Consider what comes to your mind when I say “Caribbean cruise.” If you’re anything like me, you probably have visions of open decks caressed by gentle, warm ocean breezes. Perhaps you can feel yourself sitting on a lounge chair gazing meditatively out at sea just as a sliver of a sand-ringed island comes into view. […]
Let’s get one thing straight up front: I wear pants almost every day of my life. I didn’t always. I, however, love the idea of wearing dresses. And I love to wear a dress to a cocktail party, a wedding (although I have been known to wear a beautiful ivory crepe pantsuit with a silk […]
Consider what comes to your mind when I say “Caribbean cruise.” If you’re anything like me, you probably have visions of open decks caressed by gentle, warm ocean breezes. Perhaps you can feel yourself sitting on a lounge chair gazing meditatively out at sea just as a sliver of a sand-ringed island comes into view. […]
I can hardly believe it’s August already. Where does the summer go? At least this year, now that the shops are starting their back-to-school campaigns, there really is going to be school here where I live in Toronto. The COVID thing isn’t gone yet, but we’re approaching something normal. Anyway, Mother Nature doesn’t stop for […]
A couple of years ago, I embarked on a journey to learn how to draft and create a bodice sloper―or block if you prefer―based on the flat pattern method. I wanted to have this template to use to design my own patterns. I learned a lot through the Craftsy course I took with Suzy Furer, […]
Prints have been on my mind lately. Suddenly it’s summer here, and everywhere I look, I see prints in the windows. Just two blocks from where I live, the Gucci shop has a window display full of them. Dior’s windows are the same. Here’s a new Gucci[1] print for the season. I can truly not […]
A few years ago I stumbled on a book that I found so useful (and entertainingly written) that I bought it in hardcover and have actually read at least three times (something I almost never do). It even survived the great purge of 2014 when we sold our large property and moved to a downtown […]
The lovely Victorian gardens in Halifax on our road trip My husband and I have just returned from an almost-two-week road trip. We started here in Toronto, headed down through northern New York state, through New Hampshire, into New Brunswick and then relaxed for five days in Halifax, Nova Scotia with friends and family. We […]
I’m not sure why, but I’m really inspired by the styles of the 1960’s. I’ve been collecting inspirational vintage patterns on a Pinterest board for some time, and when I look at them I’m struck by a few design elements that seem to emerge again and again. As I examine these shapes, I see that […]
What better day to talk about great fabrics for my tailoring project than the first day of autumn? Although, in years past, whenever I thought about tailored jackets I also thought about matching pants or skirts (can you say suit?), these days the thought of a tailored jacket is more likely to have me thinking […]
A few blocks from where we live in the city, there was, for many years, a tailor shop. Focused exclusively on menswear, they always displayed a garment-in-progress in the window. Often when we walked by, I marvelled at the “stuff” that seemed to be underneath the lapel (or revere as it is called in the […]
At this very moment, I should be writing about a project I’ve been looking forward to for some time. I should be sharing with you the colour palette and design inspiration for my Fall 2020 European Travel Capsule – a plan I have for a tightly edited group of travel-worthy clothing (including both ready-to-wear and […]
The day has finally arrived…I have finished my third Little French Jacket and I am now excited to find places to wear it! Oh how I loved the alpacas…and their wool! More about that in an upcoming post. We just returned from a wonderful four-week vacation that saw us taking a ship through the Panama […]
The day has finally arrived…I have finished my third Little French Jacket and I am now excited to find places to wear it! Oh how I loved the alpacas…and their wool! More about that in an upcoming post. We just returned from a wonderful four-week vacation that saw us taking a ship through the Panama […]
