Jewellery from Laura

I've been meaning to share this since my trip to the UK in July, but it took me a while to get some photos. In July I was a bridesmaid for my dearest friend Laura. As a gift on her wedding day she gave me and her sister a gift of some jewelry to wear on the day.

What was particularly special about the jewelry  and why I wanted to share it here, is that Laura made the jewelry  I am in complete awe of how incredibly talented she is, and how she managed to make such beautiful jewelry that is just perfectly 'me'. (Out of silver too)

You may have already spotted the jewelry around my blog, for example in my Portrait Blouse post, but it's so beautiful that I think it deserves it's own post. Incase you haven't spotted it, some of the silver has been made 'matte' rather than shiney, I really love that detail.

And while I'm on the topic, here is the amazing necklace that she made for Anna:

How talented! Thank you so much Laura, I really love my set, and wear it all the time,

My Month in Instagram #2

I've started becoming just a little bit addicted to instagram lately, as the sheer number of photos I've snapped in November can attest! Did you know you can view people's instagram feeds online now rather than just on a phone? The link to mine is here is here.

Here is my (end of October and) November in instagram...

                           

It's amazing how long ago some of those photos feel now, and it's only a month ago! Time is going fast!!

Advent Calendars, done slightly differently

Back in 2009 I made two quilted advent calendars, one for me and one for my brother. So for December of 2009 I had my advent calendar, excitedly taking a chocolate out of it each day in the lead up to Christmas. Then in 2010 disaster struck! I couldn't find my advent calendar. I was SO upset, I'd spent so much time making the advent calendar to only be able to use it one?! I was gutted! So I turned into a bit of a scrooge that year. Again in 2011 the story was similar, my advent calendar hadn't turned up and I wasn't quite ready to make a new one, so again, no advent calendar.

Then, earlier this year when I was moving it turned up! My Christmas decoration had been stuck inside another box so we hadn't found them when looking! MASSIVE thanks must go out to Darren, who is the one that actually found them. So this year I'm very excited to have my advent calendar back again! Also, since I'm now living with my brother the two advent calendars are reunited, so of course they've been put up on the wall next to each other:

In celebration of having my advent calendar again, I am doing something a little different this year. Rather than just getting some chocolates and having one a day, I've teamed up with a friend and I've filled her advent calendar and she's filled mine. The friend in question is the talented Kristy of HandmadeRetro.

We set ourselves the guidelines of:
- Weekdays get a chocolate goodie
- Weekend days get a little gift
- Every day gets a task of some description.

So Saturday afternoon I popped into Kristys and we filled each others calendars. Even though I took a photo of her advent calendar after filling it with the stuff I got for her yesterday, I won't post it as she needs to post about it on her blog, so keep an eye out over there to see hers, I'm very excited to find out whats In all of the pretty packages that she's prepared for me though! (pictured above)

So far I've opened two packages, both of which were weekend packages so had gifts! The first had a set of cable needles, which is great as I don't have any of them, I've been using a double pointed needle for cabling. The second had a spool of fancy silk thread, I'm not sure if it's meant to be used for anything special (Kristy? Pardon my ignorance!), but it sure looks and feels beautiful!

I have to confess, I haven't actually done the task for day 1 yet, as I was headed to a wedding and had already planned my hair, and today I was just bumming around at home all day, but I will definitely do it ASAP. The second task however I happily followed! And this evening I baked some Raspberry and White Chocolate muffins.

I can't wait to see what the rest of the packages hold! Do you have an advent calendar?

Balcony Garden - Week 12 - The Fruits of my Labour

The last few weeks have been exciting for my garden - I've started getting ripe strawberries!

These aren't all the strawberries I've had,  but these are the ones I've photographed. So far I've had a few of the Lowanna  strawberries (the bigger ones), and quite a lot of wild strawberries (the tiny ones). I have to say, the wild strawberries don't look like much, but WOW do they taste amazing! Like a little strawberry taste explosion in your mouth!

Not all has been great however. Below are the first two strawberries I picked. I was so excited to have strawberries that were ripe...

but look at the other side:

Something else had already decided they looked like a good snack! BOO!

And in other news, my herbs are certainly the unsung heroes of my balcony garden; I've been finding myself frequently going out and picking herbs to use when I'm cooking. Fresh thyme makes bolognaise taste delicious!

And look! Tomatoes growing! This is the first one I spotted, taken a couple of weeks ago now. I've now got a few more growing on the various plants, and my cherry tomato plant is taller than me!

Dressember - I'm in!

I heard about Dressember on the internet a little while ago, and the idea has been ruminating with me ever since. What with it being December tomorrow (scary!) I thought I should actually make a decision, and I've decided to join in!

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As the icon above says, in December I shall aim to wear a dress every day in the month, and repeats are allowed. I feel I'll have an easier time of it than my Northern hemisphere counterparts, but us Aussies have to have an advantage in something once in a while right?!

While I will plan to wear a dress every day in the month, I won't exclusively wear dresses - ie each day I will wear a dress at some point, but I will still also wear other things throughout the day as necessary (eg leggings/shorts for riding my bike).

I shall endeavor to follow along by posting photos on instagram using the #Dressember2012 tag, with intermittent updates here on my blog.

I thought that a good place to start would be to take inventory of the dresses I have. I was very surprised to find that I have 21 dresses (and that's after I culled a few that don't fit or I know I won't wear; they've been added to a donation pile).

EDIT: I've realised today that I forgot my Cambie in this count, so actually I have 22 dresses. Whoops!

Here are some stats about my dress collection:

• 10 dresses that could be worn to work
• 12 dresses that could be classed as summer dresses
• 5 black dresses
• 9 dresses with floral prints
• 5 dresses that could be worn to a formal event
• 13 me-made dresses

I also have one dress half finished, and fabric at the top of my to-make pile ready to be made into a full-skirted Cambie.

Wish me luck!

Will you be joining in?

Copy-Cat Skirt and Awesome Bike Bag

When I was out on Saturday taking photos of Mindy's Picnic Blanket I realised I was wearing one of my favourite summer skirts and that I'd never actually blogged about it.  I made the skirt pre-blog, over my Christmas break in 2007 - yes that's right, the skirt is almost 5 years old! Working out how long ago has scared me slightly!

The skirt was inspired by a skirt that my mum had bought in a shop, and I really liked the patchwork look of the skirt with the stripes in all different directions. I spent quite a while looking for fabric, but as the stripe repeat on her skirt was wider than on any fabric I could find and I was worried about it all looking too much the same. So instead my skirt is made up of two different fabrics in similar colours, one of which is a seer-sucker, which gives the skirt extra texture.

I 'drafted' the skirt myself by making a simple gore shape similar in measurement to the gores on my mum's skirt, I made about 5 copies and and then chopped up the gores into randomly divided sections (to make two gores per combination). From there I made up pattern pieces for all the bits of skirt, as the pieces have ~1 inch pleats in them where they're seamed together. That's right - every single piece in this skirt had a pattern piece, that was a lot of cutting, and then even more stitching! I think at the time I worked it out as 3 seams for every join in each gore! (I still have all the pattern pieces in my pattern stash)



But I didn't mind all the stitching, as I love how the skirt turned out. I also loved the price tag. This was one of the earlier items I made for myself and I was particularly chuffed that I had made my own interpretation of a skirt that cost about $200 in the shops for less than $20! And 5 years later mine is still going strong but I think my mum's has worn out.



I also wanted to take a moment to share something slightly newer than my skirt; my bike and even newer bike bag, since they were great props for the photos. I got my bike back in April and have been enjoying riding it very much! My previous bike was a 'boys' bike and I really struggled getting on and off it. I'm really loving having a step through bike again and being able to hop on and off easily! Also, MUD GUARDS! So good for riding in the rain or on wet roads!

However even more excitingly is my new bag, I got one of these Basil Elements Shoulder Bags. I really wanted a pannier bag now the weather is warming up; it sucks having a bag on your back when it's hot. However most of the pannier bags I've seen look like they're a real pain to carry around when they're not on the bike, and since I usually use my bike to go somewhere and then will want to carry my bag with me when I get there I need a bag that's easy/comfortable to carry around. So when I found the Basil Pannier bags online I was VERY excited! I ended up buying it from a local bike store as it meant I could see the bag in person before committing to buying it. It functions just like a normal bag when it's not on the bike, and then clips on my rack when I am on my bike - win win!

I don't buy many fabric based things these days, but I'm so happy with this bag. I've had it less than a week , but so far it's great! I did find pannier clips available for sale on the internet however, so have been contemplating trying to make my own pannier bag sometime... I should probably try making a regular bag first to get the hang of it though shouldn't I?!