Tiddly Om Pom Pom

In a rare crafty mood, I embarked upon Project Pom Pom Necklace a few days ago. I have the lovely Roo Paprika to thank for sharing the link to the tutorial on Bleubird Vintage's rather wonderful blog. I have huge hair envy and style envy and figure envy going on after looking at her photos in the tutorial!

But anyway, to stick to the point - the tutorial is brilliant and it's so easy even I can do it. Take some wool, a handy tutorial (and some odd socks, obv. I can't do anything important without them on.) and get winding.

Being an extremely novice knitter (Project Epic Knitted Green Blanket stalled at a very early stage when Mum laughed at my feeble attempts to cast on and I went off in a huff), I don't have much wool and it's all green. This is a good thing in my book but if you're having a go yourself, you might want to mix the colours up a little. As the Aran I have is quite bulky, plus I didn't want massive pom-poms, I differed from the tutorial a little and wound around three or even two fingers, rather than four.

This is the easiest way of making pom poms EVER. I spent many a day of my extreme youth cutting out cardboard circles and winding wool round them to make monster multi-coloured pom poms - it took sodding ages! I never realised it could be this easy and speedy.

Making the chain part of it took longer than expected as I was a complete dope, misread the instructions and ended up plaiting 3 lots of 3 strands, then plaiting them all together when I should have just separated the strands into 3 sections and then plaited them together. Never mind eh! I quite like the plaited plait effect - it's made the chain flatter and wider.

Look how it all turned out!


I am rather pleased with the results! So pleased in fact that I couldn't wait to blog the results and took photos of myself immediately post-shower. I won't be styling it up with a towelling turban in future...

Holiday Snaps

I don't quite know what it was but I looked horrible or blurry in the vast majority of the pics taken of me on holiday. Doom! Perhaps it's the new camera - it's wonderful for closeups and landscapes but I don't quite know how to take proper pictures of people with it yet. The self timer function has a snazzy multiple shot option but I'm struggling to get the focus right on that setting. Ah well, it will come, I'm sure.

Here are a few outfit shots which are tolerable:

Dress - Uttam @ Dorothy Perkins, a bargainous £10 in the sale
Cardi - New Look
Sandals - Primark
Necklace - cobbled together from an old keyring

Dress - New Look
Espadrilles - Office
Hat - H&M men's department

Vest - Dorothy Perkins
Skirt - I made it!
Bracelet - Laura Ashley, a present from the wonderful Char

Tshirt - Gap
Skirt - H&M

And just for comedy value, a pic of me hoodying it up:

Hoody - pinched from my dad.
Earrings - Accessorize

This Week

Well it's Sunday, so it's time for the weekly round up. This may be a little bit holiday focused. Ah, who am I trying to kid? It's ALL about my holiday. You have been warned.

Visiting:

Dubrovnik! Oh my gosh, what a wonderful place. If you haven't been then you must go. Immediately. I will lend you my suntan lotion, or a brolly (more on that later). It's utterly beautiful, very welcoming to tourists and has the perfect mixture of things to do and places to loaf round in. We did lots of sightseeing but equal amounts of sitting and people watching.

A ceiling inside the Rector's Palace. I would dearly love something like this in my house.

Detail from a statue of St Blaise, the patron saint of Dubrovnik. He's always pictured holding a model of the city.

The view from a wonderful bar reached by going through a little gate in the city walls

A slightly psychotic owl and a mural at the Natural History Museum where we had much fun trying to decipher the Croatian labels. Some boring so-and-so had written in the visitor's book that it would be much better if the labels were all in English. Firstly, insular much? Go to English museums if you want English labels. And really, isn't it much more intriguing to play "guess the skull"?

Eating:

In quite an array of really good and inexpensive restaurants. I always feel odd taking photos of my food so here are some details from a couple of the places instead.

Sunbathing:

On the island of Lokrum. I haven't lazed around on a beach since about 2002. It's quite fun isn't it? I couldn't do a whole holiday of it without being bored out of my mind but I did very much enjoy a lazy day on the rocks with several dips in the Adriatic. My feet are now very slightly browner than they appear in this photo. The rest of me has just gone freckly.


The island also has a wonderful abandoned monastery. Apparently Archduke Franz Ferdinand was due to go there on his summer holidays in 1914 - if you remember any of your WW1 history, you'll know he got assassinated instead, poor man.

Listening:

To the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra. We were wandering around one night after dinner and stumbled across the concert being held in the atrium of the Rector's Palace. Tickets were only £15 and it seemed like a perfect discovery, so we went in. We liked it so much we went back two nights later!

No photographic evidence of it unfortunately, but one of the trumpet players was the absolute spitting image of Sylvester Stallone. Spooky!

Getting:

Drenched on the last day. I don't think I've ever been so wet in my entire life. It rained all day and we were coping ok with waterproofs and brollies but then about 6pm, whilst we were stuck outside in it, the heavens absolutely opened. The water was running practically knee high through the streets at one point.

6pm on the main street. It's not a blurry photo, it really was raining that hard. For purposes of contrast, here's the same road taken at roughly the same time the day before.

Buying:

A new hat. Green, obviously. A somewhat random purchase but I rather love it.

Drinking:

Prosek, a local dessert wine. Mmmmm, it's delicious! Also quite a lot of coffee and white wine. I was on holiday...

Reading:

This little lot. I have a couple of hundred pages of the London book left to go but otherwise they've all been read and enjoyed.

Finally:
I am a little cross about the fact that I only went and won VIP tickets to London Fashion Week and then couldn't bloody go because I was on holiday!! Probably a blessing in disguise though as I would have felt like an unfashionable fraud every moment of the time there had I ended up going. I wouldn't have missed a moment of my holiday for the world though.

This Week

I have been

Visiting:

London! And doing thoroughly touristy things like going on the London Eye. I am always a bit intimidated by our grand capital city. I feel that perhaps if I got to know a couple of areas a bit better I would probably love it but because I don't, it's all too big and a bit overwhelming. Perhaps I just need to visit it more often.

Wondering:

Why most of the shops in London didn't open till after 10am on a Saturday? Weird.

Finally:

Going to see Jack Whitehall live. I've been trying for ages now and it's just never quite worked out in terms of times/locations. He was so, so funny.

Watching:

At the cinema, The Other Guys which really appealed to my childish sense of humour, and The Beat That My Heart Skipped (or to give it it's proper title, De battre mon coeur s'est arrêté) which I loved. Romain Duris was outstanding in it and if I may lower the tone slightly, good god he's sexy. Even when looking slightly ragey.


And at the theatre, 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, which was very good but rather more full of incest and murder than I'd anticipated!

Giggling:

At this

Buying:

A new pair of Irregular Choice shoes. The picture on their website does them no justice so you'll just have to wait until I wear them to get to see which ones I chose. They're a bit good though.

This, which I love, and it was 25% off which makes it even better! So happy to start buying knitwear again.

And a couple of very exciting homeware type things from ebay which I'll discuss at some point soon.

Apologising:

In advance for the fact that I haven't been organised enough to schedule any proper posts for while I'm away. Sorry! I might be able to get one sorted out if I get a few spare minutes tomorrow. Also I won't be around to comment till next week - don't think I'm being rude please!

Battling:

Food allergies and the scales. My weekly weigh-in is on a Friday and it seems like Thursday's meals are constantly set to sabotage me. I think they're ok, then whump, I feel like death when I wake up the next morning, all bloated and horrible, and so the scales don't favour me and I'm already in a bad mood and it just gets worse from there. However...

Excited:

about going on holiday! I'm off to Croatia on Tuesday and very much looking forward to it. The diet is being left at home. I can't be faffed with worrying about what I eat when I'm meant to be enjoying myself.

Friday Fashion

The lovely Vicky at Lady Bug Says... recently tagged me with the following and it seemed like the perfect thing for a late night Friday blog post:

What is your favourite fashion accessory?
I do love a good accessory but I think my favourite has to be earrings as they're the only thing I'm never to be found without. I have two permanent piercings (tragus in my right ear, helix in my left) and quite the array of "proper" earrings to go in my normal piercings.

Some of the collection

Who's your fashion role model? (In real life and YouTube/Blogging)
Oh god, here's where I fail as a fashion blogger. I don't have one. There are certain people who I think always look lovely but I'm not them, so why would I want to dress like them?

What do you always carry with you?
Phone, purse, keys, a book, lots of other assorted crap.

What would you describe your style as?
Hmmm. Eclectic? Feminine but never pink? I don't think it's particularly easy to define but that's how I like it.

Favourite: jeans, sunglasses or heels?
Heels. You may have noticed that I'm a specs wearer so I can't really do sunglasses (prescription sunnies cost a sodding fortune) and jeans don't form quite as an essential part of my wardrobe as they used to.

What inspired you to blog about fashion?
Chatting to the girls from the MSE fashion thread and my big weightloss got my interest in clothes sparked off, then I discovered the world of blogging and decided to dive in! I still don't like to wholely class this as a fashion blog because I waffle on about other stuff, but that, in a nutshell, is how the blog got started.

What is your favourite fashion store/shop?
I swither. I'm far more drawn by the actual piece of clothing than the overall store so most places are now on my shopping radar, and I do like to grab anything that takes my eye in charity shops and car boot sales. I always seem to find something I like in Dorothy Perkins though and I do really like the brands they stock (Uttam, Purple etc). Plus they strike the right sort of price/quality balance for basics like long sleeved tshirts and vests and their jeans fit me jolly nicely.

What is your favourite fabric in clothing?
I don't have a particular favourite but I'm very partial to strokable things like lovely knits and fake fur. I want more tweed and cord in my life at the moment please. And for sheer comfort value you can't beat a bit of grey marl.

Still really want this coat!

Who is your favourite designer?
I fail yet again. I know sod all about designers. If I had the sort of budget that allowed me to indulge in designer clothing then I'd probably pay more attention but I suppose I just don't see the point in spending a lot of time thinking and reading about something that's never going to be attainable for me.

Who/what inspires your style?
Clothes do. I buy what I like and then I work out how to wear it all together. I don't often copy a look from anyone else, just because I don't often think it would work for me, or more likely I don't have the same sort of items in my limited wardrobe!

What would you choose to do - buy something in high quality or make it yourself if you could?
Well a quick rummage through my wardrobe reveals no items of high quality and one handmade thing so I guess I'm going with handmade. I would love to improve my sewing skills enough to be able to make more complicated things as I'm a total sucker for unique looking things made with interesting fabrics. I do hanker after owning something properly designer at some point though.

And I'd like to tag:

Laura
Maddie
Lisa
Sal
Christina

From The Archives

Get me, two daytime posts in a row. Bit of a change from my usual v. late night posting, but I'm out this evening (to see the splendiferously titled play 'Tis Pity She's A Whore) so wanted to get it in while I was actually feeling awake.

If you're a reader of A Little Bird Told Me (and if not, why not? Get yourself over there, stat) then you may have seen this outfit earlier in the year in one of Jen's Wardrobe Wonderings round-up posts. I don't think I ever put it up on here though so I thought now was a good moment. It's my attempt at entering the vouchercodes.co.uk Show & Tell challenge. Probably not trendy enough to win but I like it and that's what counts, right? If you're feeling more bargaintastic and stylish than me, you can enter yourself until midnight tonight.

Dress - Primark £1
Wrap - so old I genuinely can't remember but I know it was a present
Belt - Primark £1.50
Wedges - Dolcis, birthday present from my best friend years and years ago
Necklaces - 20p each from a car boot sale
Bag - £1 car boot sale (I think it's H&M)
Bangle - pinched from Mum's jewellery box
Vintage headscarf - came wrapped around a Lush giftset!

Admittedly I was reliant on Primark for the main thing but I will, as usual, stick up for Primark on here. Yes there is an awful load of tat but if you rummage and are careful about the fabrics you choose, there are gems to be had. This dress is technically a size 18 but fitted me when I was an awful lot bigger than that, and it still fits me now with a little judicious belting. I always used to leave it for winter as the print reminds me of poinsettias but nothing in my wardrobe is limited to a particular season anymore so it gets worn a lot more.

I think the outfit covers quite a lot of bargainous shopping options. Buying things on super sale? Check. Presents from friends? Check. Car boot sale finds? Check. Nicking things from your mum? Check. Reusing things that came free? Check! So my bargain hunting tip for the day is - don't be afraid to explore all options, you might be surprised what you turn up. I can't say it would have occured to me a few months ago to reuse gift wrapping as an accessory but I have quite the stash of ribbons now (can be used as belts, headbands, chokers etc) and this vintage scarf is just fab. It might be wrapping but it looks good on my head!

ps - I don't recommend draping yourself in wrapping paper. Probably not so chic.

Stomp

Morning all.

So yesterday I tried something a bit different. I won't go so far as to call it grunge but it's definitely tougher than my usual look. All inspired by this rather snazzy little jacket which arrived through the letterbox a couple of weeks ago, totally unexpectedly. I thought I was just getting some Boots £5 off vouchers so I was a tad baffled, but very pleased, to get a big parcel rather than a little envelope. Thanks Sharron!!

The boots were a bit of a bargain - only about £10 or £12 - and have been waiting to be worn ever since I bought them a few months ago. I thought now was the appropriate time and I must say, I love the impact a pair of boots has on my mood and attitude. I walk in flats, stride in trainers, sashay in heels (well, I try to) and STOMP in boots. I felt quite kick-ass in these.

I know the photos are rubbish so apologies if you can't actually see said boots very well! This should be the last blog post with the crappy borrowed camera as I picked up a shiny new one yesterday. Woop! Now I just need to learn how to use it...

Tshirt - Dorothy Perkins

Jacket - Topshop, via Sharron

Skirt - H&M

Tights - Ethel Austin (they're a lot more purple than they look in the photos)

Boots - Chiara

ps - thanks for all your helpful comments on my last post. I don't think I worded it as well as I could have done - other than mildly hankering after playsuits, I actually don't care about any of the things in the big list and I'm far from being a trend follower. I was just wondering if I sometimes overlook things in the shops that might end up suiting me cos I'm still in the middle of working out what suits my new shape. I tend to shop by myself and I'm not always the bravest so a suggestion or idea from you lovely lot can encourage me to try something I wouldn't otherwise consider.