Teddy's Café

Hello everyone! I've had such a lovely day today.

Although it's the Easter holidays, I have a holiday job which I've been working at this week. However, today I had a day off, so I went for a date in my lovely hometown!

The weather has been rather beautiful this week, so I had a chance to make a nice spring coordinate. It's the first time I've worn this handmade vintage dress! 

~Rundown~

~Everything is vintage or offbrand!~

I love the length of this onepiece, and the pretty neckline.

I usually favour high necklines, but lately I've dared to bare my collarbone!

How's your geology, by the way? If you're a bit of an expert, maybe you can tell which part of England my hometown is in by the stonework.

If geology doesn't spark your interest, perhaps some food will? My date and I went to a very nice café called Teddy's. The decor is very charming there, and very fitting for the name!

We took our favourite table, next to the dear teddies in the window display. They are currently enjoying an Easter picnic with jam sandwiches.

One little fellow caught my eye particularly:

I ordered the tea of the month, the very romantic 'Teddy's First Kiss'. It was very light and refreshing, and came with a rabbit-shaped biscuit! 

After lunch we looked around the charity shops. I love charity shops, especially my local ones. They are a bit deadly though; when I bring a donation, I usually end up leaving with more things than I brought!   I've found some wonderful things in charity shops, including this onepiece, which I discovered buried amongst some hallowe'en costumes last October. When you see 'vintage' listed in my rundowns, on many occasions the item is from a charity shop. Also, since I've always liked these shops, when I donate I quite often end up simply returning items to their place of origin!

Bye for now!

I'm back!

Oh dear, it's been far too long since I've updated! I do have a good excuse though, I've been working on my final collection for my fashion design degree.

Only about half the class are selected to show their final collection at Graduate Fashion Week, so everyone was working hard to finish the four outfits for the selection day. I didn't sleep for two days, but it was good to see everything finished in the end. 

As I think I've mentioned before, I've never felt myself to be particularly popular with my tutors, but to my great suprise, I was selected to be in the show! The tutors pinned up a list of successful students, and when I read my name I could hardly believe it.

Number 16!

I had set myself up for failure, and consoled myself by thinking that I might have time to actually make some clothes for myself for once, and do all the other things I haven't had time to do, like go to meet ups, take outfit snaps and write lots in this blog! Well, it looks like I'll be busy again, since I need six outfits for the show, but I am proud that I made it into GFW.  My collection is quite funny. It's based on hina matsuri. Would you like to see? It might make you laugh!

The fabric I used for the outfit on the far right is very pretty.

It's a light silk, and I think it's hand-printed. It would have made a nice summer dress! As you can imagine, my hina matsuri outfits are not ones I would wear myself, but nonetheless it's exciting to see a whole colection you've made yourself. 

I'm taking a break this week, so expect another entry before too long. I've got a lot stored up I want to write about! Before that I'll leave you with a coord from the summer. 

~Rundown~

Modified blouse and bow- Anna House

Jumperskirt- Jane Marple

Everything else- Vintage and offbrand

The English weather seems to be tiptoeing it's way towards the warmer season, though at times it runs right back to winter again! I'm looking forward to being able to wear a coord like this again.

Oh! A very talented person, etched made a picture of me wearing this outfit! 

It's so cute isn't it? She's really clever. I wish I was so cute in real life though! You can see her entry on lj here, she did another adorable picture of her friend.

Bye for now!

The Sherlock Holmes Museum

Hello everyone!

I don't think I've mentioned that I'm a big fan of Sherlock Holmes? 

I absolutely love the television series starring Jeremy Brett, and when I began to read the stories I loved them too. Last summer, during a particularly obsessive phase, I took a trip to 221B. Baker Street....

~

I regard this photograph with a mixture of embarrassment and pride. I was really impressed with the attention to detail at the house; look on the left side of the mantle, you can see Holmes' correspondence transfixed by a jack-knife, just like in the stories!

By the way, I do apologise for wearing the same dress as in my last post. You must be thoroughly sick of it by now!

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Holmes' violin, and some of his experiments.

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God Save the Queen!

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Apart from the pipe and deerstalker hat, I'm not entirely sure what these items are. They were in his bedroom, and I wonder if they are part of some ingenious means by which to disguise oneself? 

~

This is what Dr. Watson keeps on his bedside table! For medicinal purposes I'm sure. 

~

Signing the guest book.

The Sherlock Holmes Museum is filled up with all sorts of interesting trinkets, some of which appear in the book, but many many more besides. I think this gives it a really wonderful atmosphere! The museum owners seem to have taken the stance that Sherlock Holmes was a real living person, which is rather charming. There are various (fake) artefacts from the stories displayed in one of the rooms, including some gruesome ones such as the engineer's thumb!

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle actually lived not too far from my home town, and I've seen his statue many times. If the statue is to be believed, he looked ever so much like Watson! I do think that he based the character on himself. 

Writing this post has got me into a Holmes-y mood now. I'm reading Heidi at the moment, inspired by Innocent World's recent Heidi and Clara dresses, so once I've finished I think I'll have to go back to Sherlock.

Thanks for reading, see you again soon!

Which hairstyles match the onepiece?

Today's theme is: same dress, different hair!

I wore this outfit to meet some of my local Lolitas for the first time. They are very lovely indeed, but sadly I haven't had many chances to see them since. I hope we'll be able to meet up more in the summer. I miss them!

I tried to style my hair into a small "hime bump", but obviously it wasn't very successful. For one thing I think my fringe starts too far back for that style, and for another, well, I think I need more practice. 

I wore this same onepiece to the Tea Party Club's anniversary meet up (the Tea Party Club is a British Lolita meet-up group). I did an up-do again, this time a ponytail. I put my fringe to one side for a change.

(photo credit to Dom!)

I've tried it with twin tails too!

I also tried a plaited style, not that you can see it too well in this photo.

It's a bit more tricky to change the look of a onepiece than a skirt or jumpeskirt, isn't it? Since I love this dress very much, I'm going to look at these pictures and see if I can think of some new ideas! 

See you next time!