The black coat has its first outing!

On the weekend Mum and I went to Wahroonga to the Rose Siedler House 50s Fair! It was a great day out and we were very lucky with the weather. It looked like it was going to rain all day but somehow it didn't.

I thought this was the perfect opportunity to debut my black coat (complete with buttons thanks to some last minute efforts!). So I gathered together the bones of an outfit:
- black dress with embroidered blue swallows
- blue petticoat
- blue shoes

But I was missing a few things - like lots of accessories. Thats the thing with dressing vintage - its pretty much all about the accessories. You need to have the works and it all needs to be matchy-matchy.

The day before Mum and I wandered around Newtown looking at all the vintage and collectible shops and I found a powder blue single strand necklace which I could wrap around my neck twice - so I bought that. Then when we arrived at the fair, I found a matching pair of powder blue clip-on earrings so I bought them! THEN I found a pair of powder blue gloves, and a powder blue leather handbag! Now I had an outfit!!

So what did I do - I entered the best dressed competition!

This is a photo of my walking down the ramp from the beautiful 1950s house onto the red carpet. I was convinced I was going to fall flat on my face... a steep ramp, thats damp, in sky high stilletos. What was I thinking!!

There were 30 women in the competition, several hundred people watching, and what felt like a million photographers. I didnt win, but it was a great experience and I met some great people :)

AND I got so so so many compliments about my coat!!! Everybody wanted to know where I got it from, and then when I said I'd made it people wanted me to make them one! And I even found a photo of me on Facebook taken by a random person, with another random person commenting that I had made the coat myself!!!

I was very flattered by all the attention the coat got, and I'm looking forward to wearing more of my creations when the weather warms up. Speaking of which, I finished the pattern adjustments for the wrap dress and now I just have to cut it out and get sewing! Hopefully I will have time soon :)