Boleros are tops!

I made my first little cap-sleeved bolero about 7 years ago, just for myself, out of some beautiful red and blue print fabric. I wore it SO much that first summer, and then pulled it apart to use as a pattern. I've since made them for friends (a gorgeous red velvet one for my friend Holly's wedding, and a few lovelies for Pearlie) and a very very few to sell. Pearl and I both wear ours a LOT, summer and winter (yes, they do work over a long-sleeve top, I promise). My favourite favourite favourite is one I made a few years back from a ridiculously groovy horsey print fabric I bought from Repro Depot ("why oh why didn't I buy more???" I ask myself). The tiny bit I had left after making the bolero and a couple of patches went into making the "blog" button on my website. It can bring you here.

Anyway, retail regrets aside...

My incredibly beautiful and lovely friend Jay is having a birthday this week, and seeing as she has about a million P&E skirts (she's an avid and inspirational follower) I thought I'd bust out the big guns and make her a bolero. I delivered it today, and I'm pretty sure she liked it!

Coincidentally, last week I got an order for a custom bolero from a woman in Melbourne who'd seen the lonesome one on Georgie Love. I was super-excited, and so pleased with the way

that Jay's turned out, that I used the same fabric. I know, I know... I'm supposed to make one-offs. But seriously, this fabric is BEAUTIFUL! And makes for a lovely little summery jacket. And for some reason it'd been sitting, hiding in my stack of fabrics for a very long time, only revealing itself to me LAST NIGHT while I was looking for bolero fabrics (and Bunn was making herself comfortable in my basket of zippers).

I'm pretty sure it was fate.

So there you go: 2 new boleros out in the world, one with red polka-trim, the other with black and white. One with a Pearl & Elspeth tag, the other with a hand-embroidered love-heart because I love love love the special lady Jay.