Dress Of The Day with Angela

  H &M label. I bought this large man's shirt from St Luke's shop in Hatch End. Why? The shirt  was large. Why did I buy it?  Because I loved the colour. It was new to me, a change  cheap at £1.  I had various thoughts of what to do with it. 1 I could turn it into a tunic or dress. Turn it indide out and make it tighter down both sides. Cut off excess fabric to make a belt. Turn it into s caftan by slitting the sides. Remove the sleeves. Make two vertical lines of stitching. Remove the collar to make a V neck. 2 Make a smaller blouse.  3 Give it to my husband or son.  4 Or use the fabric for a hair band, belt, and choker, or cravat.  5 Or a shoulder bag or tote bag.  6 Or a scarf,  7 Cover a baseball cap.  8 Make simple large square patch pockets on a multi colour thin jscket.  9 Remove the buttons and sew up the buttonholes, add shoulder pads, to make an edge to edge duster coat. I had it in an untidy pile of items to be a...

 I bought this top from St Luke's charity shop which raises money for hospices. I am a regular customer. The prices are great. There's always something new. The money goes to local people. I bought it because of the sequins. I thought it would be too small for me. It was. What could I do with it? 1 Add Fabric To The Sides Of A Small Garment Slit the vertical side seems. Insert a wide ribbon on both sides to increase the size so it would fit over my bust. 2 Convert A Small Garment Into A Large Bag My plan was to sew up the skirt part's hem. horizontally, to create the base of a large sequin evening bag.  The result would be a thin, flimsy bag. Not very strong.  But much better than the usual evening bag sizes designed to hold one lipstick alongside a pocket too small to hold anything. The top part of the micro skirt and apron top could hold down as a flap. However, I delayed doing the sewing.  Small Skirts Converted Into Collars The next time I looked at it, I thought...

  Photo by Angela Lansbury. Long blonde hair tied back. For neatness. Elegance. Safety. Use a bow at the top of a clip to pull together half the hair, the top half.  Then draw all the hair together in a ponytail. Add three scrunchies, evenly spaced. Matching Scrunchies To Hair Colour If blonde, white or pale hair, you could could use pale scrunchies to co-ordinate for a neat look.  Darker scrunchies on pale hair create a contrast. Use dark scrunchies to co-ordinate inconspicuously with dark hair.  Contrasting Colours However, I once saw a bride with black hair wearing a white dress. Her hair had a neatly spaced scattering of white pearls and small white ribbon bows and dangles and white ribbon roses. The contrast of the black hair and the white ornaments was wonderful. You can find scrunchies in supermarkets, hairdressers' racks, and accessory and souvenir shops. Also online.  Please follow my blogs on dress, travel, and comic poetry  and share links to you...

    TRU blouse. Size 36. Vintage.

  I was looking for a pink. I turned back the cuffs. A different look. Selfie photo by Angela Lansbury. Please follow me and share links to your favourite posts.

  Dress label Maje. Central London. Lipstick Mac Model Melpomeni. Melpomeni matched the red of the dress to the red of the lipstick. Melpomeni said, 'Mac lipsticks are not Max Factor. They were promoted by a model. They feel and look good. I liked them so much that I have bought them ever since.' For going home outdoors, she wore a black raincoat and a jaunty black beret. Useful Websites About Maje Clothes Maje Eu.maje.com Uk.maje.co. Max lipsticks Max Please follow me and share links to your favourite posts.

 Indigo Moon jacket in blue worn by Rochelle. She bought it on Ebay, where I buy mine.  She says she gets lots of compliments on this jacket. Useful Search words for Indigo Moon jackets Indigo Moon - brings up dozens of items. So I modify and limit the search by adding a price limit, location, buy now, or only bidding, or by jacket, or a colour, such as black, white, red, blue. Useful Websites For Indigo Moon Jackets ebay etsy Please share links to your favourite posts.

I've clothes in every shade and hue Red, orange, pink, purple, green, blue In every style and kind of dress From, Primark, Temu, M & S I love to count, and keep in order Yes, you've guessed it, I'm a hoarder. -ends- Permanent Packing List When I was a busy travel writer, taking at least one trip a month, often two or three times a month, I would keep a suitcase permanently packed with clothes in black, white and red.  My all purpose wheelie bag contained all the things I had regretted not taking on previous trips. CLOTHES & COSMETICS 1 A swimsuit and swimhat. Later I bought a swimsuit with an attached hood. 2 I always had one tank top in case it turned sunny, or I had a stopover somewhere warm. 3 A brimmed hat or baseball cap. 4 A thermal vest, scarf and gloves for chilly nights, air conditioning, breezy boat trips, or trips to another continent with reverse seasons. 5 A couple of scarves, one with gold to convert a plain black or white tee-shirt into an evening out...

  St Patrick's Day Cardigan March 17th is St Patrick's Day, celebrated worldwide by people from the Republic of Ireland, Eire, and the North of Ireland, and by Irish people and their family, friends, colleagues and well-wishers. Restaurants, hotels and businesses and tourist boards enthusiastically join in, with decorations, dance displays, food and drink coloured green. Customers turn up at pubs in green clothes and accessories. Pubs worldwide sell hats, or give them away free to the high spenders or all customers.  Clearance And Date of St Patrick's Day In 2026 and for another few years St Patrick's day fall on a weekday so people celebrate with public parades on the weekend before and/or the weekend afterwards. On March 17th 2026 I can see clearance offers on Amazon of dresses and cardigans. Cardigan Cardigan in the UK used to mean knitted top garments with long sleeves. A cardigan would button up over a short sleeved undergarment. However, the word cardigan now seem...

  Angela Lansbury in green outfit. Photo by Trevor Sharot. Mother's Day Card from Marks & Spencet. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Green Blouse Label TRU.  Fancy Buttons 3 buttons, one at the neck, one on each cuff. Multi facet glass(?) centre on small silver-colour flat backing plate. Green long jacket From Temu. From a two piece. Dress and jacket set. Scarf The pink and green scarf Is from the £1 scarf basket in St Luke's shop in Hatch Rnd north-west London. Please share the link to this post.

  Jacket Indigo Moon. Velvet. Red. From Ebay. Size small. Made in India.Vintage. Previously in post 708 for Valentine's day, that time with a white blouse. The Red Skirt The red sequined skirt was from Peacock. Many suppliers have sequin skirts, at different lengths, colours, and prices. I saw it in the Peacock shop in Elstree in the sale and later bought it online on discount at a higher price. Knitted Top Anthony Sicari. Black with a pattern of red roses in a semi circle. Vest Green. Patra UK. Boots Badge It's my birthday. 

Angela Lansbury wearing turquoise and red and orange dress and matching turquoise jacket from Temu, bought March 2026. Photo by Trevor Sharot. Why Buy A Matching Dress and Jacket Or Coat? I wanted another dress like the matching dress and jacket which I wore on holiday last year, 2025. I had ended up wearing it three nights in a row. It was so easy to just have a matching set, it looked neat and elegant. Dress from Shein / on Ebay. Worn in summer 2025. V neck dress. I needed another. I made a mistake I was looking for a lime, emerald or pistacchio green dress and jacket outfit on Temu.   The Advantage Of These Colours  Blue matches and compliments as well as compliments my eye colour, which is a murky blue. My eyes slightly reflect a bright blue, so they look bluer, better. Red clothes and accessories make me happy. They are cheerful. They co-ordinate with my lipstick and shoes and rouge.  The Spelling of Pistacchio? The Italian spelling is pistacchio. The English sp...

The readership of my blog varies, from zero for a post in the first five seconds after I have written it, to more than 500 by the end of the day. My travel blog got more yesterday, 8,725 in one day for a post on the Canary islands. I can click on the statistics to see which days I got more readers and for what subjects.  But my question is, who is reading my blog? It is in English, although anybody can use Google translate. But why would they?  When I first started writing, I expected to get only readers in London, England, who shopped in my local shops, and travelled to similar places. Then I found that |American readers outnumbered the British readers. I was surprised. My husband, who is a statistician, said the obvious answer was that there are more English speaking readers in the USA.  Today, in March 2026, I tried asking AI why I got more readers for my blog on clothes which mentioned clothes from Temu. My son, who works in Google analytics, SEO - search engine optim...

  Temu Ladies Clothes Sets I spent hours looking at different sets, styles, colours. For my summer holiday, holidays, this year, next year, forever. What I was originally looking for was this, a long dress with a long matching coat, to make me look co-ordinated, elegant. And taller. Jacket Length Thickness and Weight I knew from previous experience that short jackets would be matching fabric to the dress. The long jackets, however were not even as thick as duster coats, but an ultra-thin, almost see-through fabric. Never mind. The sleeves are too long. That leaves me with several options. The simplest and quickest is to turn them back into a cuff. I like the jacket left open. It shows the lively pattern of the dress. The Dress Style - Spaghetti Straps I had not wanted spaghetti straps. You need something to hold bra straps out of the way, or a co-ordinating vest. The straps slip off. You expose too much around the arm pits for elegance, showing bits of bras, or breasts. No protecti...

  From Temu.  Red and White Dress, Two Piece Set Size large. Polyester 95%. Elastane 5%. Made in China. Do not dry clean. Perfect.  Arrived fast, in time for my birthday.  Red Sandals Now I need red summer sandals to wear with it. I have some. Brand Free-step. The Red Jacket The jacket has no fastening, no buttons, what is called edge to edge. If you stand badly or have a broken collar bone or other bone, the jacket hangs lopsidedly.  I did it up at the neck. I looked for a brooch. I had second thoughts. I did not want to risk making a hole in the jacket fabric, especially in an obvious place like top centre under the neck. I saw an elastic hairband. I pulled the two top corners of the jacket through the band - not tight enough. So I  twisted the elastic band into a figure of eight, folded it into a double circle, and pulled the corners through a second time. That worked. The Full Length Sleeves The red sleeves reach my wrists. That is good. If I wanted, I ...

 I was looking for a birthday present. I had asked my son to buy me an an Indigo Moon jacket. But I really wanted a set of coat and top, a skirt suit.  When I want an outfit of three pieces, top, skirt and scarf, I look for Anthony Sicari.   Anthony Sicari outfit worn by Angela Lansbury. For a lacey for fitting but stretchy dress, I look for Ann Balon. Ann Balon is still in business. Ann Balon outfit in dark green, featuring her lacey look fabric. Worn by Angela Lansbury. Photo by Trevor Sharot.  The other two are vintage. When I did the Indigo Moon online search using several words, such as the colours red and orange, or blue and green, I got fewer results.  Website Lists of Favourite Designers The website added on the end of the page outfits in those colours, two piece skirt suits, by other manufacturers or designers with their labels. You can list on Ebay your favourite designers. But you get inundated with notifications. Lists In Notebooks Just as I had...

  Angela Lansbury wearing a blue Indigo Moon jacket. Photo by Trevor Sharot. The Jacket Infigo Moon is my current favourite label. Along with Anthony Sicari snd Ann Balon. Infigo Moon and Anthony Sicsri are both vintage. Indigo Moon advantages Strong vibrant colours. Indigo Moon disadvantages No pockets. Please follow me, bookmark, and share links with your family and friends.

I read a post on Facebook about somebody recalling as a child playing with buttons in their mother's button box. The button box was a biscuit tin, recycled. What a great idea. A large circular tin, for biscuits, or a higher one for cakes. My buttons are scattered in several boxes, not as large as a cake tin.  I have buttons in small glass recycled jam jars. That way you can see the colours. They are scattered along book shelves.  Wouldn't it be easier to have all the buttons in one large tin. My biggest tin is from a Xmas cake, a Panettone. Why keep a button box? To replace lost buttons, on shirts, coats. To replace missing buttons on items bought cheaply from charity shops. To add decoratively. To cover stains. To make button toys, like little human figures. To make eyes on puppets.  To add extra security on wrap skirts. To secure crossover wrap tops gapping, showing cleavage, threatening to pull undone. To sew behind bigger buttons to keep them secure. (On the other sid...

 Making Gloves They look difficult. Curves, not straight lines. For an amateur sewer, a shirt dress, pencil skirt, tank top or scarf or tote bag with straight lines and seems is a first project. Curved hats, gloves, slippers, bags with clasps, anything with a lining, seems more challenging. Until you find that both Youtube and Wikihow have videos.  For gloves, basically, you draw around your own hand, or hands, if your hands are slightly different sizes or shapes. You need four pieces, for the back and front of the left and right hands. Remember to allow extra fabric for the seam. You sew all the way round for the seam to stap the fabric fraying. But when putting the two pieces together for a glove, don't sew all the way round - you need to leave the wrist open to get your hand into the glove. Useful Websites On Making Gloves Wikihow on making gloves and making mittens, tee-shirts and puppets. Wedding gloves. Warm gloves. Matching gloves.  What to do with small scraps of ...

Close up view of the curved collar and cuffs of the Alternatives blouse from the previous post. Pleats Another feature of the Alternatives blouse, harder to copy, is the small pleats.  Pleat Names I looked up pleats. I wanted to know the names. I had heard of box pleats. And kick pleats at the back hem of skirts. I think these tiny pleats are called knife pleats. Wikihow shows how you sew various pleats. Alternatives label mystery The word Alternatives brings up many websites about alternative clothes, in the singular, and the word label brings up label makers. So I cannot find the manufacturer. I recently discovered that a number like an ISBN for books identifies the manufacturer RN Registered Identification Number (and the specific design),  something required by law in the USA, but you need the washing instruction label which is sometimes cut off of lost. Useful Websites Wikihow on pleats USA clothing numbers https://www.masonfirmllc.com/us-clothing-labeling-laws-garment-re...

  Angela Lansbury wearing hearts. Photo by Trevor Sharot. Cropped using lassoo by Angela. The Heart Bag Www.breakthrough on the front with rows of red hearts. The back says your M&S. I was given it by a friend whose wife insisted that he declutter their garage. Red Hand Warmer Scarf with Hood I wore this in my post 720, with the ends of the scarf pinned up with safety pins to make hand warmers. I finally got around to sewing it together and removing the safety pins. Neat and snug. I made the hood first, by sewing  up the two seams of the scarf from the centre. I made the scarf by cutting the hem off an over-long dressing gown bought from Marks & Spencer. The fabric is soft and warm and does not pill. And a great colour. The deep pile hides my uneven amateur stitching.  The Black Skirt & Brooch The vintage black skirt was from Comfy clothes. I recently updated it by adding safety pin style gold colour brooch with black beads on the pocket. The Black and Blue Se...

  What is a Jumpsuit? Originally jumpsuits were outfits worn by parachutists to jump out of planes. The one-piece garments were also called parachute suits and flight suits.  Another wartime outfit, WW2 the siren suit, was for quickly donned garments to go on top of other garments to air raid shelters. Made popular as seen in photos by Winston Churchill. These one piece outfits were loose and had large, practical pockets. Practical suits worn at work were boiler suits.  In fashion the terms used included unitards. Leotards. Body suit. I have also seen them called playsuits, onesies. Onesies were a brand name of the Gerber company. Later the term was adopted by the public, without the final s, as a generic name. Baby Versions One piece garment for babies were legless and armless and had press studs (Americans say snaps) for quickly changing the baby's nappy (Americans say diaper for nappy).  For babies, and toddlers, there are other names, such as rompers (usually wit...

  Photo by Trevor Sharot. Primark Top Size medium. Made in China. Drawstring hood. Colour changes from pink at the hood, shoulders, chest and upper sleeve, to cream at the wrists and waist. Knitted cuffs and waistband. I bought it in St Luke's in Hatch End, NW London. Their shops supporting their local hospice are in Pinner, Harrow St Anns Shopping Mall, Hatch End, Another group of hospice shops is in the Sheffield area of England, and they sell clothing and furniture. So, if you want to put together a colourful and co-ordinated outfit, find a bargain, affordable clothes, or to support charity, you have several choices. Going abroad? Primark stores are in Australia, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, Slovakia. Useful Websites For Primark & St Lukes St Luke's in London https://www.stlukes-hospice.org/shops/find-your-nearest-shop/ St Luke's in Sheffield https://www.stlukeshospice.org.uk/shops/find-our-shops Primark Clothes Stores Online ...

  Photo by Angela Lansbury This striking red outfit attracted my attention from a distance. The lady wears only two colours, red and black. Red Red dress from Primark is the anchor. She says, ' I love Primark. I buy a lot from there.' Red gloves, without fingertips, from Covent Garden.  Red beret. Red hoop ear-rings. Red lipstick. I checked on line for Covent Garden - which brings up shops in Covent Garden, Covent Garden clothes, which brings up clothes shops in Covent Garden, Covent Garden label, which brings up label making companies in Covent Garden, and in Ebay Covent Garden, with clothes selected as a category. On Ebay I found a few items of coats, and tee shirts and shirts, labelled London Covent Garden, one or two described as vintage, if used accurately meaning more than twenty years old. I then tried companies house to see if the company was still in business but could only find Covent Garden London for a real estate company. Black Strong colour contrast. Black jacket...

Where I buy bargains  I bought this in St Luke's charity shop which raises funds supporting hospices in London. It cost one pound from the rummage box of second hand scarves and hats and gloves.  These shops are all over north London.  Why Buy A Bargain Hat Or Scarf? I like a bargain. I like something new - new to me. If I am supporting a charity, too, that's good. I need to limit my spending on clothes. And the amount of space they take up in my home, so a small hat is good. A foldable knitted hat or woven scarf  can be squashed up beside the others. Child Size Hats I tried it on and fitted. You can imagine my eyes widening in surprise when I got home and read the label. It was for 3-6 years! It is stretchy. It could have said fits all sizes. But the label inside warns that it is unsuitable for children under the age of 3 because of small parts. Advantages Of Checking Children's Hats Now I know that I can look at children's hats and try them on to see if they fit me...