Vintage Nation - Brighton Racecourse

Rather delayed, but The Mister and I got papped while at the Vintage Nation event held up at the windy, and very cold racecourse. Having to keep the posts rather short for the moment due to crappy hands again, please excuse! The majority of the day was spent indoors due to the blistering cold weather we had, and sadly only 5 classic cars turned up with us in the end, but there was plenty to keep us warm and busy on the inside, including shopping shopping shopping, a bit of dancing and at least the one ginger beer at Crabbie's, yum yum!

The lovely Mat from Southern Retro took a few snaps of us shivering outside with Tilly Triumph, which then appeared here on VintageBrighton.com:

And appearing for the first time ever on here, let me introduce you to my Mister. That jacket was a labour of love and has taken many years of car shows and collecting of patches to put together. You will find him wearing this at most classic car shows, including the big grin on his face! Tilly is his pride and joy, and the other woman in our relationship ;)

I do hope they put this on again next year, but perhaps a little later in the season, and with the upstairs floor used for something so it's not so weather dependant. Would recommend it though for a rummage around the stalls!

Much love from Brighton,

L.J.

xxx

Did I mention...

I finally set up a facebook page? Took me a while!

But if you wish to follow me on facebook, please do so here:

Lady Jardin on Facebook

Thank You :)

LJ.

xxx

A 'Special Occasion' Outift Post

We had a the Mister's niece's Christening to attend a few Saturday's ago, and I finally got to bust out one of my favourite a-little-too-nice-to-wear-on-a-normal-occasion dresses and matching bolero.

Sadly the little shop I purchased it from no longer exists, and I found this on my first and only trip...the little old lady was gone the following weekend! But many long-time vintage lovers in Brighton have informed me that it was Brighton's best kept vintage secret, the tiny shop up on Upper St James St in Kemptown where apparently Kate Moss used to get most of her bits from.

Anyways, I've had this dress since my 21st Birthday, which was um....nearly 3 years ago now, and have only worn this on 3 occasions, my 21st Birthday, my friend's 30th as seen here with me sporting my oh so sexy wrist braces, and for the christening! It even proved to be dog-proof too...pretty and practical? Score!

Me flashing some bling-bling for a change:

And a hat with a GIGANTIC flower set off to one side:

Now to organise some more special occasions as an excuse to get the others out of their plastic covers! I may just decided to go back to what they used to, and wear my best on Sunday's every week, special occasion or not! Anyone care to join me? Liberate those rarely worn lovelies!

Dress & Bolero set - 30a, Upper St James St, Brighton

Hat - Brighton Marina Carboot

Bird Necklace - Brighton Tattoo Convention

Broach - Oxfam, Uckfield

Daisy Chain - Worthing American Car Show

Much Love from Brighton,

L.J.

xxx





Vintage Inspiration - Hairpin Crochet

I just stumbled across these and had to share them. If only I had an army of people to make these for me......this dress is devine! And to think, this is all made from those strips of hairpin crochet I showed you earlier in the week, amazing! I might have to work on something like this, very very slowly in the background, because this must have taken months to make!

source

 And this top...can't figure it out. Do you think it's a separate top to the dress, or part of the whole thing? Interesting combo if so!

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 And something perrhaps a little more achievable for a newbie like myself. Another one to add to my increasingly growing cardi collection:

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So many ideas, so little time!

Much Love from Brighton,

L.J.

xxx

Oh, I Say! Crochet Nipple Tassles?!

Can you tell my mind's been on burlesquey things of late? hehe!

I've put my new found hair-pin lace corchet skills to use planning a costume for the next performance, whenever that may be. So it had to start off with...crochet nipple tassles!!

What do you think?

I plundered the local Fabric Land for tassles, metalic thread to use with my metal flake balck wool, beads, and lots and lots and lots of ribbon.

I started off with the black wool, then finished off the edges with metalic embroidery thread. Beads threaded through the loops of the crochet, as well as some ribbon, and then sewd on some more beads on top, including one to hold the tassle in place ;)

Now I just need to think of what to do for the rest of the outfit. This is going to be fun!

 Much Love from Brighton,

L.J.

xxx



Sheer Blue Pleated Dress

The latest chairty shop find, this time from Horsham. Picked it up in the St Catherines Hospice, one of my favourites for vintage finds!

 I had a very similar one a few years back in black, which was actually a high street label. This must have been what inspired that one! I think it must be 50's, but correct if I'm wrong! Looking at the detail, all the hem's have been done by hand, not a job I would want to undertake, but finishes it off beautifully. And in a very bright shade of royal blue, rather fitting for the Jubilee (although rather late of me to mention that, it was worn on the day!)

It's first outing was to Brighton Fashion Week in May. Perfect for a night at the side of the catwalk!

I love the massively swooshy skirt, makes me want to throw some shapes on the dancefloor. And yes, I believe I was watching some sort of Planet Earth program...say hello to the giant Gecko coming out my arm!

Much Love from Brighton,

L.J.

xxx

Art Deco Garage, East Preston

In the sleepy village of East Preston, just along from Worthing, lies a little hidden gem I'd heard of. My manager had told me about a little garage that had been let to rot for many many years, but had recently been rescued by a redevelopement plan.

I couldn't find any pictures of what it looked like when it was first finished back in the day, but stumbled across this one before we headed over to explore. What a sorry sorry sight this was:

Now I don't normally like what redevelopers do with Art Deco buildings along the south coast. Far too many have been left to rot away, then get knocked down and turned into more boring high rise blocks. But not this time. These designers were real geniuses. They have kept the front facade as it was, and have cleverly extended backwards, to provide multiple flats in this now restored garage.

I LOVE IT! Now all I need to do is win the lottery to live here.....

We couldn't resist a few poses with the car. The people who live opposite found it highly amusing while they did their gardening!

Let's see more of this on the coast please! I have my heart set on them restoring the old Art Deco Odeon on the Level in Brighton next. Now that's a place I'd pay good money to live in.

Much Love from Brighton,

L.J.

xxx

Experiments in Hair Pin Crochet

Following on from my lessons att Super+Super HQ, I've been playing around with different colours and different techniques for joining them up. This time grouping up tthe individual 'threads' from the hairpin lace peice, and looping them together with single crochet stitches to turn them into shells:

I like how it keeps it nice and straight and even, But not sure how I would join up two strips of this. You'd have to join up the green bits either side to another and another.... any ideas?  I've seen a few pictures of inspiration online so far though and think I want to try out something more wavy for a big piece.

Might just keep this as a little tester though :)

Much love from Brighton,

L.J.

xxx

Learning Hairpin Crochet at Super+Super HQ

For the last month, I've been spending my Tuesday evenings at cosy Super + Super HQ learning how to hair pin crochet. Miss Amy Phipps has been patiently teaching our class the lacier form of crochet.

I did a bit of research before I went to the first class, and really couldn't figure out how the hell it worked....a bit anxious I had signed up for something a little too tricky. But I was totally wrong! Once Amy had shown us it was all done on a little frame (She'd made us some out of an old coat hanger, so simple yet perfect! Saved me £9 from Amazon!), with a normal crochet hook, the only difference being that you wrap the wool around the frame as you work along the piece!

So here is our class working away making lots of 'strips' of crochet, the first step in making anything!

Many many cups of tea and slices of cake were had, yum yum! And learning a new skill at the same time? Great night out on a school night me thinks :)

The browns and greys above were mine, and below is what Amy was working on while showing us. I fell in love with the metalic gold wool!

I got a bit carried away and kept making more and more of them before learning how to join them all up. I had a vague idea of maybe making another cardi out of them. Hasn't quite worked out to plan, but it was a learning exercise! heh. 

Next step? Learning how to join them all together! We started off being shown how to join two up with no other yarn involved. Here is one I prepared earlier:

You sort of weave one side in and out with the other. Now I understood why Amy kept telling us to work on contrasting colours first; at least then you can tell apart the sides when it starts getting fiddly!

And here is our teacher's example:

Fellow student Sarah's work:

And here was my first attempt at trying to finish off all the edges.

I used the piece I joined up above, and then pinched some of the gold metalic lurex to crochet up the remaining two edges with simple single stitch crochet, bunching up the strands as I worked along.

I'm actually amazed at how quick and simple hair-pin crochet is once you've been shown it. There are actually only 2 types of stitches involved with making up the lacy bits, and then it's all about joining them up in different ways to make any sort of garment.

I think this would, in a second attempt, turn into a really cute collar! A little more practice at getting the amount of stitches right so it lays flat :)

I'm bursting with ideas now! I feel this has opened up so many possibilities, combining this with normal crochet, embroidery and beading, sewing......I think this is going to be the year of crochet for me!

I would thoroughly recommend organising a tea party with the girls at Super + Super, I had one with my Mum for her Birthday a few weeks back and had a brilliant time refreshing my memory on granny squares, with lots of bubbly and cake!

I've already finished off my first project, and planning the next already. The only down side is, I was halfway through crocheting another cardi in a different style, and that has now started collecting dust while I'm distracted by all this new stuff. That can wait for now though :)

Much Love from Brighton,

L.J.

xx