I realised today that it’s be absolutely ages since I last did an installment of Inspiration File. Let’s just put it down to going with the flow, when it comes to blog posts. I post inspiration occasionally on my tumbr blog, but never quite get round to transferring that into a post here. Anyway, without further ado, here is this week’s inspiration!

I must’ve looked a right nutter in Waterstone’s on Monday whilst flicking through books in the fashion & craft sections. Firstly, I stumbled upon a book called Handmade Nation, which is all about the independent craft community. It was focused on Stateside crafters because that my friends, is where the ‘craft scene’ has developed the most. But seeing as all those crafters were online folk, I was able to keep exclaiming “ooh, I’ve been on that site” or “ooh, I have a link exchange with that site” or things to that effect. All in all, I was standing in Waterstone’s feeling rather proud of all these little crafty sorts who I’ve discovered over the last 2 years!

After that, I decided to see if I could find that book which a lot of lovely wardrobe remixers were featured in - What I Wore Today. I’ve got to admit to feeling a little bit miffed when reading the discussion over at w_r because there were jokes of it being like a w_r yearbook and I dunno about anyone else who wasn’t in it, but I felt kind of excluded by that. Still, when I found the book, I was standing there exclaiming “ooh, look it’s so and so!” in a jovial manner. I spotted Christina, Gala, Nubby, Effie, Ranna, Rhiannon and a whole host of other people (too many that I cannot remember most of them now!). It was a nice book, but if there was one thing which did bug me, it’s that for a british publication, there was not a lot (at least in what I saw) of british style in it. I know it’s meant to be global, documenting online style and I get that, but it bit still bugged me a little.

I didn’t buy either because I had just spent what little money I had on tights from UO and a vintage scarf (which will inevitably feature on some kind of outfit post sometime), but they were intriguing to flick through if you ever fancy it.

In the spirit of books, this week I have been engrossing myself in 1930s book Fashion is Spinach. I tried reading this some months ago when Casey mentioned it on her blog, but I was foolish and downloaded the pdf version which confused me when it came to trying to read it! It wasn’t until it was mentioned again on Sally Jane Vintage that I found the online flip version which made life so much simpler! Anyway, it is in fact the reason posting has been so sparse this week, because I am one of those folks who gets drawn into a book and struggles to do anything else until I have finished it! I’m only about halfway through at the moment (and fully intend to devote an entire post to it once I am done), but it’s enjoyable, strangely teaching me a fair bit and also strengthening my own personal desire to design clothes!

Scarves! After being inspired by Yokoo, I’m knitting a few different scarves at the moment. Mostly for christmas presents but also (we’ll keep this on the down low) because I’m trying to use up the balls of wool. It’s not really wool, it’s acrylic (which is why I am trying to use it up!) but I call everything wool when strictly speaking, I should be calling it yarn. So though it’s not that great to give family/friends cast-off yarn, I’m sure there will be more meaning in the handmade focus of it… at least, that’s what I’m saying!

Along with knitted scarves, I’ve been craving scarves in general. Style Bubble posted these scarves some time ago; through CRAFT, I found this tutorial on Colette; Spool Sewing posted these ones and finally, my dressmaking teacher suggested making a scarf from the leftover silk lining of the trench coat (which I am still working on, but it’s shaping up!) - collectively, I am really wanting to make some glorious scarf from my scraps. A bit of experimentation with the sewing machine will hopefully ensue this weekend and with some luck, a tutorial?

So there is my list for this week, but what’s been inspiring you over this past week?