Hello! Just a quick vlog today, showing where I was in Edinburgh this weekend.
I spent a lot of time walking! Walking (or traipsing, as it feels after a while) is the most convenient way of getting around the city centre, but it is also pretty tiring. Edinburgh is very hilly and there are lots and lots of steps, as well as cobbles to make your feet sore (we call them setts). But it is such a beautiful city it is always worth getting tired out, just to be out and about in it. History is everywhere around you in Edinburgh and for someone like me who loves history, it is the perfect place to be. On Saturday we were mostly in the old town. We visited the National Museum of Scotland to see the current Victorian photography exhibition, we ate cake in a cafe with a wonderful vie of the castle and had a delicious brunch, and traipsed around generally. The vlog is very short but will give a glimpse of what the centre is like.
I really wanted to make this video to demonstrate how easy it can be to alter an item of clothing to make it work for you. These days, unless you are fabulously wealthy or a seamstress yourself, you are stuck with trying to find generic, ready-to-wear clothes that will fit your non-generic, individual body. Too often I have bought a beautiful-looking item only to have been disappointed to find that it didn't suit me. Too often I have reacted emotionally and blamed my own figure for failing to match up to the imaginary woman for whom the piece of clothing was made, rather than thinking logically and customising the item to match me.
Over the last year or two I have cultivated a good relationship with my local tailor (I give her English lessons at cheap rates and she does my tailoring for cheap rates), and the result is that I have been able to be creative with these problem pieces of clothing and get them altered professionally to suit me. It's not possible for everyone to start giving their local tailors English lessons but I do highly recommend finding a good one and developing a good business relationship! It will pay dividends for the way your clothes fit you.
In this video I show how I had a silk dress by Rebecca Taylor go from unwearable (for me) to workable. I bought this lovely dress over EBay but when it arrived I was disappointed to find that the waist was too high, sitting on my rib cage and greatly exaggerating my already pear-shaped figure, and it was also too long. The hem stopped at the widest point of my calves, hiding the shape of my legs below the knee and suggesting they had the shape of inverted tree trunks! A couple of small changes to the waistband and the hemline later and I have a beautiful party frock that suggests more of an hourglass figure and shows my legs to their own advantage.
I hope you enjoy the video and that it inspires you to take any clothes you aren't quite happy with to the tailor to discuss possible alterations. Give me a thumbs up on YouTube if you like it, and subscribe to the blog or the channel if you wish to see more, similar videos. I have a plan to create a series of Take it to the Tailor! videos to show what can be achieved with small alterations on different pieces of clothing.
I'd love to have your comments. Do you alter your clothes, and have you found it works for you?
In today's video I show you how I transform the look my simple, "minimalist" living space using only a few items as accessories. I was preparing to host a themed social event at my house and wanted to change the look of my flat (or apartment) to match.
The event was a meeting of a Black and White film group I created last year. We meet every couple of months or so to eat, drink and watch a different black and white film. This time the film was the classic British wartime drama Brief Encounter. At the end of every meeting we all drop suggestions for films into a hat and the first to be picked out will be the next film we watch.
Entertaining in your own home can be great fun and it doesn't have to be expensive or labour intensive. I didn't have a lot of time to prepare food this time so I just got a large wedge of really good quality cheese, some delicious honeycomb and savoury oatcakes (very traditional food where I live). To drink I provided wine and malt whisky, and I asked my guests to bring something either to eat or to drink. Nobody minded contributing to the potluck and I think it was more fun for everybody that way!
Do you have any tricks for doing up your house for entertaining? What do you add to create a little extra atmosphere?
