Christmas Tale: Soft By Candlelight

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sitting under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
One last candle burning low,
All the sleepy dancers gone,
Just one candle burning on,
Shadows lurking everywhere:
Some one came, and kissed me there.

Tired I was; my head would go
Nodding under the mistletoe
(Pale-green, fairy mistletoe),
No footsteps came, no voice, but only,
Just as I sat there, sleepy, lonely,
Stooped in the still and shadowy air
Lips unseen—and kissed me there.

 

 

Mistletoe by Walter De La Mere, via 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Outfit:

Vintage 1970s Maxi Dress: made from Liberty fabric by Granny Kiki for Mum

Red Berry Christmas Wreath: my Mum's, worn as a crown

 

 

Photographs taken by my Mum and myself, using my little camera.

Shot in my parents' bedroom.

 

 

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

 

 

Silk & Wool

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I was so anxious to make him believe me that I leaned towards him, across the table. He looked at me, right into my eyes. That queer, veiled expression in his -- that I fear I used to call his daft look -- was suddenly not there; there seemed to be a light in them and yet I have never seen them look so dark. And they were do direct that it was more like being touched than being looked at. It only lasted a second, but for that second he was quite a different person -- much more interesting, even a little bit exciting.”  

 

Extract from I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith, via 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Outfit:

Vintage 1940s Silk Tea Dress: passed down from Granny Penny

Pink Wool Stockings: old from the high street

Vintage Brown Patent Mary Janes: passed down from Granny Kiki

Vintage 70s Does 40s Blue & White Tilt Hat: from Ebay

Vintage shawls: passed down from both grannies

  

 

All photos taken by me using the self timer on my little camera.

The vintage framed patchwork and vintage patchwork bedspread were both made by late Granny Kiki out of scraps of her dressmaking fabrics.

The framed still life was painted by me in my teens, an approximate copy of a Matisse painting.

 

Just got to get to next week and then life will calm down in time for Christmas, big yay!

 

 

 

The Colour Of My Dreams



 

 

 

 

“You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing, and dance, and write poems, and suffer, and understand, for all that is life...

The soil in which the meditative mind can begin is the soil of everyday life, the strife, the pain, and the fleeting joy. It must begin there, and bring order, and from there move endlessly. But if you are concerned only with making order, then that very order will bring about its own limitation, and the mind will be its prisoner. In all this movement you must somehow begin from the other end, from the other shore, and not always be concerned with this shore or how to cross the river. You must take a plunge into the water, not knowing how to swim. And the beauty of meditation is that you never know where you are, where you are going, what the end is.”  

 

Jiddu Krishnamurti, via 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The Outfit

Vintage 1970s Pink Wide Leg Silk & Cotton Catsuit: made by Granny Kiki for my Mother

Amber Jewellery: gift from a friend

Vintage Silver Armlet: bought as a teenager

Hunter Wellies, just seen: from Ebay

 

 

 The Soundtrack

Lovin' Spoonful: Daydream

 

 

 Another season, but our dreams can be in any season and every colour!

Photos taken by me using the self timer on my little camera in the bluebell wood last Spring.

Strange lighting effects created by my camera for no apparent reason.

 

 

 I am delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by Patti from Not Dead Yet Style, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

 

 

 

The Browning Version

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Is not this a true autumn day? Just the still melancholy that I love - that makes life and nature harmonise. The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.”

 

 

George Eliot via 1

 

 

 

 

 

The Outfit

Tweed Cape: from a charity shop

Grey leggings: very old and baggy from the high street

White Cable Knit Wool Jumper: from a charity shop

Trapper Faux Fur Knit Hat: a gift from my Mum

Hunter Wellies: from ebay

Black Gardening Gloves: from Mr Eve

This outfit is what Mr Eve calls my 'mad trapper' look, often worn while pottering around the autumn garden. All photos taken by me using the self timer on my little camera.

I'm pleased to be a part of Hat Attack, a link party held by the wonderful Judith of Style Crone, do click on her website link to see her amazing feathered hat, and do join in! 

I'm chasing my tail with so much work at the moment, hence little time for blogging or blog visiting. Life should calm down in the next few weeks so I can't wait to visit you soon!
 

The Harvest Sun

 

 

 

 

 

 

Why are the woods so alluring? A forest appears

to a young girl one morning as she combs

the dreams out of   her hair. The trees rustle

and whisper, shimmer and hiss. The forest

opens and closes, a door loose on its hinges,

banging in a strong wind. Everything in the dim

kitchen: the basin, the jug, the skillet, the churn,

snickers scornfully. In this way a maiden

is driven toward the dangers of a forest,

but the forest is our subject, not this young girl.

She’s glad to lie down with trees towering all around.

A certain euphoria sets in. She feels molecular,

bedeviled, senses someone gently pulling her hair,

tingles with kisses she won’t receive for years.

Three felled trees, a sort of chorus, narrate

her thoughts, or rather channel theirs through her,

or rather subject her to their peculiar verbal

restlessness ...    our deepening need for non-being intones

the largest and most decayed tree, mid-sentence.

I’m not one of you squeaks the shattered sapling,

blackened by lightning. Their words become metallic

spangles shivering the air. Will I forget the way home?

the third blurts. Why do I feel like I’m hiding in a giant’s nostril?

the oldest prone pine wants to know. Are we being   freed

from matter? the sapling asks. Insects are well-intentioned,

offers the third tree, by way of consolation. Will it grow

impossible to think a thought through to its end? gasps the sapling,

adding in a panicky voice, I’m becoming spongy! The girl

feels her hands attach to some distant body. She rises

to leave, relieved these trees are not talking about her.

 

 

 

Bon Courage by Amy Gerstler, via 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Outfit:

Hobbs Red Coat: passed down from Granny Penny

Breton Dress, underneath: charity shop

Black lace tights: from the High Street

Hunter wellies: from Ebay

 

 

The Soundtrack:

Beth Gibbons & Rustin' Man: Autumn Leaves

 

 

 Photos taken using the self timer on my little camera.

 

 

Just a quick post today as I'm very behind on everything blog related, but glad to be back.

More soon.

 

 

 

 I am delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by Patti from Not Dead Yet Style, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

Welcome To The Geopod

The soul selects her own society,
Then shuts the door;
On her divine majority
Obtrude no more.

Unmoved, she notes the chariot's pausing
At her low gate;
Unmoved, an emperor is kneeling
Upon her mat.

I've known her from an ample nation
Choose one;
Then close the valves of her attention
Like stone.

 

 

by Emily Dickinson, via 1

 

 

 

The Outfit:

Vintage Silver Donna Karan Dress: bought in a charity shop years ago

Black Wool & Faux Fur Cardigan: very old from the High Street

Nude Pumps: old from New Look

Vintage Faux Leopard Coat: found in Afflecks Palace, Manchester in the 1990s

 

 

 

The Soundtrack 

David Bowie: Space Oddity

 

 

All photographs taken by Mr Eve or myself during a weekend holiday on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall.  Details of The Geopod, available for holiday let, can be found at the glamping website Canopy & Stars.

 

 

 

 I am delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by Patti from Not Dead Yet Style, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

All Hallow's Eve

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Happy Halloween everyone!

 Come help yourself to special Halloween cakes at my baking blog here.

 

Images 2 & 3 via 1

 

Halloween Parties kindly hosted by Vanessa Valencia of A Fanciful Twist, click on the website link to see her own party in full swing!

 

Another Rummage In The Wardrobe: Versatile Blogger Award

 

 

 

Earlier this year, lovely Veshoevius of the brilliant blog The Taxonomy Of My Wardrobe nominated me for a Versatile Blogger Award. It is now, 7 months later, that I have finally finished my post in response.

 

 

As part of receiving this award I have to reveal seven facts about myself. This blog owes just as much to the memory of the women in my family, and the clothes they have passed down to me, as it does to my own style and character, so I think it only right that I include some photos and facts about them too. 

 

 

1. I'm in my late thirties, and the older I get the more I feel I want to play like a child and read (and write) fables and fairy tales.

 

2. Kiki lived into her early nineties, and her kindness and grace shone through her, just as her inimitable sense of style continued until the end. I took this portrait of her about a year before she died. In old age, with her couturier years behind her, she had a particular fondness for raw silk Chinese jackets in jewel colours.

 

3. I'm not interested in marriage, finding the practice archaic and unnecessary, nor am I a religious person, so wearing the exquisite dress Kiki made for her own wedding in my Bluebell Fairy post was a close as I'll ever get to donning a matrimonial white dress in a church.

 

4. Penny had a great sense of fun, a caring heart, and always looked beautifully groomed into her old age. A fan of the classic cuts of Jean Muir, she continued to turn heads and had many admirers throughout her life. She passed away in her late eighties. Here she is in her late seventies/early eighties, with me in my mid twenties.

 

5. As my dear Mother is still alive and well, thank goodness, and I want to respect her privacy, I won't show a picture of her nowadays, although I wish I could as she is gorgeous. But she'd kill me! Instead, here's an image of her on holiday in her early twenties, showing off those incredible pins of hers.  

 

6. Like most Brits, I'm of a mixed heritage: being a quarter Irish, quarter Scottish, quarter Jewish and quarter English. I love the sunshine in summer, but can't cope in the heat, so you'll always find me in the shade of the garden hiding under a big hat or parasol and slathering on more factor 35.

 

 

 

7. I'm distantly related to the Pre-Raphaelite painter William and his wife and Rossetti's muse Jane Morris, via Kiki's side of the family. Planning to do a blog post photo shoot in tribute to Jane in the coming months.

 

 

Here are my versatile blogger nominations, each and every nominee a unique delight:

1. Mary Lou of Mary Lou Cinnamon 

2. Kelly-Marie of A Harem Of Peacocks

3. Harlow Darling of Vintage At Heart

4. Vix of Vintage Vixen

5. Rosalind of Clothes, Cameras & Coffee

6. Jill of Tea With The Vintage Baroness

7. Judith of Style Crone

 

 

The Outfits

 

For outfit details of the images 2, 4, 7, 8 & 9, just click on the image number to go to the relevant  blog post.

Outfit in image 1: vintage dress from Oxfam Online.

 

 

The Soundtrack

 

The Jam: English Rose

 

 

 I am delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by Patti from Not Dead Yet Style, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.