Red, White and Blue

(vintage cardigan, cotton on tee, selfmade pants, bloom nail polish)

EEP!

I just got electric shocked when I turned the insinkerator on.

And I'm a little drunk but only a little. 

Now my wrist hurts.

It's friday night, here is a gratuitous kitten picture:

Harold and Maude

I watched Harold and Maude for the first time last week. I hardly ever watch tv or rent dvds but this one came highly recommended and I happened to see it at the library just hanging out waiting to be bought home so I got it out. I didn't watch it until the very last minute before it needed to be returned but it was pretty good and I would recommend it to you too.


My favourite bit was the bittersweet ending, and the Cat Stevens soundtrack.
 (if you haven't seen the movie and are planning to, then maybe don't watch this clip)





It also had some great 70s fashion moments, lots of brown and corduroy and the moustache on the cop who chased them, and especially Harold's mother. There is a really great shot of here with a bathing cap made of plastic petals, but I for some reason never got a picture.

Ornamental

I bought some flowers from the fruit shop near work, had no idea what they were but someone at work told me that they're ornamental cabbage flowers, one of the few flowers that prefer to be grown in cold weather. They are beautiful and strange and I will definitely be watching out for them again.

Chicken Pie

I made this for dinner the other night, it was DELICIOUS. (I've also made the lemon squares from that blog, they are so amazing and I would def give them a go!) I wish I had mini pie dishes so I could have made small ones, but one big one was extra super tasty and delicious, and yes that is a pastry penis cooking in the oven with it. Matty is ALL class.

Double Denim

(vintage shirt, vintage shorts)

Hairdresser

I just bought tickets to go and see Wanda Jackson! Yay. I wasn't going to go, cos no one else could afford it, but after getting my hair cut tonight and talking to my hairdresser about how its going to be gig of the year (or at least June) I decided to give in and buy one for me and one for Matt too because I am the BEST girlfriend ever.

This video is from a concert a few months ago, she still has it even after all these years!

There is also a couple good interviews with her on youtube, this one with a Dutch singer is neat cos she sings in the middle of it!

PS, haircut! Yay.

floating on water

It sounds silly, but I really love container ships. I find it so amazing how they look like huge rectangular boxes yet they still manage to stay afloat, and I know its all to do with displacement of water but I prefer to think of it as magic.

Catching the ferry to work and back every day means I get to see most of them sitting at the port (and also get to see some sweet sunsets at this time of year), my favourite are the Wallenius Wilhemsen ships because they sound so Scandinavian and because they look so much like they shouldn't be floating.

Devonport wharf just before twilight

best ever

Some new-ish purchases (both bargains at only $10!)

1) Seagull print parka jacket, as worn by lovely Matty at Holy Fuck clubnight (I was sick in bed with a throat infection)

2) Amazing mint green cable cardigan, hand knitted and so very warm for winter

Also puchased recently: new slippers, maltesers, the gentlewoman, fuzzy white wool for the jumper I'm knitting.

Zoe & Morgan

Yesterday I was reading So Much To Tell You (one of my fave blogs, always full of pretty pictures and quotes that make you think, nice dresses and interviews with interesting folks) and came across jewellery label Zoe & Morgan, a brother-sister-sister trio who make lots of lovely things.

I particularly love (haha) the Love Lasso ring (above, in gold) and also the Forget Me Knot ring (below, in silver) and think they would look really nice stacked together on my fingers, and aren't that expensive (£85 for the gold and £65 for the silver) so its not an altogether unreasonable dream! And seeing as Matty never bought me an anniversary present, maybe I will leave this post open as a ginormous hint...

Powder Blue

So for the last couple weeks I have been dreaming about the perfect powder blue nail polish - nice and opaque with a chalky base and matte, not shiny...kind of like my favourite lilac (OPI - Done Out In Deco) except, well, blue. I wasn't really thinking very hard about it but today when I went into Farmers I had a little look and thought all my dreams had come true when I saw a lovely bottle of blue by a brand called Bloom who have been around for a while but I have never seen in Farmers before. The colour is called Kate, and it is actually quite a bit more turquoise than powder blue, but thats ok because the colour reminds me of a ring I used to love* but don't have anymore.

My nails went a bit yuck as I went and did the dishes an hour or so after painting them and didn't wear my rubber gloves...though one thing about the Bloom nail polish is that it is quite runny so you can kind of just drop a bit onto your nail and smoosh it around and it doesn't streak like some polishes do. It does take a while to dry but I guess that just means more time to sit around and do nothing.

Next I want to get a couple of the American Apparel nail polishes, they look so nice but shipping to NZ is not really worth it just for nail polish so they might have to wait until I go and visit Abby in Sydney.

*I still would love that ring except I dropped it off the edge of the wharf when I was waiting to catch the ferry home from work one evening, it was terribly sad and I just about started crying. The ring wasn't particularly amazing, just a little turquoise heart on a very thin silver band but I bought it from a flea market the weekend before I left Amsterdam to come back home, so it had lots of memories attached. However I did kind of get a replacement (worth a bit more than €5) as Matty bought me the gold Karen Walker daisy ring for Christmas (with a nice staff discount from Abby of course!)

Loop Stitch

Carrying on from what I've mentioned a couple of posts back, this is one of my favourite things. And...it just so happens to be loop stitch knitted*, and with that kind of texture I'm not sure why it wouldn't be everyones favourite. Surprisingly, crazy semi-fringed hippie vests aren't everyones cup of tea and I managed to score this babe for free since the place I was working at the time was about to chuck it!
I've only worn it twice - its not exactly an everyday wear kind of garment - once on holiday at the beach where I got a few odd looks, and once to work where everyone loved it and it shed ridiculous amounts of fluff all over my black tee. Thats ok though, most of the time it just hangs out on the top rack of my wardrobe next to my giant cream crochet shawl-scarf and my hat collection.

*ok so technically the back is knitted in a plain garter stitch but the front for some reason is actually crochet. I guess it was cheaper for production...and I also realise that no one except me cares about this.

From the womb to my tomb I guess I'll always be a child

(wearing a vintage jacket and my favourite shirt ever, which used to be my dads. I also had on the pink tulle skirt from this post and the purple suede boots from this one. I kinda wish I had been wearing gumboots though!)

Sometimes I'm walking along, maybe on my way home from work or just going about my daily business and I look down and all of a sudden realise - I'm dressed like a seven year old. Today was one of those days, I love those days!


So I decided, today is the day I start knitting my cardigan. On my lunch break I went over the road to the op shop and bought some nice cheap double pointed needles, still in their packets! Hooray. (I also bought some hopefully delicious and not rotten free range eggs from the op shop, half the price of the supermarket and apparently you can place an order to be sure to get them every week, amazing.) 
The only problem is that I presumed that knitting on four needles was the same as on two, it's actually quite quite quite a lot harder and caused me to stomp my foot a bit and then stuff four marshmellows in my mouth at the same time! So I wondered, what is the solution to this? Is it to pout...(yes that is always the solution)...No! Is it to give up...No! Is it to search for knitting tips on youtube...YES. and then I found Wool and the Gang. I want to be part of their gang. Their youtube videos make me weak at the knees! That beautiful thick yarn (they call it Crazy Sexy Wool and I can see why, because it is), that delicious strange Swiss-with-a-tinge-of-kiwi accent, those easy to understand instructions. And then I realised they had a website, and you could buy pieces knitted by them, or kits to knit yourself, or THAT wool, and they make me want to quit my job and knit my way around the world. Oh boy.

Someone is sitting outside my flat singing and playing the guitar, its quite nice even though they aren't very good. They just sang old Bobs Redemption Song and now its Mr. Mellencamps little ditty about Jack and Diane, classics. While I wrote this post, we also had some Van Morrison (appropriate since one of my flatties is named after him) and some Hotel California by the Eagles. Not a bad soundtrack for a Monday evening.

Happy Birthday Loverboy

(outfit post? maybe. dotti gloves, topshop jumper, vintage skirt, jacket and bracelet)

(My birthday present to Matt - it cost me waaaay too much but it was so perfect I couldn't leave it behind)

(new favourite chocolate, me and Matt accidentally ate over half the block while doing scratchies in bed this morning, he won $5)

So once again I haven't posted for quite a while...even longer than usual really. It was Mattys 21st birthday last weekend, big party, lots of fun! And then on Monday, my flatmate and number one friend Abby had a (absolutly delicious) leaving dinner, as she flew off to Sydney the next morning. Even though it was a sad event, it was actually a hilariously funny night.


I have had quite a lovely weekend so far, lots of pajama time, sleeping in, sex, chocolate, sewing, going to the library, drinking vodka and so forth. 


Yesterday I spent about three hours at the library, and got out several books on knitting (I want to make this cardigan - in fact I would buy that one by Lonely Hearts, except it has a lurex thread running through it and I just can't do it), a CD-Book set to learn Colloquial Swedish, so that I'm all set when I move there in a few years (haha), and the DVD of Harold and Maude (when I got it out, the guy working at the library - and wearing a Dinosaur Jr tee - told me that his friend had met the guy who plays Harold at LA airport last week).


Today I am going to - make some poached eggs on toast - finish my sewing - wrap some very late christmas presents - load things on trademe - vacuum my room - make choc-weetbix slice - change my sheets so I better get going since its already past 2!!


Soon I think I might show you some of my favourite things clothing and accessory wise...strangely they all seem to have stories behind them so I might even make it into a series or something.


Oh how nice, the radio is playing Devendra Banhart! Perfect sunday music, I'm off to listen to some.

End of Summer Blues

Daylight savings ended on Saturday night, it's pouring with rain outside and for the first time in months I'm wearing long pants and a long sleeved shirt. I think today summer is gone. Still, its not the worst thing in the world, the rain sounds quite lovely outside and I'm looking forward to waking up to daylight in the mornings now.

(delicious dinner of Smen-coated Moroccan Lamb...isn't Smen a funny word?)

(on Good Friday we went over to the shore to watch the boys have band practice and party it up in Torbay)

(an actual Easter Egg)

(blonde wig time for our Beatles themed party - all night I got told I looked like Lulu or Garth from Waynes World. Excellent!) 

(finally got around to watching Point Break...I was expecting more surfing, less guns but it was still good)

I have had a mammoth past couple of weeks (as the picture of my handy diary shows) and this Easter weekend was especially large - on the Thursday me and my lovely boy celebrated three whole years together (semi-fittingly our anniversary is April Fools Day). We didn't do much, just went out for dinner after work and then fell asleep really early, but it was made even nicer because the next day was Good Friday and we had a nice snuggly sleep in followed by breakfast in bed!


The rest of the week was full of hot cross buns and chocolate eggs, drunken dancing, discovering new music, lazy afternoons and watching old movies. I kind of really wish that every weekend was four days long although I have a feeling it would be terrible for my bank account.

(Vintage Dress, Karen Walker Crochet Collar from Abby during her leaving-the-country cleanout, Vintage Bow Pin)

Hectic

Oh boy. I've been meaning to post something all week but life suddenly got super frantic and filled with horrid things like dental check-ups and lovely things like dinner with friends and going to yoga.

(Karen Walker Runaway Tee, Supre Trackpants, Karen Walker for Pointer Boat Shoes)

I bought these pants on Thursday, I really like them and decided that they are totally ok to wear not just around the house but to work and so forth, kind of along that whole Alexander Wang sporty chic vibe. But when I wore them to my dads birthday brunch on Saturday my sister told me that it looked like I had a willie (that was a direct quote) because the fold was poking out when I walked!!


I also FINALLY got these boat shoes last week. My lovely flatmate works for Karen Walker and put an order in for me before they went into production, so I have been waiting and waiting since October for them to arrive! I was thinking they would be here early Feb, and the wait was made a thousand times worse by the fact that she managed to wangle herself an early release pair and so wore them quite a lot in the 6-ish weeks that I was hanging out for them. Still, it was definitely worth it, they are incredibly comfy and seem to miraculously go with everything that I own.

(Illustrated People for Topshop jumper; skirt from Dotti)

I wore this sometime last week, Wednesday maybe? Probably. This is one of my favourite tops, mostly because everytime I wear it, people comment on my peachy skin tone which is always nice to hear. Plus pastels make me feel prettttty!

As you can maybe tell, my new bedroom isn't quite sorted yet. I keep forgetting to buy hooks and nails to put all my pictures on the wall, and I have about 5 boxes full of things that need a home, just hanging out on my bedroom floor. Oh well, its only been ten days since I moved room...maybe it will be sorted next weekend when we have a magic 4 day easter weekend!

Anyway, bed time now, zzzzzzzzz.


OH P.S, if anyone actually does read this, and if you are the type of person who knows about these things, why does my font size keep changing by itself? I set it to one size for all my posts but it looks different on some? Hmmm.

Week in Pictures

Caught the ferry to work every morning, moved bedrooms, said goodbye to one flatmate and hello to a new one, listened to some records, spent 2 hours on the phone to the power company, had roast nectarines and yoghurt for breakfast, recieved innuendo-filled text messages from Matty, danced in the park like a maniac, ate m&ms and read the paper in bed, spent all of today hungover. What a week it was!