New lengths

Unfortunately it looks like I was very wrong when I said I would be posting lots in study leave! Basically what happened was I decided to watch the Harry Potter films again, and then I thought 'hey I haven't read the books for a while, why not?!'. So I have barely turned on my laptop in the last two weeks because I've been reading, which means that now I have finished all of the books i'm back and have loads to catch up on, both on blogspot and tumblr.

I took these photos weeks ago, at the same time as the orange skirt in the previous post, but I never got around to actually sorting them out and showing you. After one of my exams I had a couple of hours to kill in town before work, so I went to the charity shop for the first time probably in at least two months. I swear they have re-arranged the store every time I go in! I tried on a floor length denim dress which looked kind of like dungarees, as well as a slightly-shorter-but-still-long Laura Ashley burgundy velvet dress. I was so close to buying the velvet dress because it had a cute cut-out bit at the back and a big bow, and I thought I could wear it to the sixth form ball next year (yes okay it's a long way away but oh well!), but it was very heavy and I thought really, will I still like it next year or will I feel frumpy? So I left the shop with the denim dress instead.

dress- charity shop, shirt- H&M, bag- Mischa Barton, shoes- New Look, sunglasses- Urban Outfitters

The front is quite dull I admit, but I really like the low back and straps. Obviously I have to wear it over some sort of top (trust me, I tried without anything and it's very revealing), but I don't think this shirt is quite right. Maybe a simple white t-shirt would be better? I defintely need to experiment more before I find that perfect combination, but I do love this dress.

Self Made Skirt

When I first saw the s/s '11 collections way back I, along with many others, fell completely in love with the floor sweeping brightly coloured skirts at Jil Sander. Because the shapes were so simple and elegant I thought 'hey I could make something like that', but I didn't want to copy the design too closely because that's basically stealing right? Luckily for me I had recently bought a vintage skirt pattern from a charity shop which had several different length options, so I decided just to make a simple skirt but with the brightest fabric I could find. I went for orange because my favourite skirt from the Jil Sander collection was the orange one, and I think it suits me better than pink or red- since then there has been a bit of an orange explosion in high street clothes, and make up!t-shirt - H&M, skirt- made by me, sandals- Clarks

I started making this probably about three months ago but wasn't that dedicated to getting it done quickly, and got stuck on a couple of bits (the instructions for the waistband and hem weren't so clear). I went for the shortest skirt pattern so as not to look too similar to the Jil Sander skirt, but since i'm quite short it's still knee length. The pattern said it was for size 12 but i'm a 10 and it fits pretty well, if anything a little large- I generally ignore vintage sizes because people years ago had much smaller waists!

I do love this skirt but it's a bit bright so I probably won't be wearing it all that often, and it creases so badly which is annoying. If anyone wants a more specific 'tutorial' on how I made the skirt I'll gladly make one, but it was very simple as i'm sure you can see from the design!