How Cadel's 2011 Tour de France win inspired Jayne's bridesmaid dresses

Jayne and I met to discuss the bridesmaid dresses for her upcoming wedding just a week after Cadel Evans' 2011 Tour de France win.

We met at Dench cafe in North Fitzroy and Jayne expressed how she loved the simplicity of the dresses the two women were wearing when they presented him with his award.

The dress Jayne was planning on wearing was a green vintage dress from the 1960s. I organised a yellow fabric sample and sent it off with the quote. Yellow dresses was decided on and the next step was to meet with Kate and Rachael, her sisters who were going to be her bridesmaids.

During our meeting, Jayne showed us the dress she intended on wearing which was a gorgeous emerald green, I sensed the girls were not too pleased with the colour yellow and we all agreed it would make the bridal party look a little 'green and gold' - the colours that represent Australia.

I whipped out my fabric sample book and looked for an alternate colour that would compliment both Kate and Rachael's skin and hair colour, but also keep the 60s aesthetic Jayne was after.

We settled on purple cotton sateen and decided to make the skirt part of the dress a-line and omit the slits that the original dresses had.

About the dresses, being a November wedding in Melbourne, it was near-impossible to predict what the weather was going to be like. One thing Jayne did not want for her bridal party was for Kate and Rachael to be too hot if it ended up being a 43C day.

I used 95% Cotton/5% Spandex in the colour 'Prince' and purple viscose lining. The bodice has bust and waist darts and waist darts in the CB. Invisible zip closure in the CB and a very slight a-line hem. The girls chose their own shoes and wore silver, which looked fabulous.

Wedding date: 5th November 2011

Photo credit: Mark Burban (http://www.flickr.com/people/giveaphuk/)

Advertisement featuring Cadel Evans: RIDE Cycling Review - Issue 53 - Volume 3 - 2011

Peekaboo Follies Burlesque

Feather Fans, sparkling crystals, ballet en pointe & a bellboy....

Vaudeville & classic burlesque has found a new home at the Memo in St.Kilda, the beautifully restored 1920's theatre hall in Acland St.

'Peekaboo Follies' brought to you by Beckiejo, showcases vintage entertainment at its best with Dolores Daiquiri leading a stellar line up of burlesque beauties.
Scarlett, Vivianne Van Dame & Miss Jane with performances that hark back to Paris & New York in the 1930's & 40's.

Lallah L'amore burlesque darling with cabaret vocals will leave you spellbound, as Daniel Oldaker one of Australia's premier vaudeville performers has you laughing at his slapstick antics & sharp bellboy skills! Whilst Rani Huszar brings the sideshow of old to the stage with her eye popping, body twisting contortion routine that leaves audiences a gasp with wonder & puzzlement.

Wednesday 8th Feb at 7pm during the St.Kilda festival will see old revue entertainment centre stage as Peekaboo Follies makes it's debut.

Peekaboo Follies Feb 8th 7pm
Tickets at the door $25
or $20 online: here

Calling all Curvy ladies from Canberra!

This week, I shipped a whole bunch of stock to Darling Central in sizes ranging from 14 up to 20.

In stock from tomorrow are my 'Sara' shirts in Pink Rose, 'Smitten' skirts in Black, 'Rocker Girl Jane' dresses in Red with white pindot and Black 'New York Groove' dresses, a style that's perfect for busty ladies.

If you have'nt been to Darling Central, the address is:

Shop 9, Number 7 O'Hanlon Place
Gold Creek, Nicholls
(just off the Barton Highway)
Open Saturday, Sunday & Public Holidays
10am - 4pm

They have special Christmas/Holiday hours:

Thursday 8 December (late night shopping!) 5 pm to 8 pm
Friday 9 December 10 am to 4 pm
Saturday 9 and Sunday 10 December 10 am to 4 pm

Friday 16 December 10 am to 4 pm
Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 December 10 am to 4 pm

Thursday 22 December 10 am to 4 pm
Friday 23 December 10 am to 4 pm
Saturday 24 December (Christmas Eve) 10 am to 4 pm

Thursday 29 December 10 am to 4 pm
Friday 30 December 10 am to 4 pm
Saturday 31 December (New Year’s Eve) 10 am to 4 pm

So, if you live in Canberra, please pop in and say hello and tell Darla and Bloss "Peta Pledger sent you!".

Meet vintage loving blogger, Andi B. Goode!

What-ho! My name is Andi B. Goode and I'm a vintagey blogger in her mid-20s who hails from Adelaide, South Australia. My name is actually Andrea but one day, about five years ago, I took it upon myself to start going by the name ‘Andi B. Goode’, for all things internet. I wasn’t terribly original as I just slightly modified the title of a wonderful song (by one of the best rock ‘n’ roll artists, ever).


I've been blogging since July 2009 and making a conscious effort to dress in vintage (and vintage styled/inspired) fashions since sometime around my 21st birthday. I love the fashion, music, movies and general aesthetics of the 1930s-1960s and it's from this period I draw the most inspiration in my own style, though I'm happy enough to be living in 2011!




My blog encapsulates my love of these eras and, whilst I tend to mainly focus on my outfits there, it's possibly best described as a 'my vintage life' kind of blog.

Some of my favourite non-blogging pastimes include playing the ukulele, watching movies from any era, knitting (from my ever-growing collection of vintage patterns) and collecting (Barbies, vintage knitting patterns, vintage cameras, ceramic cat figurines, etc).
Outside of my blogging life, I've completed a degree in visual arts and have just finished some further study in art history.

From there you should be able to find me at many other places around the internet, too!







<- Wearing Peta Pledger 'Angelique' dress.















You can find my blog here: http://www.andibgoode.com/

Perri and Ed's Wedding

Like most of the brides that come to me for a wedding dress, Perri wanted a dress that she could wear after her wedding day.

Being in Melbourne, it was really hard for us to predict the weather. Early December should be summer afterall, which means sunny, right? Well, that is not the case with Melbourne, it could be cold and raining, sunny, it could hail, it could be windy or it could be extremely hot (or all of the things I just mentioned in one day).

Perri knew she wanted red and something that would keep her cool if it was a 45C day. Cotton sateen was the fabric we chose and after 2 initial designs, we decided on an 'Anni' dress style, but using a full circle for the skirt. I initially was going to fully line the dress, but as the weather was looking like it would behave, I decided to half line the dress using red viscose lining, as cotton sateen with lining can be a little heavy on a super-hot summer day.

The outfit was completed with a 1950s style Malco Modes petticoat and a beautiful crocheted shrug, handmade by her friend.

Perri also wanted her bridesmaids to wear dresses that could be worn again, they chose my 'Rocker Girl Jane' style dress "off the rack" from my online store and we used red with white cotton pindot fabric, instead of polka dot fabric. I made white belts to compliment their white petticoats, and as the bridesmaids live in different places around the world, each one was altered by their own dressmaker.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Perri and Ed for making me a part of their wedding day. It has been alot of fun.

Make Your Stuff Earn It's Keep by Lissanne Oliver

This is Lissanne's final blog hijack installment. Thank you so much for taking the time to offer us your useful tips to keep our studios and workrooms organised and clutter-free. - Peta


Did you know we use 20% of our stuff 80% of the time?

Think about the books, patterns, templates, tools and equipment you favour for your craft. Did you know that you use these supplies 80% of the time but they account for only 20% of what you own? It’s called the Pareto Rule, or 80/20 Rule.

Here’s some fresh ways you can use the 80/20 rule in your world:

*Ensure items are versatile. For example, a washing basket is almost only ever going to be a washing basket. Whereas a tub can also be a vessel that will hold water too. Suddenly, this item easily qualifies for your valuable 20%.


*Avoid multiples. Do you really need that cache of buttons, trims, stationery or stash of “collected” magazines? Be ruthless. I know you own multiples of things that you will never use again. Do you have multiples of items because the original was broken or lost? Time to pare down.

*Feeling cramped? Storage at capacity or overflowing? Try having your storage only 80% full. Having room to move is very liberating. If it’s tricky deciding what to let go of, remind yourself about what are you making space for- for example, all the homeless items you can’t put away!

*Choose just one day a week as your maintenance day. Only spend 20% of that day on your craft, and the remaining 80% dealing with paperwork, doing accounts, decluttering. I love Mondays for maintenance - it's an easy start to the week and allows for planning the coming days.

*There will be 2 things on your to do list that are more important than the other 8 (eg getting your tax done, so you can claim a lovely refund! Or making the call to the photographer who will shoot your next work, ready for sale). Identify the two and get cracking. The two that are most important are often the most overdue or the tasks we perceive to be unpleasant. Remember I said perceive!

*Are you not using a tool or piece of equipment to it’s full potential? I’ve been guilty of this. Make the time to read the manual so you can achieve a better end result. Do you only know how to use 20% of the features on your camera – what a shame!

Taking the time to make good decisions about the things you own is an investment. Through the process, you will find lost items, reconnect with valuable items and feel liberated physically and emotionally. Get to it!

Image sources: Vilfredo Pareto, Blue tub, Pink basket

Evernote Your Stuff by Lissanne Oliver

As a creative peep myself, I know it can be tricky to manage all the ideas, inspirations and references that are used to create. Collecting, storing and retrieving can be a challenge.

If you're anything like me you’ve used a random collection of sticky notes, scraps of paper, notebooks, browser bookmarks and bits and bobs torn from magazines and newspapers.

The old way of doing things:



Thanks to a tip from Joshua Zerkel of Custom Living Solutions I discovered a new way of doing things. It's called Evernote.

What makes evernote special? As they say, “Capture, organise, find.” Evernote is many things: a dumping ground, a search tool, an organising tool. It’s searchable, you can use tags, you can store snippets of text, URLs, photos, voice notes, sketches, literally anything you can think of. It will also recognize your handwriting so can search your (scanned or photographed) handwritten notes; amazing! I think it’s a great place for all those bits of info I *might* need or want to lay my hands on without thinking too hard about it.
It’s an app, a web based application, downloadable software from your computer. It automatically syncs across all mediums. Best of all, it’s free.


Here’s some ways I use evernote:

* I scribe creative ideas- say, an idea for a newsletter theme or blog post for time management and call the note “Next Newsletter”. I could also tag the note if I wanted say “time management" or "productivity" so I can easily retrieve multiple notes easily.

* I collect notes into notebooks - house renovations, Professional Organiser Training and recipes are just three of my notebooks, but you can have dozens of notebooks (or folders, if you like).

* I created a screen grab of my company web colours so I could be consistent with design across mediums. It’s safe in Evernote. And if it wasn’t in Evernote, where would I put it for goodness sakes?

* I dump images of decorating or design for inspiration.


Photo source: http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/942134/

* Notes scribbled from a phone call are photographed on my webcam and uploaded so I can chuck the scrappy note and have a clutter free space. love it!

* I take a photo on my iphone of supplier opening hours can simply name the ‘note’ with the name of the store.

* I archive PDFs of my existing newsletters so I can know when I last mentioned a particular concept or tip.

Blowing your mind yet? Evernote really is “remember everything”. I don;t want to mess with your head, but the above are just the starting point... in the future, everyone will use Evernote. I swear I'm getting and Evernote tattoo.

There are so many ways you can use Evernote. Do you use is? Have you used it for task or project management? I’d love to hear!