Sales

I managed to get some right bargains in the sales this year! I never usually find anything that's either of a decent price or standard, and then all of a sudden lots of beauties find me and I've decided to think of it as sale fate. To make up for all of the previous years bad luck. They're likely to make an appearance on the blog as outfit posts so I'll leave it there for now... And introduce you to the Parka.

From BooHoo.com for £25! What a bargain. It was between this one and a navy blue one from topshop, but Michael's cousins talked me into the green. And I love it! After I'd already ordered it they warned me I'd probably want to get a size smaller, so unfortunately I didn't. But I don't think it's half bad myself :) did you nab yourself any bargains?

DIY patterned pillow case scarf tutorial

For Christmas I made my dear friends Theana and Harriet scarves. I bought a bed set (quilt, under sheet, duvet cover and pillow case) for £1.99 or £2.99, I can't quite remember, from a charity shop, and vowed to make as many things as possible! 

So to start, I examined the cases and patterns. I googled tonnes of variations of 'make scarf out of pillow' and there was nothing, so here is my tutorial to you. If you're a wisened seamstress this will be much too basic for you- please don't think I'm being patronising I'm just writing for people who may not have sewn before (only because I read tutorials sometimes and I'm like woahhhh there lassie, what are you saying).  

Lay your patterned cases out- think about the way the pattern will look once seen e.g. if I just sewed these two together like this it'd look awful. 

But if I were to sew them like this instead then it's much nicer (always fold and think about it before cutting or sewing)

Next you need to cut the unnecessary panel away; I started by halving the pillow case (cutting both the longest vertical side seam and across the top seam) and then cutting close to the white 

If you're concerned about losing any of your inner pattern then cut closer/on the blue and you can just sew a lot closer than this, I personally was more concerned about a huge middle seam and opted to cut close 

Place together and think about the middle pattern again- I moved these flowers to have the darkest ones in the corners opposite each other

Place on top of each other and ensure they are lined up correctly- you don't want to unpick your stitch. For me it was ensuring that all the white lines were in the same place etc 

Pin and sew along this edge

Fold sewed edges out and iron over- Erm I'm not sure why. For good measure. And cause mum makes me. From here you either need to hem, shear (zig zag cut) or fray the edges to finish off, I was going to shear but then decided fraying would probably look nicer! Just pull a couple of strands out all the way along 

I unfortunately didn't get a photo with one before I gave them as presents,but perhaps we can ask Harriet and Theana if they could kindly send us one.... :) if you use this pattern/idea please link back! I'd love to see what you've made!

Almost the 99p store

Happy New Year all!! I hope you had a good night yesterday, Michael and I KO'd before 12 unfortunately.. I think we've turned into old people before our time?? But oh well, I don't regret a thing haha.

Before Christmas I found (okay found is misleading. It was never lost but I hadn't been there before) a new charity shop, and pretty much everything was 99p... SCORE. My kind of shop. Here are the beauties I found-

(I haven't stopped wearing this, it's borderline obsessive, dang turtle necks) 

A lovely chunky knit

 Very handy soft jumper. Nothing extraordinary but good for layering :) 

I'm gutted I had my hair cut after I see it's length in these photos! Have you been thrifting lately? I have to admit that I went again today as I wanted some mid heels to be able to wear to work, and most of the shops I was looking in had a £20+ price tag. I found these bad boys for £4 in British heart foundation (no idea how but my favourite buys are always from these!). I'm not sure about the bows in all honesty and I'm looking into their removal :p

And also these for £6 from primark - not sure how long they'll last being primarni but that's okay. 

Just one thing left to buy (a nice blazer, but the hunts been on for years) and I will be content. This has definitely been the best year for sales shopping and I worry that it's just because my standards are slowly dropping...