You’ve all probably immediately gone to thinking about tweed fabric, but I had one of those weird flashbacks to my mother wearing Tweed perfume when I was a child. I immediately had to google it and found that it was launched in 1925 and “Tweed is an enduring, distinctive, retro classic fragrance that has retained its popularity amongst women of all ages. Tweed is a fresh, green fragrance with floral notes.” (http://www.beautyheaven.com.au/brands/1446-Tweed). Yes, you can still buy it!

Not sure that I would want to wear it , but I liked the fact that it is a green fragrance, because I’ve made a tweed skirt and vest and the tweed has definitely got fresh, green notes in it!

I decided today to take my photographs at work in front of the lake that forms the view from my office window. Unfortunately, I picked the worst, stormiest day of the year to do this, but decided to risk the weather and get those photos, so here I am beside a sculpture, which is beside our lake at work.

This is very early morning – it was still dark when I got to work and I was lucky enough to get a photo of a light with multi-colour LEDs, which is only lit when it is dark – not sure of its function and it just looks like a pole in the daytime. This is the view from my window (the sculpture above is just to the left) and it is lovely in spring when all the ducks have their babies and we can watch them grow up.

[Later Edit: I thought I would show you the whole view – it is quite pretty in the rain, and the tiny house on the right hand edge of the photograph was Edith Cowan’s house – she raised 6 children (or some such number) in this house! For those of you who don’t know who she is: she is on the Australian $50 note and she was the first woman elected to Australia’s parliament.]

My tweed outfit today is identical to the houndstooth one I reported on last week – Vogue 1247 for the skirt and the self-drafted vest based on my friend’s mother’s vintage vest. So, it didn’t have too many challenges – except – I only bought .7 metre of the tweed, just enough length to make the vest. I bought the fabric in Tessuti’s Melbourne, and didn’t consider making anything to go with said vest until I got home and thought about it. Undaunted I began laying out pattern pieces and managed to get the skirt and the vest out of this tiny piece of fabric. I had to make the vest a tad skinnier and the skirt does not have a facing in the waistband, but it worked out pretty well.

At the front, bottom of the vest you can see a black band with a button on it – this is how I overcame the “apronlike” feel of the other vest which was secured at the back with a bow. Of course I am showing this deliberately in these photos (actually that’s not true, but it sounds feasible), for daily wear   once I spotted it,  I simply tucked the button and band inside the skirt and it disappeared. At the back it just looks like I have a belt on. [I just noticed that I can see my hemming – I know how to hem so that this doesn’t happen – so I will be sorting this out!]

I made the band out of a piece of cotton with a touch of spandex (left over from some trousers) and it works really well. The buttons are from the 1940s, Austrian and they are gorgeous, but *&^%$ to sew on straight. They don’t look too bad here but the minute I put the vest on and walk around they just go everywhere! Just for the record, I bought them at Buttonmania, Melbourne.

I lined the skirt and vest with some cotton/silk lining fabric bought from Global Fabrics in Dunedin. As I didn’t have enough fabric to put a facing in the hidden waistband, I just used some curved skirt petersham from my mother’s stash. This works so brilliantly. By the way, if you live in Perth and can’t find the petersham, Knitwit has it on a roll.

Then the rain came back, so I put a leather coat and a raincoat on; no getting wet for me!

Global Corporate Challenge

Average: 23,423. It is pretty tough maintaining the average in winter, but we walk come rain, hail or shine, so I thought I would show you how attractive I look when I get back from a walk in the rain! I am wearing my new tracksuit and it is amazing; the outside got drenched but I was completely dry inside. Not sure why Archie is in this photo but I couldn’t bring myself to cut him out!