Taranaki Hardcore

We went to Taranaki last week and it was the best. I am irrationally scared that writing about how great it was will replace my actual memory of how great it was, but damn, it was great. Jack's parents live on a beautiful verdant market garden on the beach, so all there is to do is go on walks and eat and drink and read by the fire and read in the hammock and go opshopping, and because his family are so nice it's like staying in a cosy well-decorated hotel where all the staff are your best friends. Sighhhh.

While I was there I also had the pleasure of meeting Jack's lovely grandma, who is a bit of a master knitter. To my delight she let me pore through her box of 1940s knitting patterns, and she is currently knitting me the cardigan on the right with some pale blue wool I got for cheap on Trade Me!

I totally should've bought the Chauvanist Pig board game, although I do not regret leaving behind the mug o' condoms. I did find lots of other great things in opshops, though. I don't have proper photos of any of them yet so here are some Instagram repeats:



Perfect and super comfy red 1960s mary janes which are NZ made and were barely worn when I got them! Plus a rather warm teal mohair Scottish-made cape, then the perfect 1970s pink striped tee worn over a 1990s spotted dress.

Waddup 2013

Hi guys! Happy new year and all that! I hope everyone is well. Excuse my extended absence. My trusty old Mac crapped out in November, and after 48 emails and many phone calls, I picked up my replacement today. It was close-to-free thanks to the endlessly complicated joys of extended warranties, and now I can do the blog thing again.

I don't really have any proper bloggy photos though, sorry. Jack and I are moving house tomorrow so my dresses have spent the week bundled up in black rubbish bags. However, in December I received a new phone from my parents as a graduation present, and despite previously condemning it and thinking it was a waste of time, I've become one of those people who's really into Instagram. Sorryyyyy. So in lieu of some better-quality photos, here are some recent photos from mine.



 My three 1950s Horrockses dresses, Popsicle, and a vintage cardigan with a Ruby Boutique dress.


Packing for a jaunt to Christchurch and then wearing my dresses - a 1950s California Cottons one, then a 1950s rose-print one that I got for free from the opshop I volunteer at.


On the shore of Lake Tekapo, an opshop we stumbled across in Twizel, getting drunk with Christie.



The great floral couch we picked up from the side of the road, patting Lola in my new birdy print dress, a work-appropriate 1950s gingham dress.

Life is good.

Misc

I am a bad blogger, etc. I am working hard getting my final assignments done and studying for the exam in two weeks that will herald the end of my time in tertiary education. I've decided not to do Honours and am instead taking a full-time job at the media company I currently work part-time for. Which will mean getting up at 5am every weekday, but also getting paid, which is nice.

Here is some stuff I've been up to lately.

I cannot believe this dress is yet to feature on here, because I wear it SO often. It's become the thing I put on when I look at my wardrobe and feel contempt for all my garments. It is a beautiful 1950s cotton dress with an amazing full skirt and a border print of painterly copper roses over subtle green stripes that get bolder towards the bottom. This was a gift from my manager at the opshop I volunteer at, who saw it in the donations pile and immediately knew I would love it. She presented it to me when I dropped in to tell her I found employment (so, months ago) and I got all red and flustered with excitement. It fits me amazingly well and gets a ton of compliments. So thank you, whoever donated it!

I just thought my dresses looked cool together the other day.


Some 1950s kitchen scales I got for $4, as well as a floral melamine plate and an enamel bowl. I love kitchenware made of non-pottery things, as I am horribly clumsy and accident-prone and it is good to know they won't smash if I drop them. 

 Today I worked then uni-ed then went on a little picnic on the sunny bank at the end of our road. We ruined some perfectly good vege sticks by slathering them in onion dip, a Kiwi culinary delight made of a can of reduced cream, a sachet of dehydrated onion soup mix and a ton of vinegar. It probably sounds gross to anyone who didn't grow up eating it, but it is a truly divine food and I would eat it every day were it not just cream with flavour added. 

I have no idea why the colouring in these two photos is so drastically different? It's weirding me out. I've been experimenting with wearing only one colour lately. It is really easy because you don't have to worry about anything going with anything else - red goes with red. Done. Bam.

 

 I'm wearing this great 1950s red day dress, opshopped red roman sandals and red glittery heart-shaped glasses from a costume shop on eBay. These leave glitter peppered all over my face, and then in my bed, then all over everything I own. 

Also, you know how I mentioned living in the bush? 

 

Our home is somewhere in there. Also, if you haven't already entered the Wildfell Hall giveaway you have until tomorrow, so get onto it.

It begins.

Today I got lunch with my brother, then ran into everybody I know in this city at various points on Cuba St, then decided I had two options: walk home in the light rain and treat myself by ducking into the opshop on the way home, or treat myself by taking the bus and no opshopping. So... yeah.


The little blue gingham shift is a school uniform, made in the 70s judging by the label. The white one though... SO happy about this dress. I saw it in the window of the Vinnies a week ago when it was closed. I planned to go back and try it on but when I next walked past it was gone from the window, so I assumed it was sold and was so disappointed. When I wandered in today it was there in the kids' section waiting for me (along with the blue dress). At first I thought it might be modern, but it has these amazing diamante buttons, a metal zipper and lots of lovely hand-stitching so it's definitely fifties. It didn't have a price tag on and I was worried it would be lots of money, but the shop assistant was SO nice and gave it to me for $5 when she saw how excited I was about it. She also gave me a volunteer application form and a trial in the shop next Wednesday- I've applied for maybe 50 jobs in the last fortnight and been unsuccessful thus far, so I may as well spend my time doing something worthwhile rather than sleeping in until 1pm and marathoning The Simpsons every day.


Here is a bad photobooth photo of me trying it on and feeling like a whimsy magic fairy princess etc. I am probably going to wear this with bows and flowers in my hair and the most saccharine things I can conjure from my wardrobe. Also I am kinda jealous of bloggers who have nice plain backgrounds to take photos against indoors, but I would be jealous of myself if I saw a photo of the space curtains on another blog.


I love kitchenware. I got an old aluminium colander (we use them as fruit bowls) and some Agee preserving jars for the 7kg of tamarillos Jack's mum sent us. The 90s sunflower-print tray was a present from my little brother, who got it from a free box at his architecture faculty. I also got red Roman sandals and a polka-dot cap, not pictured.

I wrote this post last week but without a card reader I couldn't upload photos. Today I had my first ever shift at the opshop! Here's what I brought home with me, for $2 total cost...


This gorgeous print, titled 'Vermont State Flower' (which Google tells me is Red Clover) from 1970. The artist's name looks like Harry Evans to me, maybe. It's a bit rumpled so I got it for free, and I'm gonna put it up on my wall with drawing pins- poor man's framing.


Lovely editions of some of my favourite childhood books, and a biography of Alexander Pope.


These are my favourites, they're 1948 editions and were given to someone named Rachel from her aunt Dorothy for her birthday. I wish there was the whole series. I'm working again tomorrow though, so who knows what I'll come home with. When I told Jack I'd got the job (well, not-really-job) he said 'so, the hoarding begins'.

Bonus non-thrifting photos...



We went up to the big mountain in the middle of Wellington, Mt. Victoria, and met a fat cat. The end.

Sydneyside

So as you may have gathered from my somewhat-delirious last post, I went to Sydney and it was awesome. My little brother lives there studying Architecture, so we spent two hilarious nights cramped in his cube of a dorm room. AND IT WAS GREAT. 

We had to take the train out to the Anglicare Depot in Summer Hill (105 Carlton Crescent) to score some bargains. Oh, and to hang out with Caitlin Shearer! I was so excited about being on a train I got Will to take a photo for me. But then I remembered I had my 50mm lens on, so this is just a photo of my face. Blogger problems eh. 

This was the second time I'd been to Anglicare, and it did not disappoint any of us. After an hour of picking through these huge bins of clothes, shoes and junk we were all pretty exhausted, and dragged our sacks of stuff into the curated opshop part to have them weighed and priced.

I'd already found a red cotton pinafore. a vintage Australian tourist teatowel (that Caitlin actually found and let me have), a polka-dot tablecloth that will soon become a skirt and a pink cotton gathered skirt, and I thought that was a good haul. However, last time I was in Sydney I found an amazing coat in the kids section of the opshop part, so decided to have another look there. And damn, did I make bank. I found this A M A Z I N G white chiffon 1950s cocktail dress with an embroidered floral overlay. God, it is SO PRETTY. And it was $25. Which is certainly more than I'd usually pay for a thrifted dress, but a lot less than I'd usually pay for a divine fifties frock! It has a couple of small brown marks on the front, but I'm hoping a soak will get these out. It also has an excellent made-in-Melbourne label, and 3 huge layers in the skirt. So I consider it a very, very fruitful trip.

After all this picking we were pretty tired, so headed into Newtown to get some falafel for lunch, browse some more vintage shops (mostly overpriced), and then Caitlin introduced us to the best gelato we've ever had. Proof we actually met/me looking extraordinarily haggard after a loooong day/peanut butter and caramelised fig gelato.

I love this city so much. 

The next day Will and I spent at the Glebe Markets which was fruitless but fun, we had cuddles with this AWESOME cat, and Will showed me the lovely campus where he studies. Then explored the other end of Newtown and had dinner at one of its (literally) 25 Thai restaurants. We were awfully surprised when Caitlin walked into the same restaurant, especially after our discussion the previous day about the ridiculous number of dining options in the suburb. Even more coincidental was when I ran into/was chased down by some German couchsurfers I went to see Beirut with at the beginning of this year in Wellington. Small world.

Now we're in Vietnam, woo.