Bridgette Bardot

Let's move on from holiday snaps now and talk about dresses. 

The lovely Jane from mymidlifefashion wrote recently that she packs just dresses for summer holidays.   I liked the idea and did a bit of research here to find some good dresses for my holiday. 

I loved the shoulder line of the Dorothy Perkins Bardot, here in navy, Clarks flatties shown here,  

But I had an issue with that shoulder line as being on the buxom side, I need a bra with straps.  However, I had a cunning plan ...

... for I made it into a sort of cold-shoulder dress!

I bought some wide navy petersham and sewed in two straps where the bra straps hang out.  It creates a bridge between front and back of the dress.  A little bridge.  A sort of bridgette.

Et voila!  I've still got the nice shoulder line yet I now have a totally wearable dress.

 

What do you think of my adaptation?

Do you have issues with Bardot shoulder-lines too?

I slipped a stripey slouchy sweater around my shoulders and I was good to go.

Hey, I have another tip.  As a pensioner I find myself buying the odd bottom-priced sweater, like the Primark one above.  

They are fine but sometimes the cuffs get baggy.  So I take in what it needs to make the cuff sit tight, then I sew a little graduating seam from the cuff until it reaches the garment's seam somewhere up the sleeve.  It's a quick job.  

Et voila, une fois de plus!!  A totally wearable sweater!

So, back to Jane and her holiday dress wardrobe.  I couldn't commit to packing just dresses for my recent trip as I hadn't had time to thoroughly trial the idea at home beforehand.  I need solid research before embarking on ground-breaking shifts of pattern!

But I thought I'd dip my toe in the water, so along with separates I packed a few dresses for Denmark and wore one.  A lot. 

You will have seen which one in yesterday's post.  

I think Jane's idea works because I loved slipping on a dress, job done,  with no faffing about what goes with what and there is no doubt that I felt cooler wearing it under the hot Nordic sun.  So dresses-only would be the way to go for a stress-free summer holiday.  I needed just a little more training time to get into the dresses-only mindset for my Denmark trip.  

Thanks for the inspiration, Jane.  I'm now trialling the idea back here in Blighty.  I have 5 dresses to play with.  Watch this space!

Now, the elephant in the room.  My hair.  I'm still having probs getting it to sit right since it was cut a few weeks ago.   I took selfies today in desperation, hoping I could see where it's just not working.

The selfies didn't help.  I'm still flummoxed.  Any ideas?  Any hairdressers out there who can see where it's going wrong?  Is it the cut, is it an ageing hair thing, or is it just my bad hair pifting?!

A la perchoine.

What I Did in the Holidays

I got creative with cardboard boxes!

Half-term coincided with some Amazon deliveries = cardboard boxes = creativity.

Immediately the boxes were emptied, we got going with making a garage complete with ramp from one box (no good photos, unfortunately) and a decorated basket for carrying small collectibles with the other.  We made up some of our own characters to decorate the sides.   Creativity and fun inspired by Amazon and its sturdy boxes.

Here's our decorated collectibles basket:

Don't you just love younger people's infectious enthusiasm, imagination and sometimes outside-the-box (see what I did there?!) ideas? 
Thank you, Little People, for letting me join your world!

And we met this little fella when out walking, a dear little Shetland Pony (sorry about bad pic)

Our fun continued with a birthday meal for GS, complete with Storm Trooper birthday cake. 

I would absolutely LOVE to share with you a photo of his ST cake,
but technology has frustratingly failed me .

So instead, you get what I wore!

Woolovers charcoal cashmere-merino polo neck; Dorothy Perkins denim skirt, v.old;

Gabor brown Anna knee boots.

3/4 camel coat from Dorothy Perkins,
the faithful Next print scarf draped over the shoulders, granny-style!

I remember the challenge as a child, returning from school holidays and having to write that dreaded essay, What I Did in the Holidays.  The challenge for me was how to fill a page with "I went to the beach"!

Now, what did you do in the holidays? 

A la perchoine.

ps. As I've been typing this, 60 mph winds, hailstorms and thunder and lightening have been pounding down on my turret.  Fortunately, the former has moved the others swiftly away.