Polkadots and Spinning Tops

Hi everyone, today I thought I would share with you some things which I am finding really inspiring at the moment.

Here is a Women's Realm Home Sewing and Knitting magazine which I purchased from the "Everything but books sale" at the Regent Theatre a couple of weekends ago.  I think I paid 20 cents per magazine and I think I got some great bargains.  I think this dress is so cool - its a little bit like a school uniform but with a twist.  The Union Jack tie grabbed my attention immediately.

There lots of lovely colour adverts and pictures in this magazine - look at the wonderful drape of the dress below:

However, the "by-line" made me raise my eyebrows a bit - indeed if I wore a dress made with Ferguson fabric would I be instantly converted to a naughty loud girl?   Let's be honest, that dress is seriously short and if the model did not have so much of the fabric hanging almost vertically from her bust to her mid thigh, then I guess that the dress would barely cover anything!  With it being a fairly full dress too, I imagine that if I were to dance in it and maybe twirl around one or two times then I would most certainly be revealing a large portion of my derriere.  

A little bit more conservative is the Moygashel fabric advert below:

The dress on the right is certainly a bit longer but the fabric is in my opinion quite boring.  I would be trying to make a belt of the same fabric as the dress of the left (which is awesome) to jazz the outfit up a little.  I knew nothing about Moygashel fabrics, and thanks to Wikipedia now know that it is an Irish company.  You can read more here at Couture Allure Vintage Fashion.  I am not a fan of wearing linen as I find it creases so easily and always looks like it needs ironing.  You know me readers, I much prefer something of a synthetic blend.

One thing I will say is that the colour combos were so much bolder back then.  "Colour blocking" seems to be all the rage and I have seen it on several fashion pages in various magazines - both hard copy and online.  Maybe I am a fashion cynic but there is not very much which is "new" and colour blocking was fashionable even when I was a sparkle in my Mother's eye.

Although I am not a fan of a brown skirt and a cream blouse, I have to admit that the injection of blue and pink really creates an amazing contrast.  In the same magazine a few pages over, I found this advert which encapsulates those colours wonderfully:

Now, remember the green cotton Trademe dress which I had to practically sew all over again?  Well it originally had a zip in it....a zip exactly like this one:

I can't say that this zip gave me a big vote of confidence as I had to remove it.  I think the advert is implying that Rhona Roy zips don't start coming undone!!

Lastly, this advert says it all "the amazing fashion fabric which simply loses creases!"

Hope you are all having a good week!