Super Sunday

1. First things. I must tell you about the Otesha cycle tours coming up this summer, partly because I am under orders, but mostly because they are one of the funnest adventures you will ever have.

If you like cycling, being green (figuratively, not literally), and the chance to be free and silly then hop on your bike and join us! I cycled 700 miles around the hilly South West for 6 weeks in 2008 and have been on bits of many of our tours since. They are crazy crazy, but you make friends for life and you’ll never forget it.

2. Second things. SNOW. Obviously. Tottenham never looked so pretty.

3. I saw this poster on the wall behind the bar of The Lexington at a friend’s birthday last night, and I managed to persuade the barman to sell it to me for two pounds!! Is it not the best thing YOU HAVE EVER SEEN? Winona forever *crosses heart*.

4. Saw the film Bombay Beach at the ICA on Friday night, which was fantastic. It’s a documentary about one of the poorest communities in Southern California, with a soundtrack by Beirut and Bob Dylan. The result makes you feel like you woke up in some suburban American teenager’s dystopian dream.

5. Spent Wednesday evening driving round East London in a van with my old friend Jonny, moving sofas and eating vietnamese food while listening to 90s r&b. Was so fun, just like old times.

6. This is lahvely. Learning it on the ukelele. (I might have also taught myself how to drum with a margarine tub. OH YES.)

7. Badass! Can I be this when I grow up?

hanna ♥

p.s.

That is all.

DIY Scalloped hem skirt tutorial (for lazy people)

Well hi there. I have never done a tutorial-type thing before, but I was doing this anyway, so thought some photos and tips might be useful for any other gals (or guys) out there who are also partial to a scalloped hem (who isn’t?).

This is definitely for lazy people. If you want to actually HEM your hem, there are tons of instructions out there to help you do that. Also, if you want to know how to make your scallops even, or measure it out or what-have-you – I can’t help you. I didn’t get out a measuring tape. But if you’re a lazy seamtress and still on board, let’s go!

1. Get a skirt. Preferably an old one. I picked this up at the Rokit vintage store on Brick Lane for two pounds! TWO POUNDS!

2. Get something round. The size of it will determine how big your scallops are, so have a little ponder about that. Turn your skirt inside out, and draw around your round thing (I used the top of a tin) with a pencil. Or, if you’re being fancy (and correct), keep your skirt the right way round and use tailor’s chalk. See if I care…

You can make your circles overlap as much as you want, depending on how deep you want the gaps to be between your scallops. I didn’t measure anything, I just guessed, which to be honest was a risky game, because I had no idea if I was going to end up with half a scallop by the time I’d got round drawing the whole skirt. Luckily, I didn’t! So… yeah, you could measure, or you could live life on the edge like me and just hope for the best.

3. Okay! Now get your machine and set it to a tight zig zag stitch. My machine had length set to 0, and width to 5, because we want the stitches really close. I also made my top thread and bobbin thread the same colour to keep it neat, and also because I was stitching on the wrong side of the skirt remember…

Matching the thread to the material will also do you many favours in masking any less-than-perfect stitching you do. Stitch along all your pencil / chalk lines, all the way round your skirt.

4. We’re almost done! Take some fabric scissors and snip all the way round your skirt, close to the stitching, but not so close you cut a thread. Because then the whole bloody thing will unravel.

5. Wear it! Feel smug that you made a pretty thing with minimal effort.

You can also feel happy.

Or pretend you’re Kim Kardashian.

I leave that up to you.

hanna ♥

Advanced Style

“Young women, you’re going to be an old woman some day. Don’t worry about it. Don’t sweat it. Don’t worry about getting older. Every era, it builds character.”

Incredible video. Love.

hanna ♥

Of Another Fashion

Of Another Fashion is an amazing blog I came across a few weeks ago that documents the “not-quite-hidden but too often ignored fashion histories of U.S. women of color”. You can see some beautiful, beautiful pictures on the site, as well as fascinating glimpses of social history. I could stare at it all day long. (I do).

hanna ♥

4 Simple Goals – mega updates no. 3 & 4

Oh-kaay. Here are my last updates on the progress of my 4 Simple Goals! I have already updated on the lipstick-wearing and crafting, and my other two goals were to learn how to use my camera and to make a nice nest for myself in Brighton. So I thought I’d combine the two for this post and take some photos of my flat! I also used the photo editing tool for Mac here – ToyCamera AnalogColor. I hope you like the pics, I’ve tried to make it look homely and cute, and I’m pretty pleased with it!

This was the view from my bedroom window last week – amazing, huh?

hanna ♥

Downtown from behind

LOVE love love this NY photography project, Downtownfrombehind, which captures people riding their bike on every street, avenue and lane below 14th. From behind, like it says. The folks at DFB are into design, sustainability and nice bums from the looks of things. WHAT’S NOT TO LIKE?

Super Sunday

1. Love these pictures from the Ballerina Project – sooo pretty. It just makes me wish ballet wasn’t confined to the theatres and could come out on to the streets like hip hop.

2. And speaking of dance, I started street dance lessons this week (and breakdancing next week! oh god..) which are hosted at Brighton Youth Centre. The centre is covered in amazing graffitti, like this one. I had an idea a while back to make bags and tshirts that said “How to be a domestic extremist” and I think this image would be perfect for such a venture! I shall have to try and get in touch with them.

3. Saw the Kids Are Alright on Tuesday – so good. Julianne Moore is such a dreamy actress and Mark Ruffalo is just dreamy.

4. Loved looking at the 100 best signs at the Rally to Restore Sanity And / Or Fear hosted by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show over in Washington.

5. Loving this girl’s style from The Sartorialist. It’s all about mahoosive eyebrows.

6. I’m reading The Autobiography of Malcolm X at the moment for book club – completely fascinating. I have to say I only had a vague awareness of who he was and had absolutely no idea he was assassinated by his fellow Black Muslims, so it’s a real history lesson.

7. Last weekend I went on stage with Josie Long and the Craftivist Collective to sew patches for the Bed In project (more to come on that). Because it was nearly Halloween, we wore “the scariest costumes ever” – masks of Mugabe, George Osborne and Rupert Murdoch. Mwahahaha.

hanna ♥

Pop pop portraits

I am coveting all these illustrations by pop pop portraits. Very cute and fashion-y, and I love it when people make up little stories to go with their art work.

Meet Lily. She is studying to become a chocolatier at Valrhona: École du Grand Chocolat in France. She misses her home dearly but she is also having the time of her life. Lily has met a lovely french boy, Alex. They eat cheese pastries and macarons together and invent new albeit somewhat weird chocolate flavours.

Naomi is on her way to see her boyfriend James. They've been together for around three months and she thinks he's pretty special. They've been on approximately 32 dates, each one fun and exciting - her favourite moment being the late night supper he made for her after they went to the She & Him gig last month. I think it's safe to say Naomi is completely smitten.

Isabel is on her way home from a trip to Barnes and Noble. She's been having one of those lazy days where you sleep in til 10, you don't have any appointments, chores or errands and you spend all your time looking through fashion magazines and eating cake. I love those days.

Stephanie's favourite season is Fall. She's already played dress-ups planned her outfit accordingly. She also imagines listening to the rustle of the leaves beneath her feet whilst she's walking through the park.

A-dorable.

hanna ♥

Style Crush

I realised that I say I blog about style, but haven’t actually done that so much so far. So feast your eyes my friends on the beeyootiful Michelle Williams in various outfits at different premieres of Blue Valentine (you can watch the trailer if you scoot down to the Super Sunday post below). Cute, classy, quirky. And a VAST improvement from her Dawson’s Creek days, let me tell you. Love.

Super Sunday

1. I am loving the sad keanu meme craze out there. It started with a paparazzi picture of Keanu sadly eating a sandwich on his own and suddenly he was being copy and pasted into the weirdest places. Cheer up Keanu, I’ll marry you. HAPPILY.

2. Brilliant. This is pinched from my friend Sara’s tumblr. (She was girl swoon number 1 too).

3. Amazing style blog about man repelling fashion – hilarious. More specifically, it’s about “outfitting oneself in a sartorially offensive way that will result in repelling members of the opposite sex. Such garments include but are not limited to harem pants, boyfriend jeans, overalls (see: human repelling), shoulder pads, full length jumpsuits, jewelry that resembles violent weaponry and clogs.” I own at least 4 things in that list. Oh dear.

4. I have been watching too.much.Mad.Men. I’m even dreaming about Don Draper (although that isn’t so bad). So I loved seeing this amazing picture of Marilyn Monroe and Frank Sinatra from the Kennedy campaign trail on the Guardian this week. I want to time travel to the early sixties. THAT’S ALL I ASK.

5. These are my grandpa’s feet. Isn’t he styling?

6. I’ve been tying myself in knots, getting to grips with my new course. So it was really nice and reassuring to see at the great blog our.city.lights that someone feels the same (and makes such a nice design out of it)!

7. Amaaaazing! Farmer rap. Yeo Valley, Yeo Valley, Yeo Yeo Yeo…

hanna ♥