July blues

Hi folks, I'm back from my hols! Can you believe it's nearly August? The summer goes so fast! Portugal was beautiful! We stayed in a place on the coast called Quarteira which is pretty much a beach with some shops and restaurants built up around it. All we did was lie around, eat, swim, eat and rest. It was perfect!

Apart from swimwear, the skirt in this picture is the only item of clothing I bought for my holiday. I'm really reluctant to buy summer clothes that I'll only wear once, so I always look for things that I can layer once I get back to Ireland and wear again.

Also I have a question for all of you bloggers! Which image hosting service do you use for your blogs? I just switched from Photobucket to Flickr and I'm finding it really confusing. Why does Flickr make it so hard to post images at the size you uploaded them at? I have seen a few bloggers recommend Flickr and I'm not sure why. Which site do you use? Another one entirely? Let me know!

Lovely things 4

The weather in Dublin has been completely insane for the past month - according to the Met office it was the wettest June on record. It makes it very difficult to take outfit photos! I'm off to the Algarve (south of Portugal tomorrow) so hopefully I'll be back soon with a nice tan to show off in some new outfit posts. For the moment, here are some more lovely things..

I adapted the Kate Davies owls pattern that I used for my owl jumper to make a little phone case for a friend of mine. I think it worked out pretty well! (If I do say so myself). I wanted to make a cute gif animation showing a phone coming out of the case but I realised that I can't take a photo of my phone, with my phone.. oh dear.

Photo by Use Real Butter

I've become a little bit obsessed with making banana icecream. I don't eat dairy products but frozen bananas make a really, really good icecream substitute! If you've never tried it, you'll be surprised by how creamy it tastes and you don't even need to add other ingredients. The recipe above from Use Real Butter suggests adding peanut butter or cocoa though, which both sound amazing!

Bookworm dress by the Velvet Bird

I'm sure lots of you are already aware of the beautiful Velvet Bird blog and her store. But if not, how sweet is this dress? Especially the elbow patches! I'm dying to order from her... one day, one day.

Since I'm off on holiday, I've spent a lot of time looking for interesting swimwear - how amazing is this swimsuit from We Are Handsome? Unfortunately, a) I don't live near a stockist and b) the range seems to be very expensive. But still, I don't know why there has to be such a large gap between the cheap high-street swimsuits that are basically a triangle of fabric held up with string, and the expensive designer swimsuits that look like they might be designed to flatter or be used for actual swimming. It's really hard to find something that's both nice and reasonably priced!

Finally, my friend Dorota has started an awesome style blog called Girl Scout. I highly recommend you check it out, she's just started but she looks like a total blogging pro. I think she's going places!

I hope every one is having a sunny July, do you have any travel plans?

Here come the Owls!

Hi folks! Big knitting news - I finally finished knitting the amazing Kate Davies' Owls sweater! It's the first jumper I've knitted and the first time I've done cabling so I'm very proud. I was knitting it back in March and I progressed pretty slowly - not because the pattern was super tricky, but because it seemed like each part was fairly straightforward and I was scared to go on to the next bit in case it suddenly got really hard!

I'm really happy with how it turned out, although I suppose it's not ideal to finish knitting a wool jumper in the middle of summer. This pattern is all over Ravelry so I know lots of people knit it - if any of you guys are planning to and would like some help/tips please let me know! There were definitely parts of the pattern that I found very confusing at first. 

I also booked a holiday to the Algarve in Portugal, we're going in a month and I can't wait! But let me tell you, it's IMPOSSIBLE to find a flattering tankini in this town. I don't think I'm asking for too much..!

Do you have any holidays planned? And do you knit in the summer or is it more of an Autumn/Winter thing?

Lomographic Brighton

I finally scanned the photographs I took in Brighton with my adorable Diana Mini! I forgot how nice it is to drop a roll of film in to be developed and not remember exactly what's on it. Although I did get "the fear" that none of the photos would come out - I did lose a lot of the roll as I hadn't anticipated how dark the indoor shots would be without a flash. You live and learn! My friend who I was away with was using Instagram on her iPhone (aka the cheater's lomography) and her photos came out much, much better than mine did! 

Do you ever take photos on film? Should I just give in and get Instagram?

Workwear #2

Hi folks! I'm just back from a trip to Brighton! If you don't know, it's a charming seaside town on the south coast of England. I'd never been there before but it totally lived up to my expectations! It was sunny, full of lovely friendly people, and we were staying in and B&B opposite a beach with cute multicoloured beach huts and wooden boats on the shore. I'm not a fancy schmancy blogger with Instagram but I did bring my lomographic camera, and I do have a scanner, so in a week or so I should have some lovely photos to show you all!
I decided to take this morning off work to have a nice post-holiday lie-in, which created the perfect opportunity to take some more photos of.. workwear!

I got this awesome nautical t-shirt in Cos in Brighton. I love it but the ruff does make me feel a little Elizabethan, or maybe a bit like a clown.

The hazards of wearing a ruff on a windy day!

Do you have any holidays or mini breaks coming up? How's the weather where you are? It's still crazy here and I'm starting to think that we won't have a proper summer at all!