Dressing up for the Island Haven fundraiser

Better late than never! Here's this week's highlight, our Island Haven fundraiser, not the shopping spree catch up as promised. Anyway, on Wednesday Gallery Tresco hosted a fundraising exhibition which was also a raffle - every single painting we had on display was donated by professional and amateur artists in aid of the charity, and every single raffle ticket won a painting. 

 

The concept of a Patchwork of Paintings was the brainchild of local mum Duffy Bloomfield-Crowe who was also very hands-on in hanging the art and running the event on the night. We had a hectic 24 hours putting everything in place but on the night it all went amazingly well and we sold 92 raffle tickets meaning 92 pieces of art found new homes resulting in over £7000 being raised for the Island Haven charity. Read more about what the Island Haven means to the residents of the Isles of Scilly here. 

Here's the dream team from the night - to my right is Rachel my Gallery Assistant and on the wall from left to right are Duffy, Hannah and Jasmine. Along with Agnes from Marketing and Lorraine who was helping behind the scenes we had a great show of girl power as these bright and capable women hosted the event without a hiccup. Jointly we were like a well-oiled machine and I felt very proud of our achievement by the end of the night.

Dean Whillis, the Timeshare Manager, was on the team as our honourary girl acting as Master of Ceremonies as he played the vital role of guarding and pulling the winning tickets.

Duffy and Agnes selling the final 40 tickets outside of the Gallery at 6pm on Wednesday - how lovely to have perfect weather for our waiting queue!

Rachel getting ready to pack up paintings as they're allocated and alongside is Fiona next to her very generous donation of this huge diptych of the eastern side of Tresco.

And finally, the outfit. The top was a charity shop find for £3 last year some time; the skirt I found on Vinted in the spring and just knew I would find a reason to wear it. The brand is Coast and it was brand new, still with the labels on and is lightly strewn with silver threads. It has a single layer of net but I decided to add another net underskirt which I'd found again on Vinted. I had to chop 6 inches off it as it was a bridal underskirt, but that worked fine. 

The shoes are brand new, again from Vinted, from Karen Millen. I love the diamante buckle! I was unsure as to what to wear on my feet until lunchtime that day when I scoured the top of my wardrobe where I have boxes and boxes of shoes - these were a wonderful find as I'd bought them about a year ago and yet again knew they'd be useful as some stage and then packed them away and forgot about them.

I decided not to add a necklace as I felt it would have cluttered the the look, but did add some rings as a finish to the outfit. Neither of these are new.

Please do take a look at the link through to the Island Haven and make a donation if you can. The charity has raised enough funds to buy a house near Treliske Hospital in Truro. Treliske is the main hospital where islanders are referred to or in emergencies flown to for treatment. When Steve and I were in the early days of our marriage he taken ill with a mystery illness and was flown off to Treliske. His mother and I followed on later in the day. We had to find somewhere to stay late that evening which added to the stress of the situation. The Island Haven House will act as a safe place in these circumstances. The funds currently being raised are for interior renovations to refurb the five bedrooms so that they can offer sanctuary to islanders who need to undertake long term outpatient treatment or who, like us, arrive without time to organise accommodation. The Island Haven website can be seen here.

                                                                        Anna x

My new River Island summer duster coat

Hello! As promised, here's another of my sewing successes, this time a fabulous River Island lightweight summer coat that I bought on Vinted for £15. It arrived and despite saying a size 12 it was much too big generally and badly fitting most of all around the shoulders. I was so thrilled with the colour and fabric that I decided to set about fixing it. Well, I must admit that I had to enlist help of a local guy who, on retiring, took up sewing and now makes his own jeans and most of his clothes. Dave Inch has lived on Tresco since the 70's, working first of all in the New Inn and then moving on to become Propagator at the Abbey Garden, retiring some five years ago.

Over the course of four sessions, Dave and I worked away at solving the fitting issues of the coat. He pinned and advised and then left me to sew, regrouping the following Saturday morning when we'd review what I'd achieved and then puzzle over the next step. I took fabric out of the centre back seam to reduce the overall size of the coat, then we pinned the shoulders first to amend the outline and finally adjusted the sleeve seams where they joined the body. This took a month of gentle adjustments as each bit of sewing impacted on the overall shape. Without his guidance I couldn't have worked this out.

The final flourish was for me to create button holes where there weren't any before and then make fabric buttons to match. I'm delighted with the completed item. I'd just returned from the hairdressers when I took these photos (with Fiona's help) and was a bit like the cat who got the cream.

The rest of the outfit is a chiffon blouse (charity shopped), orange tights from Snag and the shorts are a recent purchase from Vinted.

 

Jewellery comprises of new rubber necklace (from Vinted) and rings, both pre-loved and sunglasses from Radley London.

The overall styling is one of exhuberance and excitement and on reflection, maybe not the best footwear as the coat would maybe benefit from higher heels to balance things out a bit better. The boots are from MOMA New York, created from recycled sari fabric and are an absolute joy to wear as they not only look fab but are super stylish and comfortable too. And hey, I'm delighted to have this coat as part of my summer wardrobe and you'll defintely see it again!

                                                                        Anna x