TARDIS Tuesday- Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

It's been quite a few weeks since I partook in a TARDIS Tuesday post. I've been so busy and the weather has not made it easy to choose one of the outfits but today, I am returning to a favourite Clara outfit worn in Series 7 by Jenna Coleman. Last worn on the blog in July 2022

IMage borrowed from this Pinterest

The print on this dress is of sequins but looks like flames, molten lava and all sorts from a distance!

 I love this collar dress and it will probably remain my 2nd favourite Clara outfit apart from her tartan Hobbs dress.  It looks very creased here! Ooops!  

I've worn this as my Christmas dress for quite a few Christmasses but never out to a Summer engagement due to the synthetic nature of the material.

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Ang's Handiwork- Clara from The Magician's Apprentice

Hello there!

I am back from holidays and have had a really great time off. This holiday, I really have been busy the entire holiday. I only had 3 full days at home-one of those spent packing, one doing housework and recovering from horrid late night plane delay and one doing school work- today in fact- it's not enough, now having a bit of a panic about school work! I started writing my Pennine Way post but it's an epic and taking ages so I thought I'd post the TARDIS Tuesday I forgot to post last week.

It is a special one because it features one of the wonderful Ang Almond's fantastic adaptations and it's been quite a while since I last wore it. In fact,since June 2019 worn here (worn without jacket)! I am totally shocked!

Here's the outfit:

https://wornontv.net/51844/ 

It features a green satin pearl-print dress (with collar) from &Other Stories.  She pairs it curiously with a grey merino wool jumper from J Crew, a black leather jacket from &Other Stories also, purple/navy tights, black socks and black lace up boots from Topshop.  It's apparently a school outfit though I'm mystified why you'd wear a satin dress for school!!

Here's my latest version with some side-by-sides with Clara!

The main star of the outfit is, of course, the aforementioned satin dress.  &Other stories also made a version of this dress that was shorter and without a collar with longer sleeves. I bought the alt version of the dress and Ang adapted it for me by adding a collar made from the sleeves and with backing from another piece she had adapted for me.

The dress rarely gets seen without the jumper and jacket so I actually thought I'd share it here in its various forms so you can admire her work. In fact, I wore it without the jumper for church on Easter Sunday with a belt to give it a less sack-like shape (not flattering on me). I really like it on its own belted as did CBC who admired it (and didn't realise it was a Clara piece). 

I do not own the correct leather jacket and to be honest, I won't do- I don't have use for more than one jacket of this type. Instead, I wore her All Saints Axelle black denim jacket which is close enough for Jazz.

I added an alternative grey Clara jumper (she has 3!) which was a cropped marled one from Topshop and it looks quite nice I think, better than the J Crew one.

I added some very old but nice Oasis purple tights (purchased at least 10 years ago and to my dismay, laddered them!) and either the same or similar Topshop boots.

You'll notice the hair cut I presume? I had it cut for the Pennine Way as could not be faffing with long hair!

You may notice that I am wearing a different sweater in this photo! It is the J Crew sweater but in a biscuit colour. Bought in error but I think the short grey looks better!

I really liked this iteration of this outfit, it's my favorite so far and it made me keen to give the dress a show again soon! Probably not for school though...however, I could try it and see what reaction I get!?

Hope you are well and stay tuned for Pennine Way updates soon!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS

 Ah, tis my favourite Clara outfit this week! I was trying to think of a Summer appropriate TARD

Last worn in August 2019 on this blog, this will be the 6th time I have featured it on my blog for TARDIS Tuesday (a few slightly different interpretations). It was the Clara outfit that first made me love Clara's style and want to recreate it. I was in that phase where I first started to LOVE a collar dress or top and this was totally my thing! Plus, her hair was superb! 

IMage borrowed from this Pinterest

In this episode, she dons a beautiful red Sequin-print dress from Urban Outfitters brand, Vaudeville and Burlesque.  It had a black collar added underneath.  She wore brown ankle boots with buckle from All Saints and black and silver triangular earrings plus a ton of bracelets including one made out of antique watch faces.

Image borrowed from https://claracosplay.livejournal.com/2921.html

Here's my 2022 version.

It's pretty much identical to my 2019 version except that my hair looks slightly better and I didn't wear Scarf-clips as a watch braclet but just donned a circular bracelet. I wore the Screen-accurate dress and an alternative pair of brown boots bought from TK Maxx some years ago!

In addition, I wore triangular earrings which actually look more like Clara's necklace from another episode.

I really would love to wear this one to school! I have a feeling the children would like it. However, don't really want to cycle in it!!

Hope that all is ok with you.

xx

Style Imitating Art- Jazz Stories- 3 for the price of 1!

Evening there,

Hope you are well.

This evening, for Style Imitating Art, Daenel picked a brilliant piece of artwork, right up my street!

Inspiration piece: Jazz Stories: Mama Can Sing, Papa Can Blow #1: Somebody Stole My Broken Heart by Faith Ringgold.

Ah, isn't it brilliant! So bright and so many cool features! Plus, of course, it's all about music!!!

Here's my collage I sent to Daenel.  Yes, I went for three outfits!

I'll talk you through my sartorial choices each in turn.

Outfit no. 1 was based round this lightweight vintage blouse I picked up from Polly's Vintage at Battlesbridge antiques centre last Summer.  The pattern reminded me of the stripy edge of the inspiration piece.  Underneath, for warmth, I chose to wear a navy turtle neck (M&S) and trousers (Just Female)- the colours aren't quite on but I thought it could represent the blue suits of the men. My Clarks Originals red desert boots and bead necklace were a nod to all the red.  This is what I wore to school today. Oh, and my red and blue Swatch watch was a nod to all the colours of the piece.

Outfit no. 2 is based on the dress of the main singer.  I took one look at the picture and realised that I had a dress with a very similar sort of print...but I had put it in the charity bag! I love the dress shape but the colour and material doesn't quite work for me. I find it hard to wear in the Autumn/winter in terms of colours and layering but the material is too hot for Summer. I added a beaded necklace (from a local shop near my childhood home).  I did want to wear my red heels with it, like the singer...but of course I couldn't find them! So I donned a scruffy pair of old red spotty ballet pumps.

My third, and final, outfit, is a dress I bought from ex-blogger and penpal, Char from her insta sale last year.  Honestly, when I saw she had a brand new dress with violins on it for a mere £8, I couldn't resist it!  That is, of course, a nod to our Double bass player at the back.  I liked the smart high-necked collar which made a nod to the suits of the men.  My T bar Clarks shoes completed the outfit.

I wished I had donned one or two items of jewellery in my collection, two of which are pictured.

This Tatty Devine musical necklace would work well with the whole vibe, as would this musical brooch trio. I have a saxophone brooch which is attached to a corduroy blazer but it's hard to undo so I didn't bother and believe it or not, I have a blue drum pin badge which is almost identical to the one being played by the drummer.  However, I couldn't find it!

And that's the whole band:

What do you think?

What would you have worn? Which of my outfits do you think is your favourite.

You've got till tomorrow night to put together an outfit if you want to join in.

Flatlays of clothes are acceptable too!

Head over to Daenel on Wednesday for the round up.

xx

Outfit- We're going on a bear hunt!

I know it's not Christmas anymore, but I have ONE more outfit I didn't share!

Technically, I wore it in November though so it doesn't QUITE count as a Christmas outfit.

My orchestra puts on a concert especially aimed at children.  For the first 10 years of doing this, the wonderful Kathy Clugston from Radio 4 used to be our narrator- she's best pals with our principal Clarinet player (and she told me I was her favourite flautist!) but she moved to Belfast a couple of years ago so we had to do without her.  The main piece in the programme was Ian Stephens' We're going on a bear hunt based on Michael Rosen's story and David Benson Phillips' Playschool original version of this.  We performed it with Kathy a few years ago- there's a picture of me hugging the bear in the blog post I did.  This time, we were asked to wear All Black with sparkles. I was disappointed as this is usually my opportunity to wear my coloured posh dresses.

Still, I DID have something slightly subversive to wear.  Remember my red velvet dress I recently found in the charity shop?  Well, at the time, it was also accompanied by a Black velvet version with a white collar embroidered with snow flakes.

I decided to get away with wearing that.

To add sparkle, I wore my silver sparkly Lorelai L-Q star earrings AND to match the theme- a glittery bear brooch!

I wore this with my trusty Clarks Brogue books (this was their inaugural outing actually).

It was a fun, comfortable outfit to wear.  We went out for a meal at Nusa Dua, an Indonesian restaurant near Leicester Square after the concert so it transported well into an evening out- I hope!!

What do you think?

xx

Sun dress

So many of my favourite items of clothing are second-hand, I don't know why I am still surprised by it. I live in an area where clothing is disposed of after little use and people seem to bin what I like! I am not complaining.

Here's a picture of me from holiday in Tuscany in the garden of our villa.  I am wearing a Henry Holland dress (charity shopped) and it was such a good fabric for a dress on such a muggy day. A light cotton Broderie Anglaise.  We had a massive rain and thunderstorm a few hours after taking these which was a welcome relief. I was very much revelling in being able to get my hair up in a neat bun that day. Neat for me. I am not good at hair.

I'm not sure I'll get to wear this much more this year, more's the pity!

xx

TARDIS Tuesday- Clara's Tile Print dress again!

Hi there,

THANK YOU so much for your messages on my yesterday's post. I appreciate your prayers and thoughts. I am seeing the Doctor in the morning about my blood test results so I hope that then I might know what is going on or what needs to happen next. Trying NOT to think about it too much apart from the fervent prayer and anxious thoughts.

I'm going to share a Doctor Who outfit I wore on Saturday.   I've worn this particular dress for two previous TARDIS Tuesdays and I have also made an alternative version of it before so it is quite a prolific outfit for me.  BUT....I had some shoes I wanted to wear with it differently from before!


So Clara wore this particular outfit for two episodes and promo shots and the pretty tile-print shirt dress comes from Topshop originally.  She wears it with a brown belt and some navy brogues with wooden heels that come from Bertie.

Image borrowed from ClaraOswaldcosplay.com

And here's how I wore it on Saturday for watching a concert.

For me, this was one of the Clara items I loved and wanted the most - it's the combination of collared shirt dress and a pretty print plus the colours that appealed to me.

And I finally managed to get the Bertie heels (though her alternative ones she wears with lots of other outfits!) in my size if you remember I had a pair of Size 5's that I bought the wrong size for.  A fellow instagram Clara fan really wants this size and I told her she could have mine if she found me Size 8's - which she did and they are wending their way to her in the US hopefully tomorrow! This is one of those outfits that I feel pretty in (in the words of Maria!).  

The funny thing was, at the concert, I was sitting there in my Clara outfit and one of the songs started and the accompaniment at the start was the EXACT same note pattern in terms of pitch and rhythm as Clara's theme from the incidental music from Doctor Who!

I delightedly leaned over to CBC and said, "It's Clara's theme!" . Since his string group at school had been playing a version of it in their last concert and thus he knew it, he conceded that it was indeed just like Clara's theme!  I felt so special!

What do you think of this outfit?  Do you ever notice that music sounds like other pieces?  I am terrible for noticing this! I remember playing Stravinsky's  Symphony in 3 movements and playing a bit that reminded me of 'Catch the Pigeon' (Dastardly Dan and Mutley!)  and giggling every time! And Ralph Vaughn-Williams' London Symphony is blatantly, "The Phaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaantom of the Opera- HAVE a banana!"  Anyway, I digress...

xx

Style Imitating Art outfit: Pocket Flask

Hello!  How are you?

I'm back with another outfit inspired by art.
Daenel chose this week's piece:

Pocket Flask {The MET, public domain}

The blown pattern-moulded glass Pocket Flask were made in the U.S. between 1800 and 1860.

I do love this!! What a beautiful image- the glass shades so complimentary- the patterning, the background- all gorgeous!

 Here is how I interpreted it:
I started with this vintage checked shirt dress.  It has a yellowy beige background, orange and green stripes and beautiful green glass buttons.  Because the dress is a little too loose on me, I added an old brown leather belt which picked up the colour of my (men's) Brogues.

 To add a little more yellowy colour I added this Mistral cardigan (notice the nice criss-crossing pattern on the edge! Serendipitous detailing!). I saw this exact same cardigan in a charity shop on Saturday in a size larger- I did contemplate buying it as it would be nicer to be a bit bigger!

 My green abalone shell necklace seemed quite appropriate- I liked the circular shapes and these plastic green beaded earrings seemed necessary to add some transparency to the outfit.

What would YOU wear for this outfit?  If you have time to cobble something together today or tomorrow, take some photos and send them to Daenel at livingoutsidethestacks@gmail.com.  More details are on her blog www.livingoutsidethestacks.com.  You can head over there on Wednesday for the roundup of outfits- it is well worth a look at how everyone interpreted it!

xxx

Style Imitating Art- The County court house ceiling and The 50's dress of dreams

Hi there,

Hope you are enjoying your Monday.

It's been a few weeks since I have taken part in Style Imitating Art.  This week, our host is the wonderful Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks and wonderfully, the art work we are inspired by this week is by her!

She took the photo of the ceiling during a family trip to St Louis, Missouri and had to really crane her neck to get the whole ceiling in. It is part of the building designed by Lavielle and Morton.

What an amazing ceiling and the way Daenel captured it is brilliant!  The photo is hers and I am only borrowing it here to show her amazing work in comparison to my outfits!

Old County Courthouse in St Louis, Missouri. Image by Daenel. A. Vaughn-Tucker

I was actually a little stuck with this at first until I realised on Friday that I was putting on a top which had a variety of colours including the right shade of pink together with some of the other colours and little intricate details including lace which nodded to some of the details.

 I then thought about that central circle in the image, perhaps a skylight and then thought of several items of jewellery I own that would work for that- the necklace is made up of slightly different sized circles in white including some that are intricate.  The white circle bracelet was an Eid present from a lovely girl at school and the earrings I bought in France tied with both of those.

 Finally, I added these Geometric Toms shoes - with their black and white circles and patterns, it reminded me of those outside black and white circular bits on the picture (sorry, I'm really going on a downer for descriptive language today!)
My loose blue jeans completed the look.

I then remembered a blog post I had as a draft which was never published with a dress I'd worn with the PERFECT colouring. Although the picture below is pretty dark, the pink of the dress is the exact shade in real life of those pink panels and the corresponding greyish edging is rather like the edging on my dress.  Appropriately, I had worn the same circle bracelet and a white pearl necklace plus some silvery grey sandals.

And you can read the rest of that draft post below!

In my 13 years of blogging, I have read the blogs of many stylish ladies who blog about their style.  Many of them were into Vintage clothing and many of those often found items when out in charity shops of thrift shops.  I am glad that many of them still blog such as Vix, Lauren, Ann although a few have fallen off the blogging wagon.

I was always envious and rather amazed at the beautiful collared 50's dresses that a few of my friends would find and always longed to find something similar.  Sadly, the only 50's dresses I ever really saw were in vintage shops and retailing at over £60 and invariably, never in my size!

When I was in Northumberland at Easter, my heart did a little skip when I saw this dress on a mannequin in the Corbridge Antiques centre.  The collar was gorgeous, the size looked good, it was cotton and the length looked alright.

I asked if they could take it off the mannequin and tried it on and happily, it being Northumberland, a slightly more reasonable £25 was what I managed to buy it for.

It IS very, very fitted at the waist, even for my small waist but the way the sleeves fit is lovely as it doesn't grip me at the shoulders and armpits in the way many modern sleeved dresses do.  It was very comfortable to wear to my Dad's Birthday back at the start of June.

Did you ever seek a particular style of dress and get very excited when you found it?

Now, head over to Daenel's blog on Wednesday to see how EVERYONE ELSE interpreted Daenel's beautiful photo!

AND if you think you've got an outfit that would work for this, email Daenel at livingoutsidethestacks@gmail.com and she will post a round-up of all the outfits!

x

TARDIS Tuesday- Deep Breath flashback.

This week's TARDIS Tuesday is of my beloved Clara from a memory sequence.  In the episode, Deep Breath, the first episode, Clara has a flashback to when she was first teaching in the classroom and the class were in chaos.  As an inexperienced teacher, she threatened them with the worst consequences she could rather than giving them a choice.  We all know as teachers it is best to give children a choice to do the right thing or a consequence but not the worst consequence immediately.

In the flashback, she is wearing this River Island Polka dot dress.

And as you can see, so am I!

When I saw this dress, I knew it was right up my street. Polka dots and collar!  I bought my one from Ebay last Summer for about £8 and indeed, you can find this dress quite commonly on Ebay reasonably.

I attempted to mimic Clara's pose and facial expression but I failed although achieved the general narked teacher impression.

 It's a shame the dress is not seen more but I don't mind as I like it very much! There's a necklace as you can see, but I don't really have anything of this ilk so I just kept it blank!

 Enough of the grumpy facial expressions- back to me!

It was back to school for me today and although I didn't have any confrontation moments like Clara, I did have a few annoying moments, involving chasing children for orchestra attendance! The best moment was though when my Headteacher came in when I was teaching Year 6 Balinese Gamelan music and he ended up watching for a little while and had a go at playing the part and seemed to love it! It turns out when he came in, he was just being nosy trying to see what we were up to! Ha ha, any Senior Management member knows better than to drop into my classroom as they then get dragged into something usually! 

xx

Daisies forever.

 Daisies are one of my happy things. I think that is true of many people.  We remember long Summers playing on school fields making daisy-chains- the innocence and the lack of responsibility of childhood is synonymous with these ubiquitous flowers. My school had a vast field considering its suburban background and my memories seem to be filled with Summer upon Summer of idyllic times spent upon that field. I work near my old school and I am still filled with excitement when I see it now. Even though it has had some building on it, school places being extremely lacking in that borough, it is still astonishingly large for the area!

 I remember the searching for this dress (I'd seen it advertised on Matalan) led me to discover the lovely Laura, blogger at www.adaisychaindream.com - I searched for Daisy dress and found her blog- so consequently, when I wear this, I think of her!  When I wore this a week ago or so, I decided to wear this collared dress as a top with a black skirt: 1) because I wanted to give it a different look and 2) it really is rather short!

 Don't know WHY I decided to jump but behold the manic facial expressions as one tries to achieve great heights with the self-timer.  You're welcome. I think a skirt which fits my waist better AND higher would have looked better so this is something else to experiment with at a later date.  The mustard cardigan here, bought from Mistraal in Wallingford a few years ago has ended up being a real workhorse in my wardrobe this year so far- it has been worn pretty much weekly since January.

I'd better leave this here.  Things to do....

Take care,

Kezzie xx

The bliss of solitude

Greetings,

I know some of you are keen to hear about my cruise adventures but I have failed to prepare my posts yet about this.   I always find holiday posts quite an onerous task, especially when there are countless photos to sift through!

I've been back since Monday morning and the week has, on the whole, been largely uneventful. This has been helped by the beautiful weather.

 But honestly, despite its lack of action, it has been a great week. Just being able to have a whole week doing nothing so much. With other holidays, there is always the pressure of limited time- feeling you need to do something meaningful with it; to having interesting tales to tell; to socialise.

Yet, a simple week is often what I yearn.

 Monday was spent putting away clothes, washing and hanging clothes, watering a 12day unwatered garden.. I felt a bit bizarre - like I was still on board a swaying ship and kept bumping into things and needed to gain my balance. To be honest, I do keep getting dizzy moments still, but it's fine.

Tuesday, with glorious sunshine, was a day of gardening with extensive mowing and clearing of weeds at the end of the garden. There was also reading in the garden and watching Ugly Betty DVDs. I also made a huge vat of chickpea and vegetable stew from all the way out of date vegetables festering in my fridge which still looked ok.

Wednesday, again waking to beautiful sun, my friend L from my flute trio came over early to bring me the two crocheted orders I had commissioned from her and she stayed for about an hour for a chat too. It was really nice to have her round, chatting in the garden.  (I frantically tidied up before she came).  I don't know about you, but I find it hard to make friends in my 30's and I really like L and really would like to get to know her and her husband more.  After that, I wrote letters to penpals, read a book and watched more Ugly Betty and weeded the front garden.

Thursday, with yet more sun, I spent the day with my sister and niece- after picking apples in my garden, we went out for lunch, went blackberrying and then came home to mine. I cherish any time spent with my sister. It is so fleeting these days so this was very special to me. After she went, I watched more Ugly Betty...

 Finally, today, I woke up and attempted to post on Instagram (which is being utterly bizarre and has posted the same cucumber picture 6 times), and then headed off to school. When I arrived, I had the most wonderful surprise.  I'd asked one of the caretakers to do a couple of things for me. When I went into my room, not only had he done those perfectly but he had built me a whole load of new shelving to house the instruments (and all the additional clutter from my old room). He'd obviously worked so hard at it, for days, thought it out so well. I was so touched at his hardwork and told him so emphatically when he came in later (cringing because the other caretaker had told him I was there, just in case I wasn't happy).  I spent about 4 hours sorting out and arranging the instruments in the order I was happy with.

After this, pleased with my room, I headed off to my friends from my old church. I had loaned their daughter some of my books when she was young and they were returning them to me. It was nice to catch up with them and hear their news.  Subsequently, I headed to my family friend's house (she of whom I have talked much) to visit her.  I ended up climbing to pick fresh figs from her fig tree which was lovely and quite funny trying to reach them.

Eventually, I came home, ate more vegetable stew and watched Ugly Betty.
It's been a simple week, but one I have enjoyed

About the outfit. This was the Henry Holland dress I charityshopped a few weeks ago. It is very comfortable. I wore it with the charity-shopped Christy's vintage panama hat I bought for CBC, my Punkypins Impossible Girl necklace and Goodnight boutique Adipose brooch. Hey, you can still dress cutely, even if you are just monging in the garden!

What have you been up to this week?

xx

Tartan with a bow on top

I feel that tonight's outfit is very Clara Oswin- well the tartan dress and colour thing- not so much anything else!! I am in the process of making a lovely vegetarian spaghetti bolognese which smells delicious- as well as soya mince, added a whole aubergine, red pepper, loads of tomatoes as well as a pasta sauce, stock cube, red wine, bay leaf, onion and lots of garlic.  We're having it with giant pasta!

One hour later, dinner was tasty but I misjudged the amount of pasta- far too much but not enough to go with the left over bolognese for tomorrow's dinner!

I don't have a huge amount to say today.  Thanks for all your supportive comments.  I do have somewhere to live but I don't want to talk about it until I am actually moved in just in case!  Sufficed to say, if it works out, it is an answer to prayer for more than one party, hopefully!

xxx

Linking to Visible Monday with Patti and co!