These Boots

Dress - People tree

Cardigan - Knitted by my great aunt for my mum in the 70s

Hat - Made by my grandmother

Necklace - vintage, gift

Boots - Vintage, Charity shop

Listening to - Spiraling - The Unthanks 

To me winter dressing generally consists of wearing as many layers as possible, which means it's a bit tougher to stay stylish piled under jumpers, scarves and coats. The one thing I really get excited about is wearing boots! I think boots are my favourite shoe generally, and I tend to add a new pair (or two) each winter. I found these very bright purple Chelsea boots in a charity shop for £7, and although they are a little big, I kind of love them already. I am quite fussy with boots and only like pull on or lace up ones, so Chelsea boots  and dessert boots are my current favourites. The dress is a little short for my liking, but its very well made and People tree are a great ethical fair trade brand. It makes me happy to know my clothing comes from such a responsible source. I can't believe it's been a month since my last post. Since then I've had a birthday and been to Bruges for a short holiday. A lovely city but very cold when we were there. I really enjoyed walking everywhere and sampling plenty of the local beer and chocolate. Now Christmas is closing in and I'm trying to fit in some last minute Christmas shopping around all the other festive activities.

Happy Cardigan

Cardigan - Hand knitted by my Grandmother

Dress - Hand made by me

Belt - Used to belong to my mum

Tights - Topshop

Necklace - Gift

~ Listening to - I feel electric - Rubies/Feist ~

Autumn is passing me by at lightning speed, and it doesn't help that every shop is full of Christmas things. I refuse to think about Christmas until after my birthday, which is coming up soon. Which brings me to this cardigan, which I love so much. It is so warm and the colours are so lovely together, but the best thing is that it was handmade just for me by my super talented grandmother. She has been knitting me hats, gloves and scarves for years but this is the first garment I have had since I was a child. My grandmother showed me a picture in Stella magazine some months ago of an angora cardigan in tones of blue and said how she liked it, and I agreed. And now here is my very own version, it even has those leather buttons I like so much. My sister received one as well, in shades of yellow and blue. I thought I would wear it with this red dress that I made last year. I don't wear it very often because I made the sleeves a quite odd length, but I like the texture. The necklace was a birthday gift two years ago, the clasp needed fixing, but now it's done I wear it a lot. It was meant to be a key ring originally and i like the weight of it. I now have some birthday outfits to plan and a little adventure to pack for.

Three peas

Shirt  -  Jumble sale

Skirt - Charity shop, hemmed

Necklace - Gift

Bag - Charity shop

~ Listening to - Florence + the machine - Ceremonials ~

Can you tell I'm happy it's Autumn? It is so my favourite time of year. A couple of months of many fun things, starting today really with Halloween. I celebrated by going to a party on Saturday, my costume was not really scary, I was Kiki from the film Kiki's delivery service. I was super happy to find a huge red bow belt from H&M which completed mt costume perfectly. There were a lot of good costumes at the party, most comprising much fake blood and also a couple of very good black swans. The outfit above is from Saturday daytime, I always pull this skirt out at this time of year, the dark tapestry style floral just seems to suit the weather. The necklace is a favourite of mine and was a gift from a couple of birthdays ago. I found it in a tiny shop/gallery in Lyme Regis and was lucky enough to receive it as a present a few months later. I love the slightly unusual colour and I like anything with a nature theme. I also just realised that I've had that bag since I was in art college, so about seven (gulp!) years ago. Still at least it's lasted. Tonight we are just going to watch my Halloween favourite Hocus Pocus. Happy Halloween everyone!

Folded stone

 

 Samantha Pleet SS12 preview, all images from Elle

I recently found the above images and spent some time looking through them, and really I love them all. All those bleached out stone and earth colours and intricate pleating and folding reminds me of sculpture. I am really drawn to these muted soft colours, as I noticed the other day when clearing out my wardrobe. I also like subtle cut outs and twists that are like origami. It reaffirms my belief that I need to take some pattern cutting classes and try to understand these books, that are so inspiring.

Heather

 

 

 

 Cardigan - Jumble sale

Shirt - Jumble sale

Belt - Jumble sale

Skirt - Traid shop

Dessert Boots- Clarks (on sale)

~ Listening to - Jonas Alaska - October ~

On Sunday it was back to the National Trust for a wander around the gardens of Nymans, previously mentioned in this post. Nymnas has really beautiful gardens. Last time I was there the rose garden was in full bloom, this year we just managed to miss the really vibrant autumn colours, which the gardens are famous for. In the end I blended in quite well with the dusty chalk like colours of the place. I feel like the colours are more suited to spring than autumn but I do like a tonal outfit. And these boots! I watched them on Clarks until they went on sale, but then they ran out of my size. On a chance trip to a shop in another part of London I found them, the only pair left! Obviously meant to be. Plus they are so comfortable, I am a total convert to the Clarks Originals now. I was also really happy to find a plant that matched my shoes.  In a random Etsy search I discovered that what I consider to be 'grey marl' (these tights) is often called 'heathered' in the US. Hence the title of this post, although if that's not actually the case, do let me know.

Cranberry

 

 

Beret - Knitted by my grandmother

Ralph Lauren shirt - Jumble sale

Black jeans - Uni qlo

Satchel - Cambridge satchel company (gift)

Dr Martens Velvet brogues - jumble sale

~ Listening to  - Florence + the machine - Shake it out ~

I have to agree with everyone else out there and say I'm happy Autumn has finally turned up. So my favourite season since it involves all the following; Halloween, beautiful colours, bonfire night, my birthday and awesome flavours in coffee shops. I find I do a complete 180 with my clothing tastes as soon as the nights start getting darker. In summer I want light colours and flowing skirts and in winter I want clean lines and rich colours. At the moment I feel quite like dressing in a 1970s/1990s college student kind of way. Also it being back to school season means it's time to bring out the satchel. I've also been reading Tomboy style religiously and was really inspired by this post particularly, which may explain why I've been looking for an A line mini dress recently. And also why I took The Empty page: Fiction inspired by Sonic Youth out the library last week, it's pretty good so far. I was really happy to go on some seriously jumble sale thrifting at the weekend, where I picked up this Ralph Lauren mustard shirt for a bargain of 30p. The shoes are from a previous jumble, they are a bit ruined and a bit too big but I love the rich cranberry velvet of them.

Queen of the hill

 

1950s dress - Jumble sale

Belt - Charity shop

Bag - Jumble sale

Sandals - Topshop

Listening to ~ Braids - Lemonade ~

So, more holiday photos. I wasn't going to post these, as I was expecting to be into autumn outfits now but since we are experiencing a bit of an Indian summer here, I thought I would. I was so delighted when I found this dress at a jumble sale. It's so hard to find anything older than the 80s these days, but someone threw it in my direction and I grabbed it, assuming it was a table cloth. It needed a couple of repairs and is missing a belt but it's otherwise perfect. I like how it manages to be both floral and checked at once and has those contrasting black buttons. I was waiting for the right occasion to wear it, and chose the day we drove to Nice and the hill top village of Eze, where these photos are taken. My pictures don't really do it justice, it is very high up and at the top of the village is a ruined fort and a succulent/cactus garden. Apparently the mayor decided to build the cactus garden in the 1950s and is a bit strange climbing to the top of this hill only to find lots of exotic cacti.