YAH!!!

Look what arrived on Friday - finally!!

A couple of people asked me where we are heading off to on our holiday - we are going to Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. Our last day at work before our holiday is WEDNESDAY! On Thursday morning we will be flying to Singapore.

Hope you guys are all having a rad weekend xoxo

Dragon Lady Dress

Well look I made another thing! Well actually I made this thing a while back, I just didn't have a chance to blog about it. I finished it up the last week of Me Made May but all you folks got to see was this selfie, because by the end of the month I was SO SICK of all of the photos.

So this dress is more of the same in some ways - I made this dress  from the Laurel pattern by Colette Patterns. You guys have seen so many versions on this pattern already, but what the hell. I like it and it works for me, I'm pretty sure there will be more and more versions of this dress in the future!

So I SHOULD have straightened the frock up a bit before asking Rich to take the photo! But you guys can see the dress - I think its cute. Also we ALWAYS have a football in our lounge, its not just for the Football World Cup.

This fabric may look familiar to some of you, it was one of my sweet scores from the Island Bay fabric fair. I STILL  need to make something with the magnificent 90s computer fabric I bought on that day.

Here's a close up of the fabric - you can see why I call it my dragon lady dress right?

Also you may have noticed I'm NOT wearing my trusty brown Avon winter boots in these photos - WAHHHH?? I bought a new pair of winter boots and they are black and are super comfy. Hurrah.

Oh yeah and the passport - so apparently its been approved! I rang the passports office last night as I have been thinking about it a bit (AKA freaking out). They told me it has been approved and there is no reason I won't have it by the end of the week. Next Monday at the very latest. So everything should be fine - but I DO fly out on the 26th of June! At least I'm still smiling right?

Hope you all have a good week!  PS - I totally know the neckline doesn't fit that great - but I kind of don't care, life's too short!

Lady Date: Vintage Market

I'm going to be honest with you guys - my desire  to blog has pretty much disappeared lately. I can't say I'm exactly sure why, lets hope it returns soon. 

I did want to share with you all though a morning out Ria and I  had recently. One of our local Saturday markets, the Frank Kitts Market (or Wellington Underground Market as its officially called) occasionally has themed market days and last week it was a vintage themed market so we thought we would go and check it out. 

I try to never have very high expectations for vintage themed markets - often vintage markets seem to be selling stuff for really inflated prices or just don't seem to have anything that interest me. However, this one was awesome. There may have only been a handful of vintage stalls (as well a the usual stall holders) but they had such great stuff. 

It seemed that my camera wasn't really up to taking photos on the day, so many of them came out blurry. There were so many great stalls though, including one from Georgia from The Velvettes which was awesome. 

Much to my surprise, both Ria and I bought SO MANY TREASURES! Normally when I go shopping now something has to be exceptional for me to buy, as so often I think "But I could make that and I already have a pattern/fabric that's pretty similar" but this time - I hit the jackpot!

 Super fun 1960's shift dress - the patterns is perfect! I've already worn this one to work!

 1980's candy stripe dress.

 Awesome bright orange NZ made 1960s dress.

 Floral 1970s polyester dress, I need to shorten it a bit as it is the weirdest length on me (neither long or short enough to look right).

 Just look at that pattern - amazing!

 A super warm wool cardi in red - you can never have enough cardis.

 A blue handmade cardi - super warm.

This isn't vintage at all but I did get a couple of metres of cute floaty anchor and heart print fabric - turns out at least two other people I know have this fabric as well.

Finally, after the market Ria and I decided we needed a break for morning tea and went to French Cancan which has recently opened up near our apartment. It's little bit fancy!

Hope you have all been having a great weekend!

The Vix Dress

Hello Folks! Thanks for your lovely supportive comments on my last blog post - sorry to be such a bummer.

The bad news is I am still not 100% - but the good news is I received an e-mail from the passport office and my application is being processed.

Now onto much happier things - my latest sewing project! I've named it the Vix dress after the amazing Vix of Vintage Vixen.

It's named Vix as I can see her totally rocking this fabric - also it embraces her ability to recycle all kinds of fabric (Queen of curtain couture) and I also used a pattern she gave me to create the dress.

So let's start at the beginning of the project shall we? A couple of weeks back I picked up this EPIC maxi skirt from a second hand shop. It DID fit me, but it wasn't very flattering. Also it was handmade by a very tall lady as it was very long on me (as in dragging on the ground and I'm not that short - I'm 168 cm).

However, I decided to buy it anyway as I loved the fabric and I thought I could "make it work" somehow.

However, when I got home I really decided I couldn't make it work in its current form and seen as it needed to be shortened anyway I figured I would see if I could re-fashion the skirt.

Some people are so good at re-fashioning clothes, they can see the potential in any old crap and next thing its a couple of snips here and a few seams here and its awesome. It's a skill I wish I could say I have - but I just don't (believe me, I've tried a number of times).

Instead I used the skirt as a piece of fabric and decided to see what pattern I could use to turn it into something else.

In the end I decided to use the Maudella Pattern that Vix gave me to make the dress - I've made this pattern a whole bunch of times before including here and here, but this was the first time I've made it in a woven fabric rather then a stretch fabric.

I was crossing my fingers it would all come together and hurrah it did - I was able to recycle the whole skirt, including the zipper.

Here is the finished dress - looking slightly wonky on the coat hanger - but I am very happy with the final product. I just love the fabric so much.

I wore this dress to work today - but I had to wear a cardi as well as its kind of chilly at the moment (note to self, next time take the coat hanger down before snapping photos).

I hope you guys all have a great week - here's to good health and a current passport by the end of the week!

Winters Morning on the waterfront

I've been thinking for some time that 2014 just isn't my year at all and as we are now half way through the year I'm convinced. It's seems to be a year of never ending bad luck.

Nearly a week later I'm still feeling pretty terrible with my cold/flu/whatever - I went to the doctor and was given  the really great diagnosis of it "cold be viral or it could be infection" obviously $43 dollars well spent.

I've also been having no end of trouble with my new passport, which I've been trying to organise whilst generally feeling terrible. I decided I would try and apply for my new passport online. However,  the photos I uploaded, which were taken by the post office were rejected not once but twice due to my "wispy hair" being detected as "shadows" by the software. I've now been told by the passport office to apply for the passport in paper as its "just easier". Hopefully I am still going on holiday on the 26th of the month.

Anyways on Saturday morning Rich and I both we awake early so we decided to go for a walk on the waterfront. These photos pretty much reflect my mood right now.

Hopefully the next week will be better for me - who knows, maybe my new passport with finally turn up.

Queens Birthday Weekend: Armageddon

I'm not going to lie to you guys - this Queens birthday weekend was pretty much the worst long weekend EVER.

I had my plans laid out - I knew Rich had quite a bit of study to do, so my simple plan was Armageddon with Ria on Saturday, Craft day at a friends house on Sunday and finally a day spent with Rich celebrating our twelve year anniversary on Sunday.

The only thing I was able to do was go to Armageddon, and when I was at that I was feeling a bit iffy.

I'm sick, sick, sick, sick.....I went to the doctor and held told me it could be a virus or an infection? So take some painkillers and keep warm for a few days and if you get XYZ syptoms then move onto the big guns - the antibiotics *sigh*

I'm going to be honest with you guys, because of the "sickness" I didn't enjoy Armageddon as much as I did in past years.

Also I ran out of time to get a "real" costume together, which I was a little sad about. It's always much better when some cosplay is involved.

I took this photo walking to the stadium where the event was being held - those guys in front of me are actually stormtroopers. 

This year was much bigger and busier than previous years - I'm not sure if I like it being so busy, or maybe I didn't like it because I was feeling kind of sick. Who can tell. Anyways this year Ria had a stall with a couple of her friends. 

I'm pretty excited as its not just a stall - she has started her own business called  "Rebel Traders"

Here's some of the pretties they had for sale at their stall - so many fun things!

Look at the tiny legos in this necklace - how cute!

Hair bows to let you live out your sailor moon dreams!

 Look at the tiny pigs on these bloomers - squee! 

 One of Ria's friends was doing hair and make up styling and also putting on elf ears at the stall -this was her impressive kit!

Also there was a very good collection of lollies at the stall - we caught at least one kid stuffing his pockets with lollies!

I decided to take a stall selfie - because reasons. Also I am wearing green horns, because its Armageddon.

I'm going to be honest with you guys, I wasn't as impressed with costumes this year as I have been other years. But I really think its because I was feeling sick and uninspired. 

However, I was pretty wowed when I met Sally from "A Nightmare Before Christmas". Also I have decided never to straighten my hair again - just let it work its wild, messy magic.

I was also lucky enough to meet someone from Gallifrey - impressive right?

This lady made the impressive shoulder thingee with some stuff called Worbla that she bought from Ria.

I nearly forgot Ria's costume was amazing - duh! Although she had multiple costume changes throughout the day.

I did check out a few of the other stalls - but not too much grabbed me. But how cute is this wee guy?

Finally  a quick BFF shot of Ria and I - unfortunately I didn't make it to the end of the day, as I wasn't feeling great and it all became a wee bit too much. Bummer.

So thoughts on Armageddon 2014 - well to be honest, I didn't have as much fun as previous years, but honesty I was feeling SICK and I think that's why. But it was also a LOT busier than previous years and there seemed to be a lot more bought costumes and a lot less DIY costumes and the DIY costumes are always my favourite part of Armageddon! Will I go next year? More than likely yes and I will hopefully be able to set aside some time to make a costume. My Hell Bunny dress is fun - but its no where near as fun as a real costume (lets fact it - I could wear this dress to work - by Wellington standards its not anything too unusual).

Also if I could NOT be sick next year - that would be awesome, actually if I could stop feeling sick right now that would kind of be awesome.