Some days I just don’t feel like taking a photo, you know?
I hope you can read my writing. If it’s too small, click to zoom!
Just submitted another blog post for Waterscape - it probably won’t get approved until Monday. I don’t think the editors work over the weekend! You cannot fault that, of course. Oh no wait, not until Tuesday! It’s a bank holiday, of course. Anyway - look out for it next week! It’s another illustration; the second in my “good and useful times I have spent by canals” series. Because you know - I have spent a lot of times by canals (I typo’d that as CABALS, quite different!) or other waterways.
But, the picture above! A good way of showing Wot I Wore, or no? A decent way to catch up when the weather’s bad for photography maybe? There’s no colour, obviously.. The skirt’s kelly green and black (it’s featured here before a whole BUNCH of times), the jumper had a whole post to it last year - that was before it shrank, of course! Funny how much change of fit means change of meaning. It’s mostly grey, anyway. The hat’s grey with faintest hints of lime, the boots are purple, the tights black. Belt: brown.
How do you feel about the bracelet? Personally, I feel that it is SMASHING. My mum gave it to me earlier, fair out of nowhere, and it is just the right weight. And it looks like leaves!
Leaf-bracelet and green suede and grey wool, I feel I should start waling over hills and through forests and beside rivers. But instead? I shall be watching the Eurovision song contest.
I want to buy stuff. But I have no paying job and therefore no money to buy stuff, so instead I guess I will just talk about stuff I want to buy.
If you want to employ me? PLEASE DO. Ask me to draw you a picture for money! I will!
Anyway: Summer lovin’. Summer lovin’ is a thing I do not tend to do; I don’t know how to dress for summer and that makes me cross. T-shirts tend to swamp me, vest tops make me paranoid about my boobs hanging out, most for-girls summer tops are either too staid or too scene or too girly. I bring it on myself, I know. I’m picky! Except for that if I did like them, then they still wouldn’t fit because I am short. Comfortable fit is important, in summer.
But I was having a think this weekend, about what I can/like to wear: sweaters, and what I don’t like to wear: cardigans, and how cardigans are actually summer sweaters. And I thought, well wearing a cardigan over a shirt may be the worst kind of frictionous restraint for me but wearing a cardigan AS a shirt might actually.. work.
So now I WANNA DO THAT.
Cardigans that button up all the way to the collar, not so much v-necks, so they lie like button-down shirts and any undone-ness or flesh airing is on my terms and on purpose. Cardigans that are tight enough to touch my skin everywhere, rather than wrapping vaguely or bagging.
Basically a bunch of punchy knit shirts, is what I want.
These are all from Laura Ashley. They had a pretty great deep purple, white polka-dot version last autumn and I passed it up because I hadn’t thought of undershirtless-wearing yet. Shucks!
Penelope Cruz up there is as her character Raimunda (good name!) in the film Volver - which I found interesting and in some ways inspiring, but would maybe not say that I ‘enjoyed’. She got to wear a lot of colour (and a lot of colours all at once) in that movie, though, which I like - and managed to work the badunkadunk and look overworked-sloppy despite the neat woolen pencil skirts (which I have!) and the whole cardigan-over-shirt thing. I could relate to the sulky refusals and grudges of her character, too. Not the specifics!
I’m not so sure I like the two green examples on the bottom right, actually; they’re a bit too fussy and studied. I want something I can bang around in and warp to my own image instead of live up to neatly - to me cardigans are conservative and sensible, which I am not and don’t aspire to be. But I think the spotty one or the printed ones or the checkered faux-faux-Chanel one down at the bottom could look awesome and crossoverish with the top and bottom buttons undone with a tan and icecream and frazzled-from-dampening hair on a sunny grassy afternoon.
Just got back from a flight and a bit of a stint as a Maypole. Chin chin!
Hat: Anthony Peto (gift), shirt and skirt: Jane Marple secondhand, shoes: VW + Melissa post-season
Today has been bafflingly tiring. Took a bunch of pictures - or should I say, had a photoshoot? - at CorinaCorina (or Corina Corina) for my next BSB column. Taster!
After which, I spent an hour or two in the rain. But I did meet these fine gentlemen!
Boots: Dr Martens, trousers: eBay, t-shirt: hand-me-up, scarf: Accessorize (gift), hoodie: Vans, coat: independent leather shop, bag: Scary Go Round
P.S. This guy appeared on the c4 Alternative Election Broadcast. I dubbed him “Jim Cary Elwes”. You see it, right? Right.
All the men (there were no ladies) doing Official Duties at the polling station were wearing red, which made me wonder. But not judge!
Today has been pretty good all in all actually, apart from the nightmare I woke up from. It was about goats. They were eating EVERYTHING. They ate John Green’s head and his body just remained upright. There was soil instead of blood! The goats could jump really high, and climb, and.. blaugh!
On the subject of the illustrated photo above, I have always liked the Romulans. They have hair like mine, and they get mad easily. On the other hand, I like the Vulcans because they have hair like mine, and they like to overanalyse. The Romulan military, though, gets to wear stuff like this:
Pretty fantastic. Quilted fabric giving flexible structure - the extreme boxiness vs the padded stitched pliable material. The Romulan penchant for extreme views on right and wrong and passion, and their weakness that comes from their hotheadedness and the pliability that comes from living only on emotions.
I don’t know who this is in particular, but I admire her coat and strap.
The other way in which today is pleasing: COMICS! Delivery of a package spanning.. what, nearly half a year?.. from my old local comic shop - The first three issues of Joe the Barbarian, all four issues of X-Men Noir v.2, issues two and four of Beasts of Burden, my missing issue of Captain Britain and MI:13! And the Punisher issue featuring Morbius and Werewolf by Night! Score!
And because the shop owner is a) super nice and b) apparently a good businessman, four books from Free Comic Book Day last Saturday!
And the cherry on the sundae, this gift for my beloved:
It took me ages to realise that when they call this the “Cher dress” they mean Cher Horowitz.
It’s my groovy honour, kats and kids, to present to you the swingen’est togs I’m digging on NASTY GAL (click the pictures to visit the buy-pages) right now!
Why NASTY GAL? Because I got my medieval-pockets striped apron skirt from them, and I love it, so I feel a lingering interest in their stocks (I feel similarly loyal to Fanny and the Cave)
Why this kind of list post? Because I gotta keep my toes dipped in the blogging waters, and “look this stuff is mega jokes” posts are easy. Not much text! I need my brain-power for my next parting video and e-book? I’ve got four (four?) drawings in there, you DON’T want to miss it), so I’ve got to think up which great British icon I want to analyse and re-frame in the “fashions of today”. And it’s scheduled for my birthday, so I need it to be someone really aces!
I’ll put on my thinking cap, but you can maybe put on one of these fine items:
You (I) could live in this. Or under it!
This is actually pretty amazing.How it manages not to be plastic-halloween dress-up-for-gigs gimmicky, I do not know. I actually.. kind of really want this. It’s just so COOL!
Are you the dandy highwayman that I’m too scared to mention?
A nice thing about blog-reading is that you come across people who are really doing stuff. People who, no matter how long and hard they may have worked behind the entries, have an air about their writing that suggests that one day they just decided “I think I’ll make a shoe” or “I think I’ll move to a new country and handcraft leatherwear” or “I think I shall sail around the world, by myself”, and then they did. When my dad says to me “You could carve that piece of stone I have outside” on a day when I have nothing planned, having read those people Doing Stuff helps to mean that I think “well yes, of course I could”. And then, I do.
No better pictures than the above yet, I’m afraid, but I don’t reckon I did so bad for a first try. Relief more than sculpture, but I’ll build up. I did both sides, and I only hit myself a couple of times. It was good learning!
Skirt and harness: modified, via Fanny & the Cave, Sweater: second hand H&M, Necker: VW, Goggles: the depths of Dad’s shed.
It may be spring, officially (or it may not? I’m not actually sure), but that does not mean it’s warm and balmy. No, I still need a double-layered underskirt and wool shorts to keep me comfortably warm. And a fine-knit woolen sweater.
I was going to hang around in the garden and draw flowers and bits of wood and such, because illustrating backgrounds (or; anything that isn’t people) is something that I don’t much do. Because I don’t like to, and subsequently when I need to it doesn’t come out very well, which again - makes me like it less. NO NO SHAMEFUL LAZINESS. Draw from life, draw from life!
But! Like I said. Too cold for only one skirt means too cold for bare fingers, so alas I must stay indoors.
I use my house arrest to watch the latest Linkara review and do other kinds of study. Today, I swallow my mad pride and study Tove Jansson’s Moomin* expressions. They are so painfully good. I say “mad pride” because, in my arrogance, I hate to admit that people have skills and knowledge I do not! It is ridiculous!
And so, la! Theme work!
‘Ow do you like my new scarf-pin? “New”; I found it in one of my local-ish antiques centers. How truly antique is it? Who can say! I don’t much mind; it does the job I need it for, and looks like an anemone. It doesn’t have the middle-nub, but I figure everyone’s entitled to modesty. Anemones are my favourite. Plus, it makes me feel a little safer and more practical. You never know when you may need to pin something to something!
Wore it to make my fire, too.
*I know, I know - I had the Little My nightmares too. But that was the cartoon, not the gorgeous gorgeous books or comic strips, and in the books? Her character is wonderful. My very favourite. Referring to her as an “action girl”, which TVTropes does, is a massive injustice. And she doesn’t have THAT VOICE.
Coming later today or tomorrow: Makeover Movie Madness SPOILERS edition 2: Desperately Seeking Susan
Sweater: Jaeger (gift), Skirt: Modelle via NASTYGAL.com, Underskirt: Jane Marple dans le salon, Tights: H&M, Clogs: Fitflop, Scarf: Men’s dress silk via Save the Children, Pin: apparent antique
Yesterday my mum and my sister and I visited my Great Aunt, who lives a fair way away in (my ancestral) Coventry, and took her to Coombe Abbey. Coombe Abbey, if you haven’t been, is awesome.
I haven’t taken any pictures of one reason it was so awesome, because that is probably illegal - there were tons and tons of kids there. Loads. I know it’s half term and all, but it was a joy to see youngins running about yelling at ducks, enjoying forest pathways, climbing banks, shouting “I AM THE TALKING BUSH” and shaking branches from inside evergreens which branch from ground-level, walking dogs, and QUITE CLEARLY being on dates. Too cute. If you are ever thinking, “oh alas children do not like nature any more, only wii, how sad!”, you should go to Coombe Abbey (at half term).
It has buildings, and grounds (lots), and just about every type of country landscape you could ask for. There’s a pond at the front of (what I think is) the hotel that has a sort of aqueduct non-bridge pathway across it; on one side it’s nature free and wobbly and undergrowth, on the other it’s nurture - angular and groomed, statues in the water, box-shaped box hedges.
There are paths to follow in various directions, which managed to turn me completely around and take me by surprise. I thought I’d reached a new building, but it was the one we started at. Cunning! The whole place has a sense of mystery though, the way it’s lain out - there’s always something just visible through or past or behind what you’re looking at.
The grounds were really, really pretty. These don’t do them justice because I am not a good photographer (and the camera I was borrowing is kind of weird and colour-bleaching/non-focusable).
Coombe Abbey also contains the spookiest tree-bourne sculpture I have ever seen. The black dog in this picture was being called forcefully by its owners, but I was willing it to stay in the frame long enough for the darn picture to take..
Seriously, is that supposed to be.. what is that supposed to be??
What’s a day out without a fitting outfit? NOTHING, THAT is what!! In a moment of great serendipity, my super-fantastic dreamskirt from Modelle - via the NASTY GAL sale - arrived that morning..
I was sure I would be able to see my own foot through the trunk’s various holes if only I stretched far enough..
I couldn’t.
If you’ve been here before you know all this.. Anthony Peto hat, Coat from Camden, Undershirt from Laura Ashley via charity shop, burberry sweater from ebay (needs more darning), doc martin boots, belt from gran’s attic, pouches from various sources, scarf from accessorize, Jane Marple socks, skirt from modelle/nasty gal. The skirt is thin and intended/suitable for warmer months; the warmth level is padded by the velvet JMdls skirt I constantly wear underneath.
BONUS: Me totally failing to replicate the awesome height achieved by my first run-up, which my fool sister MISSED CURSE HER.
These next two, see, I find interesting. Because if you could see the expressions I have under the pixels you’d know they were completely different to the ones that I drew. But the ones I drew look like they might be similar, don’t you think?
Listening to (hence double mus-tash whammy):
Gonna be talking about ART this next week. I just found out that one of my favourite artists is the son in law of another of my favourite artists, to whom my mum compared some of my stylings (best compliment in memory, possibly). And after I cook these blueberry muffins, I’ma start reading Tank Girl: Armadillo for SPOILERS v.3.THE FUTURE! IT GLISTENS!
Jumper: old bobbly well-loved H&M, Skirt: mychu @ etsy, neckerchief: VW, Bow: Metamorphose, Slipperclogs: as always!
First day of British Waterways volunteer Appreciating, yesterday. It was good! I feel useful, I think I am useful, the people are really welcoming, and I get to draw and be creative. OH OH and, I am working where Chucklevision used to be filmed.
TO ME, TO YOU!
Wearing yesterday:
This is actually a picture I took today, though, since I didn’t get home til it was dark. Hence the underskirt secret during picture taking:
Oo la la! Pyjama troosers!
Beret: Mum’s Brownie uniform, Scarf: gift, Shirt: Laura Ashley via charity shop, Skirt: vintage via Mychu @ etsy, Tights: Pretty Polly via Sainsbury’s, Slippers: Fitflops.
I actually left the house in my slippers yesterday. What an excellent impression to make to one’s boss, who is kindly providing a lift to th’office! Ran back, got my governess shoes.
I asked, and I get to wear my DMs in the future. Marvelous.
I had a sort of a job interview thing, today. Does it count if it is for a volunteer position? One day a week YES I SAY THAT IT DOES. So I wore my “I’m not asking you to look at me but I am still myself” fallback combo; sweater, wool skirt, dark lace tights. I might still fit in at a WW2 french resistance reenactment, but I don’t look like someone one might be nervous of working with. Hopefully. Well even apparently, because I am now an Assistant Appreciator! Hurrah! I cannot get over that title.
When I bought it this jacket was clearly a fixer-upper. I’ve mentioned I think that it was a third off because two seams had already given - I decided it was worth it, because trading a heck of a lot of patching for the awful, awful, hair-ripping experience that I KNOW sewing this fabric from scratch would be.
But! There are already three more holes to plug! One in the left sleeve in the crook of my elbow, two on the left-back seam. I appreciate the opportunity to finally place the beautiful silky patches I traded with my Japanese peers when I was eleven (Arden ‘98 International Guide Campers, represent!) and like I said I was wearing no rosy lenses when I bought it but honestly, Topshop? Bad form.
Bonus images!!!! Me tipping organic kitchen waste onto our compost heap! Dropping two boxes all over my feet! Pretending a cat did it! Don’t read this, Dad!
P.S. detail from yesterday: I take a joy in buying expensive clothes at discount prices and then wearing them until they get crunky and bobbled and holey like REAL CLOTHES.
We were playing Dynasty Warriors. Hence eyebeam of CONCENTRATION!
Me: Sweater: Burberry (ebay’d), Trousers: Equorian Heritage (ebay’d), Boots: Dr Martens, Scarf: gift, Hat: Anthony Peto
Him: Hat: gift to me from him (army surplus, embroidered by me), jacket: “GR8 BUDDHA” (charity shop’d), Grandad shirt: gift (mine), Trousers: Army surplus, Boots: someplace! Gloves: my mum’s
Pattern-model style, Christmas day, exhibiting one of the presents my sister and I gave our immediate ancestors.
Boxing day, walking; I love the English countryside. I love it. Quotes from Guthrie in Bloomability by Sharon Creech, one of those books that I might describe as “almost perfect” and only almost because calling a thing perfect seems foolish. You should maybe read it, though, especially if you are feeling unhopeful or hopeful.
Post-walk, building a fire before watching Desperately Seeking Susan. Wearing gift-dress (H&M) and gift-tights. Thanks Mum! And gift-slippers, thanks Dad!
LET'S BE BUDS, BUB IllustratorClaire: Twenty-three year old Illustrator and Englisher, female feminist, interested in being helpful and denouncing things that aren't. Designed and drew the Britsh Style Bloggers logo; available to hire on just about any illustration project. Currently working as a Dinner Lady. For illustration portfolio, click the "tales from the sketchpages" tag or my logo below! Why do I do this? click here. Thank you!
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