They have horse riding as well. I remember I did it last year. Well it wasn't really a horse, it was actually this oul fella. He couldn't go very fast so I had to hit him with the whip a few times.

Hello everyone! I had a wee bit of an unscheduled break there as the wifi in my parents' house isn't the best, and of course I was up to all sorts of excitement in the vibrant holiday resort of Dungannon. OKAY NOT REALLY. It rained a lot while Nic and I were at home, but then it wouldn't be a Northern Irish summer if the view out the window wasn't this one:

 

"Summer"

Still though, it was grand. It took a few days to recover from the wedding itself - we basically spent all of Sunday and most of Monday in hibernation. The sound of the rain drumming on the roof was actually sort of restful for that! On Monday afternoon we did decide to go out for a dander in town and to visit my grandma and a family friend. Thankfully the rain cleared off for a bit and I wore a new dress I'd bought in Dungannon a few days earlier. Like I hadn't packed enough dresses, right?

 Dorothy Perkins midi dress and Carvela Australia shoes

Yes, I'm ready to chair my first meeting as president of the Midlands branch of Polka Dot Lovers Anonymous. And no, I didn't walk into town in those heels. That's just the road outside my parents' house. The dog did think he was getting to go for a walk, though:

"Sorry, Paddy. These are not dog-walking shoes."

Of course the big galoot jumped up and got muddy paw marks on me, but who can blame him? It is a nice dress. My wee granny loved it too, and it sent her off into a reverie about how much she loved clothes when she was a young married woman. I didn't lick it off the road, did I?

We had a bit more excitement on Tuesday with a day out planned in Belfast. The idea was to catch up with my friend Emma and then go for a tour around the new Titanic Centre. I bought these crisps specially to get the voucher:

 

Bad Taste Crisps. They were really tasty, though. And anchor shaped!

That didn't go quite to plan, as the Titanic thing was all sold out. That was maybe for the best though, as Emma's review of it was less than positive, and so was baby sister's (she visited later in the week) Still, it never fails to amuse me how weirdly proud Northern Ireland is of the Titanic. And of the Delorean. Yeah. Anyway, we had a fabulous, Titanic-free day in Belfast, starting by meeting Emma and her new wee man Dexter for a coffee in Clement's on Botanic.

 Dexter!

The weather stayed pleasant long enough for us to have our coffee outside and a turn around the Botanic Gardens before popping into the Ulster Museum:

On the steps of the Palm House. Red jacket from Precis, Magnificent Obsession dress, Vivienne Westwood for Melissa cherry Lady Dragon shoes and Ness handbag

The little red jacket here was a gift from my mum. She wore it to Kelly's wedding and, as I had admired it, she gave it to me. I'm very spoiled because she also gave me a lovely coat - obviously the key to raiding my mum's wardrobe is to say complimentary things about the contents of it. Sadly the weather took a turn for the worse shortly after this photo and we got caught in a thunderstorm, and were forced to take shelter in Auntie Annie's. This was fine and I was amused to find that Belfast was keeping it classy as always - on sale in the vending machine in the ladies, along with chewing gum, condoms and tampons, you could buy both vibrators and knickers. Knickers!

Thankfully Belfast does have classier spots than Auntie Annie's and, after lunch in Little Wing and a poke around Atomic Collectables, Nic and I took ourselves along to The Merchant Hotel on Skipper Street for some cocktails. The cocktail bar is apparently the 'world's best cocktail bar' and it's easy to see why, it is absolutely gorgeous:

The Merchant's cocktail menu isn't just a menu, it's an entire book, which Nic and I enjoyed reading through while we sampled some of the delicious (and complimentary) bar snacks. We both opted to stay classic, I had a Sloe Gin Fizz and Nic a Dry Martini. We also ordered the selection of mini cakes:

Mini cakes included a trifle, a fruit tart, a raspberry macaron and a profiterole swan, which you can't see in this photo.

Profiterole Swan! This is their speciality, apparently.

The Merchant is so beautiful. Emma and Adrian got married there on New Year's Eve and we plan to have dinner there together when I'm next home - so I'm starting to save up! It was a really fun and elegant way to spend the afternoon.

Now I don't want you thinking I'm all classy and sophisticated all of a sudden, because that would be false. I might have spent an hour or two in a classy establishment, but I still found this item and took this photograph in Poundland:

 

In case you can't read that, it's a home vajazzle kit. A HOME VAJAZZLE KIT FOR A POUND. Because Poundland glue and sequins is what you want to be getting near your junk, right? I honestly don't think I can think of many things bleaker than this. Well, maybe apart from a Poundland Pejazzle kit, but they didn't have those. Oh and before you ask, no I didn't buy it. That is a disapproving face up there. It'll likely be more of a disapproving badger face when I see the search terms including the words vajazzle and pejazzle that bring people to this blog.

Anyhoo, that was our day out in Belfast. It was time to catch the bus home, get the jammies on and eat toast. And that's your lot from me this evening. I know when I've peaked, and that's with a home vajazzle kit and Titanic-themed crips. I'll tell you more about the rest of our holiday later in the week.

Tell Detective Stevens if he sees a woman wearing last year's pink Blahnik strappy sandals, bring her in for questioning immediately.

Recently I joked about what what happen if I lost, or even if some unscrupulous so and so stole my favourite shoes. You know, my shoes that go with everything, my Vivienne Westwood for Melissa Cherry Lady Dragons. Nic and I had just watched the Sex and The City episode 'A Woman's Right To Shoes' and underneath my joking there was genuine concern. Like, I was exhausted just thinking about the tears that would be shed if that were to happen. You see, I know this is going to sound materialistic (well, duh, because it is materialistic) but I like my stuff. I'm attached to my stuff. I only keep things around that mean something to me, so all of my possessions have some sort of sentimental value. They all tell a story. Take for example, my lovely Fever Rose Garden dress:

This dress has very many happy memories attached to it. It was the first dress I bought from Fever, so the start of a long and happy relationship with that lovely independent brand. I bought it shortly after Nic and I started going out, so of course it reminds me of a long and happy summer of love. It accompanied me on many adventures - I wore it to explore Dover Castle and the White Cliffs:

I wore it to go dancing in Paris. I wore it the day we found our lovely flat. Here's a massively awkward photo of me wearing the dress to the butterfly farm in Stratford on a day out with Nic and his brother. I love this dress. Every time I look at it I think of all the happy times we've had together, and all of the times I've worn it and felt awesome in it. I have happy memories of all of the dresses in my wardrobe and they're priceless for that reason.

 

Here's me wearing my dress in the butterfy farm in Stratford Upon Avon

The memories themselves - well, only complicated surgery or, you know, getting old, will affect those. But if Bette Davis could insure her waist, and Jamie Lee Curtis could insure her whole body (apparently, for $2.8 million dollars), neither of which are actually replacable, then I could compare home insurance and think about insuring my dresses. Not that $2.8 million would actually cover that cost of course, OBVIOUSLY.  Also, what could have happened to Bette Davis's waist that the loss of it could somehow be covered by money? WUT? Anyway, if some unscrupulous beggar swipes my shoes at a party, or some dedicated burglar shins up the drainpipe and in the window to take my Hornsea teapot, or even if Loud Guy in the downstairs flat falls asleep smoking and sets fire to the place (I shouldn't joke about that one, the idea of that does genuinely frighten me) then I'm set. I might not be able to replace the dresses themselves, but at least I'd be able to buy new dresses and make a whole set of new happy memories in.  

Disclosure: This is a sponsored post, but all views are my own.

I shot people I like more for less.

I suppose it's my advanced age these days, but 2012 has been a year of weddings. I rang in 2012 at my dear friend Emma's wedding and more recently we've been to the weddings of our friends Daniel and Victoria, and then Adam and Helene. Last week Nic and I flew home to Northern Ireland for my little sister's wedding.

We flew back on Wednesday afternoon and enjoyed a few days of activity before the wedding itself, which was on Saturday. I'd never been at the business end of a wedding before and this was our first big family wedding and it was really wonderful. We started the day early, the bridal party going over to Moy to have our hair done. Kelly had bought us these fetching fresian print onesies to wear in the morning:

Me and Kelly, only up and ready to get our hair done

It was actually a very practical choice, as well as being fun to wear. We were at the salon for 8am to have our hair done and they did a great job on all the rest of the bridal party. MY hair? It was an absolute disaster. Having short hair is apparently socially unacceptable when it comes to wedding. I don't know what the hairdresser's experience was but she looked at me like I was a deviant, and I came out looking like Rod Stewart's ugly sister. NOT GOOD. Thankfully Colleen used to be a hairdresser so I got home, got my hair washed and she sorted me out. By the time that was done, the photographers had arrived and so had the makeup artist and things really started happening. It was chaos in our house, not helped by the dog's incessant barking!

This was the only way to get the dog to stop barking

Me and Daddy - this is before I got my makeup done, but Daddy looked so handsome in his suit!

All too quickly, it was time to get dressed. I had seen a photo of Kelly's dress, but not of her in it.

This one is blurry because I took it with my phone - I promise there are better ones further along....

Here Kelly is with my parents. I think her bouquet of baby's breath was really unusual and so pretty

We got into the cars and went down the road to the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Tullysaran, where Kelly's husband is from. It's customary to marry in the bride's parish, but Kelly decided she'd rather marry in Tullysaran and I can understand why. The church was gorgeous and the priest, Father Kevin Donaghy, was a lovely man. The wedding ceremony itself went by in a flash, and thankfully all I had to remember to do was to stand up and kneel down at the right moments!

This is me with my beautiful sister Colleen and our Daddy, outside the church after the service. 

Our dresses were by Sorella Vita - Colleen and I had the same dress and Sami, the other bridesmaid, chose a different style. I had my reservations about the colour but I have to admit, I loved the dress! I wore my Carvela Australia shoes underneath and the stress over hemming was worth it (especially when I saw the job the 'professional seamstress' had done on Colleen and Sami's dresses!)

Another photo of me and my cutie pie Daddy - so you can see the detail on the bodice of the dress

We were so lucky to have had such a beautiful day - especially after all of the rain during the week! The very bright light made it a bit more challenging to get good photos but the day was warm and beautiful.

 Nic and I

 My family, and my new brother-in-law!

The wedding reception was at the Four Seasons hotel in Monaghan. The function room was absolutely beautiful (although the hotel rooms were NOT, sadly) and the meal was delicious. It felt so strange to be sitting at the top table, especially as it was on a raised stage! The wedding reception was so much fun - Kelly and Mickey had hired a photo booth for silly photos and there was plenty of drinking and dancing and general mayhem. An Irish wedding is a lot less genteel than an English wedding.

My parents at the top table

The wedding cake! The top layer was carrot cake...

Me, Nic and Daddy in the photobooth

Happy dancing folks

Yes, we rocked the boat. 

Obviously I have about 30,000 more photos but I don't want to send you all totally to sleep. It was a really beautiful day and I am so overjoyed to have Mickey as a brother-in-law. Spending the day with my wonderful family was really special, and so was catching up with extended family members! I had a great dance with my uncle Colm, a lovely long chat with my cousin Melissa and lots of fun laughing with my aunty Tish! Just after midnight we got the news that my cousin Brian's girlfriend had a baby boy, which made the day extra special.

Congratulations, Kelly and Mickey!

Nic and I have another few days left in Northern Ireland and we're planning to make the most of it, with some visits with friends, a trip to Belfast and maybe even a day out at the seaside. So I'll check in with you all soon, and I'll leave you with one final photo of my beautiful baby sister, Kelly:

Mrs Daly

First you take a hot dog, stuff it with some jack cheese, fold it in a pizza... You got cheesy blasters!

Evening dudes! I hope everyone is doing all right this weekend. I'm grand, but I've had a persistent and annoying headache for the past few days and, while the migraine stuff is stopping it from becoming unbearable, it does make me feel a bit spaced out. It is better than the alternative though, to be fair!

Still, one good thing has been that the weather has finally started being nice. Last weekend, Nic and I spent Saturday morning on a walk over to nearby Warwick to go to the market and to stretch our legs. We got caught in a shower of rain en route and on the walk home, but for the most part it was gorgeous to be walking in the sunshine. Warwick is only a few miles from us, far enough away for the walk to be energetic but near enough not to discourage me from walking home. It's pretty perfect when you factor in how picturesque it is! As the sun was shining, I wore one of my (surprisingly few) summer-only dresss. I love this dress, but we don't often get good enough weather to wear it:

 Ruby Belle Monkey pinafore and red wedges from Primark via ebay

So obviously this dress is twee as fuck, but I really love the print:

Last Saturday already feels like forever ago, so I'll leave you with one picture of pretty Warwick:

Church Street, leading up to St Mary's Church

The past week has gone by in a blur - I've mainly been working and scaring myself silly by re-reading Stephen King's It. It's not a good idea to read this book on the commute when your walk from the station to the office takes you through a series of creepy underpasses. The other scary thing I have been doing is hemming my bridesmaid dress - my first time working with chiffon and I had to take about 7 centimetres off the hem. I felt pretty sick cutting into the hem of that! It's all done now and I'm fairly sure there isn't much chiffon in my sewing near-future.

This weekend has been pretty chilled out. I worked from home on Friday and, as I'd been indoors all day, Nic suggested that we take our dinner down to nearby Victoria Park. Leamington was looking particularly beautiful in the sunshine:

River Leam from Adelaide Bridge

PICNIC FACE!

This got the weekend off to a cracking start, I must say. On Saturday morning I met my friends HayleyJayney and Hannah for a cup of tea in a new tea room in Leamington, Vinteas on Park Street. My initial reaction to this cafe was less than positive, because I actually kind of hate the word 'vintage' and how can a tea room be vintage? Actually, I stand by that. The name is stupid. But the cafe itself is really very nice indeed, and of course it's good to see another independent opening in Leamington, which has chain restaurants and cafes out the wazoo. The premises is just a shop unit but they have done something really special with the interior and it's a light and welcoming place. It is extraordinarily twee, but it seems to fit. I had a cafetiere of coffee and some Victoria Sponge:

The coffee was excellent. The Victoria Sponge wasn't the best I'd ever had, but it was good. I'll be back - they had some amazing looking cakes and some intriguing sounding teas.

And I have to admit to being charmed by some of the decor...

I can't use twee as a term of abuse, though. On Saturday I was dressed like a twee bomb exploded on me:

  Polka dot Sewaholic Cambie dress and Office 'Love Me Tender' shoes

So, yes. I know. I really love this dress and I am crazy about these shoes. This is sad but I have been after these shoes since Amber featured them over at The Fashion Police in 2009. I didn't have the money to buy them then and it has taken until now for them to come up in my size on ebay. It's not even like I don't have any shoes with hearts on, but I love how kitsch these are:

Obviously they're massively impractical because the upper is canvas but I'm sure I'll get a few more weeks out of them before the weather turns.

After lunch Nic and I went down to the Old Town, having heard that there was a street party on Clemens Street to celebrate the Old Town having secured some of the Portas Pilot funding. We wandered down thinking it'd be nice to have a look around, and were delighted to run into lots of our friends. We browsed around the various stalls, had a dance to the music, and soaked up the sun:

One of the many stalls selling pretty things...

The atmosphere was really special and I had a lot of fun. I love living in Leamington and feeling part of the community - the Portas Pilot funding is very exciting for South Leamington and it's going to be really interesting to see what happens next.

Today has been a very quiet one - Nic and I have mainly been reading, watching DVDs and eating. It's how Sundays are meant to be! I had a few errands to run in town and afterwards we called into another one of Leamington's new independent shops, a bagel shop called (I think) Covent Garden Bagels. It's in the little alleyway between the Covent Garden car park and Warwick Street. Neither of us had a bagel, but we had a drink and some cake and sat out in the sunny little courtyard. It was a delight:

 Laura Lees for Topshop dress and Irregular Choice Mighty Monster wedges

I don't wear this dress out of the house all that often - for no real reason other than it tends to be my comfort dress, I often put it on when I know I'm not going to be leaving the house because I'm not feeling so swell. Which is a shame, really, because it's a very sweet dress and one that has very many happy memories attached to it. Also, Laura Lees is very cool.

The rest of this week is going to be mainly about getting ready to go home for Baby Sister's wedding. I can't believe it's so close! So expect my next post to be mainly about eating Taytos and playing with my parents' dogs. The other thing I'm likely to be doing a lot of is dicking around with my new phone - I was due an upgrade and decided to try out an iPhone to see what all the hype is about. So far, I like it a lot and as it has that Siri thing, I predict some fun with stuff like this:

I know, LOL, right? (heh)

Now, I'm off. Nic is about to serve me up some halloumi for dinner. Siri didn't know that 'halloumi' was the answer to the question "What did the cheese say when it looked in the mirror?", though. It needs some work, I think.

Actually, they used footage of me in my high school swim team to draw Prince Eric.

One thing I really enjoy about participating in an online community is the inspiration that comes from it - I read all sorts of blogs about all sorts of things, but this is particularly the case with sewing blogs. There are so many talented seamstresses out there, so there's a wealth of inspiration and it's good for helping me to see the potential of sewing patterns with a more critical eye. This was the case with Simplicity 2444 - the pattern envelope didn't do anything for me, but Zoe's amazing version got my brain cogs whirring and I adore the pattern and both versions I've made of it.

The same is true with Butterick B5603. Perhaps unfairly, I've never really bothered with the Butterick catalogue when I'm in the haberdashery shop - maybe because some of the patterns are seriously frumpily styled. However, the fabulous Julia Bobbin has a bit of a love affair going on with this pattern. Her stunning Mad Men dresses used this pattern as a basis and, in terms of inspiration, they sure beat the hell out of what Butterick themselves suggested:

 

Erm, okay then......

To be fair, there isn't anything majorly wrong with that... it's just a bit.... derpy? I don't know. But Julia Bobbin helped me to see the potential in this pattern, so when I saw it on sale in Fancy Silk Stores my curiosity was piqued and I brought it home with me.

The pattern itself is marked as 'easy' and I guess it is. I mean, I had trouble finding where the instructions were in English when I took the pattern out to read on the train on the way home, but then I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer. So I decided to take the precaution of making a muslin - just in case my difficulty in actually, you know, unfolding the instructions was a sign. Also, I had never sewn with a Butterick pattern before so I didn't want to chance goofing on the sizing. According to my measurements, I was looking at a 12 and on Thursday afternoon I threw together a muslin from scraps. No photos, although it was HIGHLY attractive, but it did fit with no need for adjustments. Major hurrahs all round! On Friday afternoon I started on the real thing, and by Friday evening it was all done except for the hemming and with no trauma at all. Turns out this is an easy dress, and it's a really cute one too!

 

I made View C, using some polka dot cotton lawn I bought from the fabric stall in Coventry Indoor Market. I went along on my lunchbreak one day last week hoping to find something el cheapo, but I bought this instead. It wasn't really expensive or anything, but you know, I think it's just lovely. It has a fantastic drape to it, and it was gorgeous to work with. The selvedge says '40s by 40s by Great Flower Designs' and I toyed with calling this dress the Great Flower dress, but decided instead to go with the Magnificent Obsession dress. B5603 just doesn't have any kind of ring to it! Magnificent Obsession reflects how I feel about polka dots (mostly joking) and is also the name of a frankly barmy Douglas Sirk film from 1954. 

 

Trying my best to look like the heroine of a 50s melodrama

So, the dress came together fairly easily and quickly but the instructions are irritating. They're not bad, actually (not like the ones for Simplicity 2444) but they are fussy. The other challenge was the bodice pieces themselves - they all look so similar but of course you can't afford to mix them up. If I were to make this again I'd pin labels on the pieces to tell me which bits are which - my spatial awareness isn't the best, and it would save me some time. The instructions of what to do with the bodice bits irritated me too, so I was a bit like "aw to hell with it" and did it my own way. Still, I'd imagine that my way and the actual way are basically the same, just without me squinting at the instructions saying "the HELL? What?!" So, this isn't a difficult pattern by any means but not one for out of the box beginners.

 Oooh... SMUGFACE. I was pretty pleased with myself.

Still, I think the bodice is the best thing about this dress. The neckline is so flattering and elegant, and it crosses at a high enough point that I don't have to worry about adventurous cleavage escaping on me. I also love the high-waisted skirt - it joins the bodice under the bust and the skirt pieces are cut with an exaggeratedly nipped in waist and two humongous darts, so it looks really fitted but it isn't tight or uncomfortable. 

Back view... there is some wrinkling here but this is at least partly because of my posture. 

I gave the skirt a nice deep hem, which I did by hand on Saturday afternoon. It's long enough to wear with a petticoat underneath but I'm wearing it without one here - it was nice and swishy! And, as I joked about it the other day, I did do a bit of posing. So, the original:

And...

 Okay...

 You know, I felt about 50% stupid and 50% fabulous posing like this on my doorstep

So a glittering career in the world of sewing pattern modelling lies ahead of me, yeah?

I really enjoyed sewing this dress and I'm so thrilled with how the dress came out. It might sound silly but it was a wee bit out of my comfort zone as I'd never sewn from a Butterick pattern before, but of course it was fine and it has shown me that I don't need to rely on familiar patterns. I'm already looking forward to sewing one of the other versions - probably the view with the bateau neckline. But, not for a while yet. My next sewing task is taking up the hem on my bridesmaid dress, which is going to be a basic faff. In the meantime, I'll have this one to enjoy... and I'm going to leave you all with one more photo of my chubby Irish face:

Happy goofy polkadotty seamstress...