Quarry Bank Mill.

So on the may day bank holiday, my parents dragged me away from my laptop and to styal mill, which isn't far from Manchester really. It's owned by the national trust and as me and my family are members we tend to go to places like this a lot. It was really sunny but extremely windy so I could deal with the warmth (if you've been following me since last summer, you may remember my post about how I hate hot weather..scrooge I know!)

Anyway what Styal mill was originally in fact a cotton mill, where they still produce fabrics today. I have been a number of times but I still enjoy it all the same, its the history of the place I find so fasinating. You can Watch hand-spinners at work which I also feel I learn from as well as experience the clatter of machinery which is seriously so loud, when I went around there was this little boy he was probably 2 and he was loving these massive machines making loads of noise, it was great! Yes I was possibly as excited as he was.

The pictures hanging on the wall I then photographed are of mill workers and there families, who all lived in the styal village which was built especially for them to live in. I just thought these photographs showed how it really was and were also quite beautiful. I have a few more pictures from my trip out which I will put up sooner or later. I hope everyone had lovely Easter holidays and days off! It's now back to college for me but I've now just about got used to my early morning again (I say almost...I haven't really).

And on one last note who else has been invited to the Evans Autumn/Winter collection preview, I'm really excited about being asked and also awfully nervous I've never been on a train to London on my own before and I'm bound to get very lost!

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The start of my collection.

These are two toile's out of my collection, when I am finally finished I will have created four garments which believe me is quite crazy! In case you don't know what toile means (which I'm guessing a number of you may not, because I've been a fashion student for over a year and I'm still baffled by it) A toile is in basic terms a mock up of the final piece, be it a skirt or a dress. I wrote a number of posts earlier this year about my final collection and telling you what my theme was and it was based on the women's land army and the 1940s era. All my pieces will have vintage style lace collars on them as pictured in the centre pictures. The market level for my collection is high street, but good quality and well made.

Over all I am quite happy with my toile's so far, though as I'm doing the finishing touches to these two now, the machines are driving me crazy by just deciding not to work and sew really badly.ARRGGHH! Okay my little rant is over now. I'm using binding on my sleeves and necklines to make sure the collection is pulled together with matches pieces, there is also exposed zips on both of these pieces which also ties together my collection with a modern twist. I used this because I felt I needed a modern edge to my collection so it didn't just seem like they are replica's of 1940s clothing.

The fabric I've used for my toile's is not my final choice of fabric and when I've finally put them all together I'll snap a few shots for you all to see what I've decided on! It's a mix of floral upholstery fabric, a vivid lilac colour and a white cotton with an extremely faint but lovely pattern of flowers across it. These with my tough exposed zips and vintage styled lace collars should produce a distinct but stylish contrast.

The skirt on these photographs will be produce in a fabric which is in a map pattern, if anybody knows where I can source this kind of fabric please let me know! otherwise I may have to create it myself and it won't then have the exact look I'm after. In case any of you lovely people were wondering where I got my collars from I found them on eBay, there is so many different type of lace collars on eBay ranging in era's and prices.

So what do you think of my collection so far? Would you buy any of it?

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In the garden.

It has taken me ages to get these pictures up, my blogger account was misbehaving yesterday and wouldn't let me upload and then I have had to upload each of these photos one by one today. But here they are I'm not totally happy with how I look in these pictures, it might just be how I've been feeling recently. But I won't go on about how I've been feeling a bit deflated, I'll talk about my almost lovely outfit!

I'm guessing you all now know that Primark now stock size 20 which I am very pleased about but is also bad news for the little money I tend to have! This dress is from Primark and I utterly love it. It actually fits surprisingly well and I adore the detailing with the ruffles and buttons. I feel it is quite vintage inspired which is definitely up my street! I do feel I will have to slightly alter the dress for one the straps are very thing and not particularly strong so I'm going to just sew some thicker black velvet straps on hopefully. You can see in the close up images of the skirt and bodice how lovely the print is, which is what originally caught my eye! the back is all elasticated fabric so it does stretch but I would say it is true to size.

I just wanted to add a pop of colour with my cardigan and red lipstick but I feel a black cardigan would of looked much better. My cardigan is from Dorothy Perkins and is a lovely bright blue shade and I often use to to brighten up my staple black and white outfits. My shoes are from Primarks wide fit selection and they are by no means perfect fit for my feet but they were 6 pounds and were far to cute to pass on! I found my bag in my local Oxfam I showed it on one of my YouTube videos so if you want to know more about it check that out. And finally my earrings are from Matalan and are just really adorable, I definitely need to wear them more. I just added the last picture for a bit of an action shot, it also made me laugh.

I'm guessing most of you guys watched the royal wedding, along with the majority of the rest of the world. I'm planning on doing a post on it because it was just so beautiful. Though if you follow me on twitter I basically did running commentary.

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