Memories of Nice, South France

Today, I am taking you to my beloved city of Nice, where I lived for some time. It was here where, I discovered lots of beautiful hideaways ideal for relaxing, all around Nice, from Monaco to St Tropez. 

Nice will always be close to my heart, as will all the wonderful places I have fallen in love with.
Not only Nice is a fantastic, sunny destination but the views and the beauty of this whole region is like nowhere else. 

What I'm loving

Hi loves, how are you doing? I've been visiting some beautiful places with my family, doing a bit of shopping and gathering inspiration for future illustrations.

I have definitely been loving travelling along the coast to Javea (or Xabia). The views were spectacular and the weather beautiful! I'll blog about this trip later on, on my travel blog.

Shirring

Hi Girls, I hope you had a fabulous weekend. :) The weather has been amazing recently (on Sunday the thermometer was showing 30 degrees) so we decided to go to Javea, a little town not far from where we now live. We chose a charming, mountain road, with spectacular views over the Mediterranean Sea.

Soon, I will tell you more about this little town, but today I want to talk to you about - shirring! Is a very beautiful technique of gathering fabric with an elastic thread.

There can be any number of rows and shirring can be applied in various places on a garment eg around the waist, chest, arms, ankles and other. Shirring can be lovely decorated with embroidery and embellishments on top. This technique makes a garment very fitted and feminine, with shirred styles to be found in both women and girls fashions.

I wore this green dress with a beautiful shirred back last summer in Kraków..

Below, few more examples found around the web.

1 | 2 | 3

source: You Tube - Geneva Vanderzeil

For the creative ones, here is a great tutorial by Geneva Vanderzeil on how to do shirring yourself. Just look at that beautiful top. She has more fabulous diy's on her website, including this amazing pink shirred dress. I'm in love and definitely want to give this technique a try and make something beautiful. How about and you?

Have a fantastic new week Darlings!

love
Pati x

Happy Weekend in Altea

It's finally weekend girls, yay! Here is a little highlight from this week. We went to this Spanish little town called Altea in the Province of Alicante.

It is charming, beautiful and very atmospheric, with whitewashed houses and cobbled streets, right up on the hill. There is a beautiful view over the Mediterranean as you reach the top. You can then wander around the little streets and enjoy a meal at one of the quaint restaurants.

There is also a beach with long promenade, cycle path, restaurants and boutiques at the foot of the hill. It is said, that many artists were inspired by this place.

What I'm loving this week

I'm loving this trend in the blogosphere going around 'What I'm loving Wednesday' reading about everyones' loves. So what have I been loving this week?

Basket love

If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen I mentioned in my stories about my love for wicker baskets. Yes this is true. I so wish I could just carry one the whole year but somehow they just fit in with the spring/summer styles only.

There are so many to choose from: big, small, round, small handles, long handles.. they lift my mood instantly.

Throwback Thursday

Hope you are having a great day All. Weekend is almost here. :)

Today's throwback is back to my uni days at the Cambridge School of Art. I seriously had a blast there. I loved this school so much, the amazing tutor we had Dr Wendy Moody and all the assignments we had to do.

I am still not much of a sewer.., the course I studied was about fashion design not really perfecting sewing skills, although it gave me the confidence to tackle anything. It made us work very hard and opened our eyes to so many things in fashion, design and many other. It was also there, that I first learned how to use professional programs such as Photoshop or Illustrator and for this I am forever grateful as it allows me to take my illustrations that much further.

Hope you liked today's Throwback Thursday, till next time guys. :)

Pati x

First weeks in Spain

It has been a while since I last posted here, as things got pretty busy here. I was so lucky my mum came all the way over from Cambridge, to help me with children and the weather was beautiful. Sitting on the terrace was such a joy. 

It has gone a bit windy and cloudy the past few days but in Spain any weather is good, cloudy or not. Here you see me standing by the port in Denia, where many boats moor and there is a direct boat to Ibiza, Mallorca and Formentera. How fabulous is that?