52 photos

I must admit to have neglected this project a little.  So I’ve cheated a little and looked at my recent photos to see if any fit!

Where I live.

I live in a seaside town on the south coast of England.  The English channel is wider here - about 40 miles from France and mainland Europe.  I love the sea!  I can’t imagine living far from the sea, for lots of reasons.  It defines our town, as it is a focal point, for walks and activities.  It defines our weather, we are never too hot or cold here, the sea cools us down in the summer and keeps the frosts away in the winter.  It’s just those pesky Sou’Westerly winds that I don’t like! 

What I wore.

It’s Me Made May among the sewing blogs!  Dressmakers ad sewists are trying to wear me made clothes for all of May.  It’s very inspiring to have a peek at the blogs and flickr pages.  I haven’t made enough outfits to wear them every day, but am trying to wear all my Me Made outfits this month and trying to find new ways of styling them.  Here’s my first Tiramisu from Cake Patterns.

 

Clouds

We went to a fish and chip restaurant at Brighton Marina last night. The sky was really messy with all different types of clouds!  I took this as the sun was going down.

Someone I love

I took this photo of Maurice in the cloisters at Canterbury Cathedral.  I love the light and shad on his face.  And for once, his eyes aren’t closed!

A Weekend in Canterbury

We are having our kitchen refitted at the moment, so decided to go away for the weekend while we have no kitchen.  Here it is freshly plastered ready to dry out over the weekend.

 

We went to Canterbury, which is famous for it’s cathedral.  It is the  Mother Church of the Anglican Communion and seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury.  We were lucky enough to have glorious weather, and spent our time visiting the cathedral, and wandering around the quaint old streets:

On Sunday morning we went for a little boat trip along the river:

We had a lovely picnic by the river, then made our way home.  A lovely relaxing weekend!

Dressmaking–2 versions of same pattern

Here’s my latest dressmaking – 2 versions of the Wiksten Tova top.  I made the brown and red one first in very cheap fabric from the local market.  It is probably a polycotton.  They are both very thin, drapey fabrics, but hey! they work fine for this top!  In fact I prefer this version because it is so drapey and light.  It will be a lovely ‘cover up’ top to wear in the summer.

 

The second version is made from a lovely crisp cotton fabric I bought in Fabricland (along with my haul!) last week.  I love the colour combo of this minty green with my coral cardigan.

I made the collar smaller in this version, following the sew along on Kerry’s blog here, and shortened the sleeves. I love that you can google a dress pattern and find sew alongs and flickr pages with lots of different versions for inspiration!

Although I love this fabric, I think it is too stiff for this pattern.  See how the neck looks too big?  I am beginning to realise that I have narrow shoulders and upper bust.  Therefore what I really need to do is a Full Bust Adjustment (FBA).  Most patterns are cut for a B cup, so if you have a bigger bust, you use your upper bust measurement, then alter the pattern using an FBA.  I am trying (and failing!) to do one on  Simplicity K1913.  It has a lovely princess seam top, so I am following this tutorial.  (Check out her gorgeous ‘Doris Day’ suit for her entry in Project Sewn! Actually only check this if you want to spend at least an hour checking everyone else’s entry!)  I am hoping to make a really good fitting bodice to which I can add different skirts.  Watch this space – it is going to take while!

Shoreham photo walk

Shoreham is a small harbour town about 10 miles to the East of us.  One dull Sunday morning recently we decided to drive over there for a photo walk.

Here’s the lovely St Mary De Haura church, which dates back to 1103, and dominates the centre of town.

We made our way through the town to the new footbridge across the river, over to Shoreham Beach.  Shoreham Beach was first built on in the early 20th century.  The first buildings were converted railway carriages!  None of them are left now.  During the 1960s lots of modern ‘avant-garde’ houses were built along there – but sadly the weather has battered them, coming straight from the sea.  The few we walked past looked very sad in the dreary weather:

As we made our way back over the river, we spotted this very photogenic boat:

You can see the new footbridge and the church in the background.  The funny thing is -  as we were clicking away with our cameras, a man popped his head out of the boat.  We had no idea that it was inhabited!!  I don’t think he was too impressed with us photographing his boat, so we made a quick exit!  We were tempted by lots of little tea shops in the high street, so we stopped to have a drink before we went home.

Garden–New Border Update

Some of the new plants I bought, clockwise from the top:

Cammassia leichtlinii alba

Prunus cistena

Bergenia overture

Berberis thunbergii Area

Allium pinball wizard

Hosta guacomole and heuchera licorice planted in large blue pot

 

I am finding it difficult to get a good photo of the whole border, here’s the best one:

Right down at the bottom of this border – below the holly tree is a foxes den!  I think they have left now that we are doing more work down there.

And finally, some bluebells growing in the path on the other side of the garden:

Top 5 photos for April

 

We went for a walk around Shoreham, a small local harbour town (more photos and details to come).  This seagull was incredibly tame, only a few feet away from me.  See it’s still got some brown feathers?  Must be a young one.

 

Difficult to choose, but I think this is my favourite from Arundel Castle gardens

4 Easter bunnies on the sideboard

My friend Tash bought me a little milk bottle – like those we used to have at school!  It sits on my kitchen windowsill, and I’m going to use it to keep specimen flowers from my garden.  Here’s a lovely creamy yellow tulip from earlier in the month.

Maurice sold his Honda custom motorbike.  He polished it until it shone beautifully!  It’s by far the longest time we have owned a vehicle, 15 years exactly to the day!  Here’s my  reflection in the chrome as I took some photos.