Venice & The Rialto Market

While on my trip to Venice I could not miss a visit to the Rialto Market. Anyone who knows me will know just how much I adore fresh food markets because they just do not exist in England in quite the same way as they do in Italy, France, Germany etc....there is just something so wonderful about seeing fresh produce beautifully displayed and the only sad thing is that being on holiday I had no need to buy anything!! Anyway here are some photos I took at the Rialto...

Fabulous fresh vegetables

Beautiful colourful fruits!

Artichokes carefully prepared and kept in water.

Anyone for beans?

Cute round zucchinis!

Amazing fungi - very uniform!!

See what I mean about presentation?

 

Fabulous fish.

Pass me my sword......what a spectacle this sword fish was!





         Octopus, crab and whitebait(?)

I hope you enjoyed this little trip around the Rialto Market - ciao!!

Venice & The Venice Carnevale 2010

I returned from my little trip to the Venice Carnevale a few days ago.  As usual there were so many wonderful things to see and fabulous Carnevale characters to see that I ended up taking over 1200 photographs!  Good job my camera chip is BIG!  So what I can share here really is the tip of the ice berg.  A lot of Venice is covered up again and undergoing renovation work, which is a pity for sightseers, albeit very necessary.

The weather was lovely when I arrived in Venice but being the first Sunday of Carnevale the city was really crowded. 

Plisse & Pleats Day

We are having a Plisse and Pleats Day on TPF today so I am wearing my new plisse that I was lucky enough to find on my trip to Venice this week.  The design is called La Legende du Poisson Corail and is by the designer Christine Henry.  The pattern represents a coral atol and lots of fish hiding in the reef - the shimmering water is represented by flecks of colour and each corner features a flying fish to symbolise the relationship between heaven and the sea.  I was not very fond of the desing in the flat but when I asked if the Hermes boutique had any pink plisses this is what the SA showed me and I loved it!

I am wearing the scarf in a flower knot today (first picture) but I tried out some other looks which I show below:

Friendship Knot

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
You can wear the plisse as a lovely shawl if you are going out in the evening - I fixed this again with a scarf ring in a small flower knot.  This shows of the circular design of this plisse really well too - IMHO!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And another flower knot - just to show how the knot never looks exactly the same each time you do it!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hope you found some inspiration!!

Amsterdam

I went to Amsterdam to catch a final glimpse of the At The Russian Court Exhibition at the Hermitage

- it was crowded and too busy to really enjoy it properly, but at least I got to see the fabulous Court dresses again with their amazingly intricate embroidery in silver and gold thread. 
(Photo credit  www.thoughts.com and Reuters)

Beautiful evening gowns were displayed in circular cabinets 2 of which rotated every now and then when a clip from the ballroom scene in the film Russian Ark was shown on the walls.  Some of the dresses were by the Paris Fashion House Worth - I adore dresses by Charles Worth they really are something special and the dress below left with the dark green velvet bodice and cross over bow is Worth worn by the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna.

(Photo credit www.15minutesmagazine.com  /Roger Webster)

Amsterdam was a bit grey and it rained a lot!

I was glad of a cup of tea at a restaurant and they had the cutest mini tea library I ever saw from which to choose my tea! 

I love Amsterdam's flower sellers and I bought some lovely tulips and roses to bring home - the tulips are so bright and cheerful!

My new Plisse!!

I was up in London last weekend and was thrilled when the SA at Bond St opened a drawer of plisses only to see a taupe Passage au Moscou starring at me - a colourway I had passed on twice before, so this time I made sure it came home with ME!!!  I have played around with it and here are some ways to wear a plisse:-

Simply wrapped from front to back, crossed over brought back to the front and tied in a Half Ascot knot  http://mylittlescarfblog.blogspot.com/search/label/Half%20Ascot%20Knot%20Video








The Friendship Knot
http://mylittlescarfblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/friendship-knot.html

Then a "knot" which I tie in the middle of the scarf then fan out to create the rounded bit at the front, take ends around the back of the neck and bring forward and tie in a knot inside the rounded bit.  It has no name as far as I know!

Short Flower Knot - take scarf from front to back, cross over at back and bring ends back to the front and use a scarf ring to create the Flower Knot effect.

Flower Knot - do one single knot, then just take a scarf ring and pull the edges of the scarf mid way down through the ring and pull to achieve this great look!

Then I did a Flower Knot without a single knot to start and just used the scarf ring alone which gives a bigger effect.

And finally if it is really cold out you can thread your plisse through a fur collar and tie with a flower knot/scarf ring as above!

Vintage Scarves III - The Purples

Here are my purple vintage silk scarves

Coaching AW09

Worn cowboy style it really sets off my favourite pink sweater!!  The colours in this scarf are really great.

Rythmes SS09

This is a very strong red, purple and yellow scarf!!  None of the colourways on offer from Hermes really grabbed me but I like the design a lot so I plumped for this strong colourway.

Looks great against black - here just folded into a triangle and draped around the neck and tied at the back - nearly cowboy style!

Here worn in the basic fold and pulled through a scarf ring

Goodbye 2009 Hello 2010!

Just seeing out 2009 and seeing in 2010 with a lovely new Hermes scarf - Brides Rebelles.  I just love the colour on this scarf it really pops!

Pleated Frills with Half Ascot and plain single knot (thank you to my tpf friend you know who you are!) This style really shows off the contrast border and hem to great effect.

Half Bow Knot with Fur Collar

A Berlin Knot - well that's what I like to call it!!

With a scarf ring

A Friendship Knot

Here's to a happy new year CHEERS!!

Happy Christmas!!

Here are some of the lovely handmade lace decorations I bought in Berlin.  They are very pretty and look like snowflakes on the tree!

The candle in the big photo is 2 candles and one has a split in it to allow it slide up the other one to make a 3D effect.

Last year in Frankfurt I bought some beautiful hand carved sheep from a Tirolean wood carver from Austria - I love the design of the sheep and it was hard to pick which ones to buy!  This particular maker really makes lovely things.

Reflecting the travelling I do let's go over the Pond to the USA!!  One of the other things I collect are the White House Christmas Ornaments.  I started collecting in 2004.  It is now an annual puzzle as to how to get them over to the UK because the postage from the White House website is more than the cost of the ornaments!! I am usually lucky to find a friend with relatives who can accept delivery and then post on to me or send with the next visitors!!  Here is the first ornament I bought:-

Happy Christmas!!

Berlin - and a little something from Hermes!!

I just visited one of my favourite cities, Berlin in Germany. I went to see and enjoy the Christmas Markets and I was not disappointed - they had lots of lovely things to buy and lots of lovely Christmas trees and lights brightened up the city:-

Gendarmenmarkt

Unter den Linden

The Opern Palais Cafe Christmas Tree

and we enjoyed wonderful cakes at this cafe -highly recommended - here is my Marc de Champagne Kuchen - yummy!!

A market stall "am Rotten Rathaus"

The gluhwein on sale around the markets was delicious and I found a jelly jam of the same flavour - that is certainly very delicious at breakfast!!

I went to see The Nutcracker performed by my favourite ballet company, Staatsballett Berlin and it was wonderful, especially the dance of The Snowflakes with their Snow Queen it was magical.

The trip ended in a winter wonderland as it snowed!! I visited the gardens at Charlottenburg Palace and revelled in walking through the snow - it was beautiful - the only thing missing was a horse drawn sleigh ride!

 
View of the Palace from the far end of the gardens over the frozen lake!
 
 
 
 
   Finally no trip would be complete without a visit to Hermes - and I was lucky enough to find a new SS10 Twilly in just the colour and design I wanted - Tohu Bohu in blue.  And as a special gift from Hermes I was given a Kelly Bag shaped biscuit cutter as I left the store - you can just see it in my photo so I will have to get baking with the recipe provided by Hermes!!