red polka dots

Hat, scarf, coat, sweater, bag - thrifted/vintage, skirt - stolen from my sister, boots - purchased from the lovely Katie-Louise.

Oh, how I love the winter.
Today we did a little bit of exploring around the suburb that we've called home for a whole month now. It's so nice having a lovely park, shopping strip with pretty much anything we could want and lots and lots of beautiful old homes on tree lined streets to look at all within walking distance from our house.

This skirt is my sisters, and I have no idea why I haven't borrowed it before, it is lovely! I was so happy when I realised I could make a pseudo-suit out of it and my recently repaired coat (which I have had now for about 5 years now, and has been sitting in my to-mend pile for about 2 of those.. oops) the colours match almost perfectly!

Lion's tooth

Hat & shoes - vintage, belt - thrifted, skirt & top - made by me

I mentioned in my last post that I had picked up Simplicity's 4044 so I could make the swing trousers, but while I'm searching for the perfect fabric for that project, I decided to use some of the printed voile I picked up at a Spotlight sale recently and give the blouse a try.

How cute is the dandelion print?

One day I will learn how to match prints… 

I am SO happy with the result. The pattern is originally for a long-sleeved blouse, but I wanted to try a short sleeve option for more versatility. The whole thing took me only a couple of hours to put together and came out really well!

I decided to wear it with another made-by-me piece from a while ago which I've only just begun to fit into again (thanks to many a cheeseburger on our holiday last year.. oops).

I would definitely recommend this blouse pattern for anyone who wants to whip up a cute, 40's-inspired blouse in a reasonable amount of time :)

swing trousers in the city

cardigan - sent to me by my lovely friend Sheree :) , bag - thrifted, blouse - ASOS, trousers - Vivienne of Holloway, shoes - Wittner, necklace - present from Eli

Sorry about the bluuuuurry iPhone photo's, I realised halfway through our outing that we weren't going to make it home before the sun disappeared, darn.

I am so in love with these trousers at the moment, I've got heaps of outfits involving them in my head, it's hard to stop myself from breaking them out at every chance!
If you follow me on instagram you would have seen that I recently purchased Simplicity 4044, I can't wait to make myself some more of these trousers in other colours.

Also, how cute is this bag! I picked it up from the op shop around the corner from my house (yep, literally around the corner. Dangerous) for $3.

cape crusader

cape - American Apparel, sweater - Dangerfield, skirt - made by me, everything else vintage/thrifted

I bought this cape quite a number of years ago from American Apparel. It was rather expensive but I justified it because it's wool and a neutral colour and a pan collar and I really, really wanted it. I wore it a handful of times but then my style changed and it was banished to the back of my wardrobe until a summery warm day this year when I realised that capes + pencil skirts = perfect vintage style!!

My hair was a bit of an epic fail turned accidental kind of win, I set my hair but the top layer didn't want to play nice so I had to improvise. Turned out ok in the end!

neutral novelty

 Cardigan - dangerfield, everything else thrifted/vintage

Helloooo!

We are finally (mostly) settled into our new house and have just gotten the internet set up today so I thought I'd get straight to it with an outfit I wore the other day :)

Even though it is now officially winter (yay!), and therefore now gets dark at about 5:30, I can still manage to take semi-ok photos because our new house has LIGHT and WHITE WALLS. So excited. Now I have no excuse.

This dress has narrowly escaped being thrown out many, many times - something about it just makes me hold on to it, even though I don't have that much that goes with it and it has rips near the waistband (which I will fix.. one day) which means I constantly have to check that the belt is keeping everything in place. So when I pulled it out of my closet and magically threw this colour-coordinated outfit together I was very glad it had survived through so many wardrobe purges.. It seems I've picked up a few more neutral-toned pieces recently, so this dress lives to be worn another day!

Anyway, I just thought I'd do a quick post so I can stop feeling bad about not posting, I have a few things lined up (reviews! work outfits! sewing!) so expect those over the next week or so :)

Busy as a bee.

Sorry about the lack of posting lately everyone, I've been flat out with work and wedding crafts, AND this weekend we moved house! 

We don't have proper internet up yet and the house is currently still in boxes so once normality resumes hopefully so will semi-regular blog posts. 

I have been finding it a bit difficult to do outfit posts lately as I now work at a jeans store and have to wear their jeans.. That's not to say the jeans aren't great, or that I'm not putting my own vintage-ish spin on them, but rather I am worried it will become a bit tiresome if I were to post work outfits containing the same 3 pairs of jeans (which are really just one style in three colours!) 5 days a week and then one pretty vintage one... If you would like to see what I wear to work, however, let me know and maybe I can make it a once or twice a week thing. 

Any other suggestions for blog posts (i do have a hairnet review and a Besame lipstick review in the works, it's been a long time coming) do let me know!

And since I have them on my phone (which I'm posting from using the dreadful blogger app, so apologies for the formatting), here are two of my favourite outfits I wore at work last week, in mirror-selfie form!

50's tropical pinup!

30's boudoir gypsy!

My Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge

 

So I have just found out about Marie's Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge via her guest post on By Gum, By Golly, and I've decided to join up, but add my own spin seeing as how we're half way through the year and I already have 8 important sewing projects lined up..

Like Marie, I am an avid collector of vintage sewing patterns. I adore the glamour of the illustrations, and, living in a country where there is a substantially smaller amount of vintage still available than a lot of the rest of the world, the idea of getting my hands on some vintagey-goodness that not only fits and is to my custom requirements, but is also affordable is too tempting to resist.

Lately I've also been bemoaning the lack of "basic" clothing pieces in my wardrobe to mix-and-match with my many patterned and/or statement pieces, but I just keep on sewing with pretty florals and other patterns!!

So, my personal Vintage Sewing Pattern Pledge is: sew at least 3 vintage patterns from my stash using ONLY block-coloured fabrics.

This way, I should be able to get a start on actually using some of the gorgeous patterns I own (not that it'll make much of a dent but hey, it's a start!), and at the same time fill some glaring gaps in my wardrobe.

Sounds like a winner to me! Now where to begin...

Who else doing this pledge?