Black Poppy - Refashioned Floral Dress

The original dress (plus some wrinkles)

This dress, like so many of my other refashioned items, was found in an op-shop (for the bargain price of £2.99! I love Salvos!), and originally from Marks and Spencers. I loved the print and drapey fabric, and the bodice evoked 1940s dresses with its double-breasted opening. Unfortunately, it was a size 16, and way too long for me - the skirt went down to my ankles. The shoulders were also much too big, and padded as well, for full 1980s effect.

Out came my trusty seam ripper, and off went the sleeves and skirt. There was some elastic along the waist, so I gently unpicked that too, and saved it, just in case. I started by adding some bust and waist darts, and then took in an inch along each side seam, to bring in the bodice and make it a closer fit. The shoulders were still too big, so I cut off an inch at the top (narrowing it down to nothing at the bottom of the armscye). This of course meant the sleeves were a little too big when I tried to set them in, so instead of gathering and easing it in, I added two little pleats to the top of the sleeves. You can see how that turned out in the photo above - I'm quite pleased with it, although of course it means I have to iron them down after every wash.

After that, everything else got done fairly quickly and smoothly. I gathered the skirt and attached it back to the bodice, then reattached the elastic that I had unpicked from the dress earlier. The belt was still much too big though, so I added a couple more holes with the help of my trusty eyelet kit. I found mine in an op-shop, but you can find a similar kit here - trust me, it's more useful than you think it will be. 

The only thing left was to shorten the skirt. I briefly considered leaving it long, as I'm partial to a good mid-length skirt, but this just looked a little too mumsy for my taste. So I ended up taking a good EIGHT inches off, which left it at a nice just-above-the-knee length. Job done, and it's quickly become one of the dresses I reach for whenever I want to feel just a little bit (not too much) dressed up.

Narwhal Twins

Scarred for life.

Ladies Courtyard Picnic

What do a bunch of unemployed girls do on a hot summer's day?

Well, they get together, dress like ladies, and sit around a courtyard eating dessert all day!

To celebrate our liberation from the shackles of working for 'Tha Man', Jojo, Googy and I hit upon the idea of organising a Ladies Courtyard Picnic (for unemployed ladies and gents only!). The plan was for us to eat lots of sweet things, drink some G&Ts (mumma's little helper...) and bake more sweet things.

Instead of baking Satan cakes like we usually do, Googy and I decided to try something new. Now that we're unemployed, we can bake anything we feel like baking...even things we've never actually tasted before! That's how you live life on the edge. Not being from North America and having never celebrated Thanksgiving before, neither of us had ever had a pumpkin pie. I mean, pumpkin is meant to be a savoury food, isn't it?

So we googled some recipes and pictures, and it turned out to be fairly easy to make. The first picture we found also made it look really, really disgustingly tasty. Like, so tasty but so sweet that your tongue would shrivel up and fall out. That sealed the deal for me - we would be making pumpkin pie. And, just to add a little more excitement to our lives, we decided to mix things up a bit by substituting half the pumpkin goo with sweet potato goo.

On the day of the picnic, Googy and I decided to ride to Jojo's. But on the way there, we stopped off to see the Tree Man.
There he is, in the background, sitting beside me. It's a shit photo, I'll try and get a better one the next time I go past him.

By the time Googy and I got to Jojo's, we were both sticky and sweaty and stinky from riding. Not very ladylike at all, I'm afraid. But at least I rode wearing a nice dress and headscarf. That always makes up for sweaty, sticky, stinkiness. Plus, I also had a nice little apron that I'd made the day before. All very ladylike (except for the charging-madly-around-town-on-a-BMX bit).
We were greeted by Jojo and Phoebe, and presented with a MOUNTAIN of baked goods - chocolate chip cookies, raspberry and white chocolate muffins, and shortbread. And also some smoked salmon sandwiches and very tasty curried egg sandwiches (yum...curried egg fart...).
After munching through a sizeable portion of the baked goods mountain, we thought it might be a good time to start flexing our muscles. Isn't that what all good ladies do after lunch? Then it was time to for pumpkin and sweet potato pie goodness. And sweetbabyjesus...was it good!

Here are some photos of the goodness, freshly unleashed from the oven. Also some photos of us in the kitchen looking happy and successful and greedy. Mainly greedy.
See that mountain of pumpkin pie? It's still sitting in my fridge. We made way too much. If anyone wants some, get in touch and I'll pass the tastiness on to you. Or you can just make it yourself. It's so easy I won't even post instructions or a recipe.