The dreaded flu has kept me away from our usual Friday night date with the best pub in England- it has however been redolent of childhood illnesses; being tucked up in bed, smelling my Mum's Chanel perfume (now mine) through a blocked nose, eating my favourite dinners for strength and finding enough energy to indulge in my all time favourite computer game, Simcity. Tom never knew he was seeing a computer geek in disguise! Sorry to have missed you Hourglass Inn, there is always next week.
This book has some great passages about luggage. This was a present from a local junk dealer and was very well received. I remembered having seen it somewhere before but couldn't think where, then I remembered it was on the Tweed Cycling club's website. Found it? Somehow, although I can't quite see why now looking back at their pictures, I thought that perhaps a good satchel would be a possible solution. So the next weekend I happened to be looking through a couple of barn's belonging to an antique dealer and found this...
Every girl needs a new pair of boots for autumn; I have already written about my lust for riding boots, and am yet to find any in my financial realm, but these Kurt Geiger beauties, a steal off of eBay have that horsey look to them and are officially my autumn boots. They will be pounding the pavements of New York city in November- too exciting! Until then, the conkers are starting to fall and leaves are gathering in kickable quantities.
There is not a lot I need to say about Goodwood Revival apart from that it is a perfect day out! Cars, planes and sharp suits for Tom, and vintage clothes stalls and the chance to spend a day as dressed up as I would like to be every day (though I am certainly not disinterested in the beautiful machines on show). Thanks to the wonderful April whom I bought my perfect plaid skirt off of, I had so many compliments!
Me and Tom are going to Goodwood Revival in a couple of weeks and I thought I better get some hair-do practice in. I want to attend the event in a 1930's style, I haven't decided what to wear exactly, I think that will have to be a future blog post, but I tried pin curling my hair. I am lucky enough to have hair that more or less falls into waves anyway, I would imagine trying to pin curl straight hair is quite an art! I basically followed the lines of my natural curls and whilst holding them down with my fingers, pinned them with long bobby pins to keep them in place, then dried my hair and sprayed a lot of hairspray and then took out the pins and this was the result. Not bad, but I am going t have to learn how to do it at the back of my head, which is really difficult!
Tom found himself a sturdy little wooden aeroplane.
Tom got this for it's amazing leather saddle, but upon closer inspection is actually a really quality late 60's East German racing style bike and will be done up and sold at some point. It will keep Tom out of trouble for a while anyway.
This little chap was one of a few sad looking toys in a damp and dark shed; I am a sucker for sorry looking toys and so he is now safe and warm and will now be making friends with all my other waifs and strays this evening. His name is Budleigh bear, after the little seaside town tip he was residing in until today.
A fetching deco looking fire-screen, the wood came up lovely after a linseed oiling and is ripe for a bit of a creative make-over. I am not quite sure what to do with the panel; decoupage perhaps? Any suggestions welcome. We ended the day with chips by a slightly drizzly seaside, what a great Sunday!
I put myself on a clothes buying ban this week; it lasted four days. Oh dear, I lost my bet. I walked into Whistles confident that I had seen all the latest Autumn clothes online and didn't want to buy any of them, I didn't bank on the silk blouse I had been coveting all Summer being reduced to a nearly affordable price. I now owe Tom a dinner out in penance for losing the bet. At least I have a lovely new blouse, and doesn't it look nice with this camel skirt I won off of eBay for when the weather starts to chill.
I am attempting my first knitted garment; I have been knitting scarfs for too long and am finally branching out into jumpers. I found this 1930's inspired set in my favourite knitting magazine Rowan and have decided to try the one pictured at the top here, but in a burnt orange shade instead. Some of these designs are too wonderful, I can only dream of being able re-create them, I can but try. I found the pictures on this yarn site though I should have not been lazy and scanned them myself. Well, if I start now I may well have finished it by next winter.....
My favourite time of year: Autumn clothes are finally hitting the shops, and though I was very underwhelmed by most of them there are a few bits that I will hopefully be buying throughout the month; I got this one on the spot though, it is from Next (which I generally really don't like but has the odd wonderful item that catches my eye!). It is the exact green I have been longing for a dress in and will look great with brown tights and boots when the chill sets in. For now, as we are having some sort of vague summer, I will stick to sandals and bare legs.
It is amazing there has not yet been a bike post since Tom is actually obsessed with bicycles; the weather had finally cheered up enough so that we could take ours outside and take some nice pictures of them. Mine is a 1942 ladies Raleigh Sports, and due to it being a war-time bike has a complete absence of chrome, though whilst doing it up as my birthday present there has been a few touches added such as the lights and dynamo; apparently it is a very rare thing to have a matching set of Miller lights and dynamo. We had a massive stroke of luck in that a Brooks B18 ladies saddle, with the embossed leather flowers detail, came up on eBay for quite a lot cheaper than they sell for on the Brooks site! I also purchased a hand-made leather saddle tool bag from a chap who makes them to sell on eBay. I have named her Clara.
About 30 seconds after my last post about my new skirt Tom walked in having tried on his new trousers and shoes; in my haste to get a nice picture to blog with I managed to rip my skirt on an annoying spike of metal that sticks out a small rip in the deco armchair just in view! I am so gutted; it usually has a chair cover over it to stop such accidents but I had just whipped it off as it would have looked a bit ugly in the picture, typical.
I thought I would take an opportunity to show off my latest eBay purchase; it is a Topshop skirt but I thought it looked almost 30's with it's row of buttons up the side. It required me to move all the buttons to allow a little extra room as I was feeling hopeful and bought it despite it being a size 10. It was too tight but as the buttons are working buttons the alteration was possible. It is quite a 'High Street' outfit as I am wearing it with a lacy knit Topshop cardigan and the Hush Puppies shoes Tom's Mum so kindly gave me. It has been a very long while since I have liked anything at all in Topshop, when once I could always rely on it for good High Street staples; the cardigan is from the current range and I was quite surprised to find it after having lost interest in the shop for so long, my bank balance wasn't quite so pleased.
