able to wear a unique outfit each day although I shall try. However I can promise some spectacular scenery 😉 We shall see how we go….
Later dudes!