pretty on the outside

happy new january everyone, i hope you are all having a lovely start to the new year! i personally am not doing so well because i'm a bit under the weather and i've pulled a muscle in my neck, so really i've just been lying around in a haze of pain attempting to get on with things.

anyway, enough about my ailings! i've been doing a bit of procrastinating on writing my essay for college (which if you follow me on twitter you may be all too away of, sorry!), so i've been doing quite a bit of knitting.

these are some mock-ups/test pieces for some collars i'm making in textiles. i'm also hoping i can start selling them in the shop soon!

at first i thought i preferred the more open knit pieces (on the right, done with bigger knitting needles), but now i think the knitting done with the smaller needles has a tighter, neater shape which looks a bit more like a classic peter pan collar shape.

the pastel coloured wool is my favourite. it doesn't really show here, but it's a lovely baby blue colour and has a silky slub running through it in pastel pinks, greens, yellows and white. i've had this wool for ages, in fact i think my mum bought it to make a cardigan for me when i was a baby! it's so pretty, but i only have two balls of it left so i'm going to have to go on a serious investigation mission to try and find some more if i want to sell some collars in the shop!

i'm also hoping to have a finished design ready to send off with some of my jewellery for a photo shoot with another blogger, which is a very exciting prospect that i can tell you all about a little later!

we have to take inspiration from nature for this project, and i'm looking at cobwebs for mine. hence the open knits! i'm using some lovely grey wool with white silky bits which i bought from hobbycraft, and of course the pastelly cuteness from above.

my main inspiration for this project is meadham kirchhoff's spring summer 2012 collection, which is basically the most beautiful, amazing thing i have ever seen in my entire life. i mean, it was all over the blogosphere when it first came out so i won't prattle on too much about it. basically, i love all the pastel colours and edgy feminity and i would wear pretty much every piece in the collection.

also, thought i'd post a picture of how i painted my nails the other day! my sister bought me a topshop nail varnish for christmas (called cyclone, i couldn't find it on the website!) so i thought i'd try it out. it's a really pretty grey shade with a hint of pink, and i also used a model's own nail varnish in pink fizz on my ring finger as a kind of accent. i'm a bit rubbish with doing nails, but i really like how this turned out!

i really want to grow out my nails and try a 1940s style manicure with bare moons, i think it looks so amazing! there's a tutorial in the vintage make-up book my mum bought me for christmas, if i do try it out i shall post some pictures!