Spring Is In The Air!

I mentioned on twitter this morning that due to the fact it looks like my bedroom has been binge drinking and then vomited my clothes all over the floor I've had to be very brave in my choice of clothing today as I didn't have time to iron/ determine what was actually clean. By brave I mean, not overly for the normal person. By normal person I mean not me.

I've not had a chance to play with my new camera (thank you Dad!) because of the terrible weather we've had recently but I rushed home today in the hopes of catching the light and giving it another shot. Two minutes after getting back in the house I decided it might be prudent to take a shot with my phone. Y'know, just in case.

Good thing I did, the above picture was the phone version. Despite figuring out how to activate the self-timer I've neglected to figure out how to focus and zoom (out) on shots I'm not currently in when there's just a wall in picture. Ah well, something to work on!

You're probably thinking 'what's so brave about that?'. The shorts, dears, the shorts. I've had these for about a year and never had the courage to wear them. I was surprised by how comfortable I felt in them once everyone in the office had noticed them and absolutely no one asked what the hell I was wearing. I may have to wear them again.

In other (sad) news, Nelson the Red Admiral butterfly I mentioned from an earlier post has passed away last week, just days before the first day of Spring. I've no idea how he survived through the winter months, particularly as he was living in my bathroom.

I also wanted to thank everyone who left comments on my muslin post, I shall be reviewing those when I get a second. That second doesn't appear to be any time soon unfortunately as I have a rather action packed month ahead with an imminent visit to Saundersfoot on Saturday for the St David's Festival and a fortnight long visit from my sister and nephew starting the following week.

My first blogiversary passed me by last month with nary a twinge, mostly because I've been a bit rundown with a cold that had no other symptoms than enormous lethargy and inability to focus. Should I be doing something to celebrate?

I also wanted to ask if people would like recipes for homemade beauty products? I make my own lip balm and have been planning on branching out but have been dithering over the question of how much DIY is too much? What do people think? Yay or nay?

I'll leave you with a couple of the less crazy photos from my new camera that I accidentally ended up taking.

Cardigan, undershirt and shorts: La Redoute
Shirt: H&M
Tights: New Look
Shoes: Hush Puppy

Edited to include: Oh my goodness, I completely forgot to thank Suzy for my new award! Thank you! I shall do a proper post for it later this week.

Thanks for stopping by,

Short and Happy

After thoroughly confusing myself over styles for body shapes and disgusted with myself for spending far too much time on the subject I decided to cheer myself up with some simple crafting projects I had been meaning to start/ finish for some time:

On the left is a rose I'm making into a brooch for my Day Bag (finished but not yet posted about) and on the right is a ladies boot key ring in a fabric I adore. I drew the sole on with fabric pens and ironed it fast (hopefully!). It's a little too big for my key ring so I may make it into a handbag charm instead. I'm undecided over whether to sew laces across the front seam as I'm unsure if they would even be noticeable with the fabric print being so strong or if it would make it too busy. Both projects are from Tone Finnanger's Books which can be found here.

And then whilst catching up on everybody's week yesterday via my Google Reader I stumbled across this post by Charlotte of Tuppence and Ha'penny Vintage and instantly fell in love with the short and tee illustration in the second picture (below) and spent an hour or so figuring out how to make it. Not only will it make me happy, better yet, it will fulfill 2 of the 5 spots of my Sew Summer Essentials. It contradicts almost everything I've learnt about dressing for my shape and probably won't suit me but as Zoe pointed out in her comment, fashion do's and don't's are more like guidelines than actual rules and I'm with her and Cap'n Jack.

This is the outfit I want (shorts and striped tee) and the patterns I'll be using:

{ Source: Tuppence and Ha'penny Vintage }

Simplicity 3688

I'll be using the trousers to make the shorts (obviously). I had thought about using the shirt to make the tee but it has no centre seam and a yoke that would make it a little difficult to add a centre seam, for me anyway.

Simplicity 1008

So instead I'm going to use my newest purchase, once it arrives, to make the tee. This is actually a dress with straight sides so I'll be adding the centre seam and adding some shape to the side seams ... theoretically anyway!

I'm using an old dark blue cotton flat sheet for the shorts and have dug out a zip that is about 20" too long. I thought I'd get some red and white striped cotton material for the top as part of what drew me to the illustration was the fabric/ colour choices. Better yet, they match my wardrobe colours. Whoop whoop!

Right, I'm off to start cutting out!

Thanks for stopping by,