A Month Of Weddings

August has whizzed by in a blur, but despite all signs at the start has managed to be a very lovely and romantic month.

I was treated to dinner by Los Furias Tiki right at the bringing of the month, and even before that I attended, what turned out to be a very beautiful wedding of some long standing friends. I won't be posting any of the images from the weddings them selves on here, because that feels a bit rude and impersonal given that none of the married parties blog or the such like. However I managed to find some outfit shots to be able to show you what I wore, apart from to the last wedding....but I'll explain why in a while. 

First off was Al & Liz's wedding, who have been together for years and are a lovely couple. I wore a Lady K Loves dress to this one, since it was in a church followed by reception in a field. 

So this is me in my red Dorris dress, we're all walking to the tree where a skiffle style band played and the couple had their first dance.

 

Above I'm with one of my best friends Heidi, making cocktails at the impromptu cocktail bar which got set up once the Pimms people had left.

Next up was a a wedding double bill, firstly another set of friends from the same group where getting married, then shortly after we found out another couple we're good friends with also had planned their wedding, on the same day! So, ceremony and a little of the reception at one, followed by a drive through the country side to Wales for the second! I need to say a massive thank you to my brother who drove like the wind, and refused to give up when we had trouble finding the small farm in the Welsh countryside where the wedding was held!

First out fit is a dress I've been trying to finish for ages, and finally I knew how to do the collar on this so my bright pink Hawaiian pink dress was at long last ready, though not for the faint hearted.

Here's me next to Los Furias himself, the bride made her entrance up this lawn to a small red building which she was married in, 

I feel a little bad that I've stolen this picture and cropped the bride out! (Plus it's not really up to the close zoom). Her dress was lovely, and being a rock'n'roll girl at heart, she had leopard print shoes poking out.

Finally on to Wales! And we got horribly lost, got there late, changed in car into something a little warmer, my Lady K Loves Rosie trousers and a wrap top from Voodoo Kitten 13, in bright pink Hawaiian print. This was a tiki themed wedding so in fact I was, by some standards a little under dressed with my plain trousers. As we got there so late, there aren't any full pictures of me, but, here you can see the his and hers mugs the couple had made for the day. All guests got one, red for ladies, black granite finish for the gents.

I'll add more images as they surface, there was a lot of recovery time needed after this wedding!

Blogger Dresses

A long time ago, or at least that is what it feels like!....I had a conversation with the lovely Andi B Goode via twitter about some dresses she wanted to make but didn't feel she had the sewing know how. After a little conversation, we thought we'd do a small run of a dress designed by her. I also spoke to Gemma at Retro Chick as I know she's a savy dresser and shopper and always has an eye for style.

They both designed about 4 - 6 different dresses, which then got narrowed down to 4 for   their lovely readers chose from. It was too hard to choose our selves as we all hard different things we liked for different reasons. People voted and below are the two winning designs.

 

Andi B Goode's winning design for Lady K Loves as voted by her readers.

 

Retro Chick's winning design for Lady K Loves as voted by her readers

The next stage was the fabric and the pattern, I drafted one up for each dress as shown below, 

 

I made some changes to the original dress, the main on being that rather than having a straight waist line I lengthened the skirt and went for an under bust hem. While I know for some curvier ladies that can be a little daunting, the cut should work to help lengthen the body and the bust has plenty of room to be filled!

 

Andi's dress at the draft stage,the 2 button holes on either side of the skirt are for placement only, in the actual article they button holes are on the inside with the buttons facing in so it provides extra secure closure with out being visible.

Once the pattern and basics were worked out it was time to go to the fabric shop! Which was the really exciting bit since as much as possible of these dresses is made from vintage fabric. So a trip to St. Leonards, to the wonderful Wayward haberdashery was in order....which meant coffee and cakes at the lovely Little Larder. Wayward is fantastic, full of so much exciting and inspiring fabric, buttons, trims, vintage hand made lace, military braid, gold thread, cards, scarf's, blankets, throws, it's amazing. The point where I've nearly gone back though and deleted that, I don't want to share this shop, it's too good!

So after some coffee and being in awe, and wanting everything, and getting excited abut all of the wonderful clothes I could make I took some pictures of suitable fabrics for the girls and their dresses, and this are the ones they went for.

 Andi B Goode buttons,

 

Retro Chick Fabric.

Gemma's dress fabric is very different to her original design, but I saw it and thought she'd love it, and she 

did!

Main fabric for Andi's dress, again it's a different colour than originally intended, but it's part of going for all vintage fabric, not everything you want is there, but what is, is beautiful!

So the dresses are now done and have been sent off to the bloggers. I'm excited to see them wearing the dress they designed, and really hope you like them once they go on sale.

Shakedown Rock'n'roll No 4

It was fantastic! Being the first proper show Lady K Loves has done, apart from trade shows, it was kind of hard to know what to expect. Turns out it as a great one to start with, loads of lovely people, brilliant music and a pretty cheap bar! To keep my company the lovely Miss Betty Flowers, from You Make Me Blush, came with me. We’ve worked together before on fashion shoots and she is one of the most fun people I know and definitely made the weekend!

 

The sun shone all weekend and we our stand were extremely well positioned, on our right was the Salon bar, which took a little while for us to work out why it was so raucous. Lovely bar tenders, salon style doors which provided lots of entertainment, and strong cider for only £2.50 a pint. On the other side was The Vintage Tearooms, prefect for early morning coffee, a spot of lunch, or tea with cream scones. They looked after us so well all weekend, from coffee in the morning to pasties at dinner time. They were also accompanied by the owner’s son Danny, who was such as charmer and had a little holiday romance with Betty!

Thankfully, although I don’t really have an camping equipment, Mama K came to the rescue…and this is what our tent looked like with everything she provided!

 We had inflatable beds, since I think my day’s of sleeping in just a sleeping bag are long gone, a stove, coffee makers, chairs, all mod cons. Plus we found a lovely little shoe rack on the side of the bedroom ‘door’. The tent is my sisters so I really do have to say massive thanks to both of them because with out all that it would have been hard work. We had plenty of room for a little kitchen too. Plus you can see at the bottom corner of the picture, a lovely stripy mat which Betty brought and we used as a rug.

 

 We spent the weekend talking to lovely people, Maaike from Roundup Records, Verity & Gemma of Vanity Box, Jake Allan of, well Jake Allan, and Julie from Big Girls Blouse (who dose fantastic dresses, jeans and clothes for fuller figures, and I will now be pointing anyone who doesn’t fit Lady K Loves in her direction). We had a visit from a lovely chap who later turned out to be the bassist from The Polecats….which made watching them all the better that evening!

So here are some traditional ‘myspace’ style pictures of me at Betty at the show, our stand and a band which I can't remember the name of (just checked - The Humdingers), who were fantastic slightly swampy, Hillbilly, style....Every time I picked up a new flyer to see who was playing, it was one for next year so keep an eye on the the web site for details.

We’ve already booked for next year and can hardly wait!