Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey is over on BBC and my Sunday nights just aren't the same! I'm slowly working through the contents of my DVR as the TV has really gone downhill lately. But, through my designs, Downton Abbey continues.  Maggie Smith as Violet is just fantastic - sarcastic, snobbish, crusty but surprisingly good hearted underneath that crusty exterior. The clothes in the series are really lovely and evoke the period really well.

Feather trimed hats were high fashion then and taking that inspiration, I have created a beret with a pheasant feather trim. Upper class ladies trimmed their millinery with feathers from their own estates and while my estate in Limerick does not support it's own game, I have tried to echo this tradition in my own designs

Another tradition was to embellish with jewels. Following the tradition of Queen Mary to adorn every possible surface of one's self with jewels, fashionable Edwardians extended this display to their millinery. The hats below nod to this tradition...

This hat is embellished with a 1950's ice blue and silver diamante brooch which can be removed to use on your coat, scarf, pin to your hair....
All of these are available on my Etsy account

A 2 hour Downton Abbey Christmas special will be shown on Christmas Day at 9pm! Can't wait!

Winter hats

Now that the winter has well and truly arrived in Ireland anyway, thoughts turn to cozy hats and winter wollies! I recently opened an Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/SarahMaiDesigns and thought that my days would be spent in Victorian industrial servitude, bent over a work station, ruining my eyesight coping with all my orders. My Phillip Treacy dreams are ebbing away I can tell you! There is so much out there, so many talented people beavering away on their own projects and producing really excellent crafts and designs that mine are getting a bit lost. So, I decided to start this blog. It won't just be about my designs, but about cookery, art, things to do, whats going on....I suppose a lifestyle blog is how you could categorize it. Random witterings of a slightly deranged Irish woman is another description...
So today it's just a general introduction to blogging for me and the best cookery book wrapping idea ever! Tomorrow I will be posting the BEST braised red cabbage recipe that can be frozen and reheats perfectly - something great to get in the freezer and out of the way for Christmas. This blog will be initially a countdown to Christmas, posting wrapping ideas, recipes and general Christmassy things in the run up to the 25th December. After that, only time will tell.

Today I saw this wrapping idea on http://pinterest.com/pin/147352219027657522/

I think it's fantastic - wrapping a cookery book in a fancy tea towel to give to a friend who is into cookery - how clever is that? I love when someone makes an effort with a present. You can get fabulous tea towels in TK Maxx now - a cut above the standard tea towel  in lovely stiff cotton with unusual designs and half the price of somewhere like Brown Thomas. I have some really pretty ones that I use to wrap my brown bread in when it comes steaming out of the oven! They never see a scrap of washing up.