Cottage Days

I recently returned from a lovely few days up at the family cottage. There was lot of swimming, yarn shopping, and coffee sipping, and it was glorious. It was a surprisingly busy and exhausting week but somehow it managed to be refreshing as well. 

I didn't really take any outfit shots while I was up there, but I did have to take some photos of my new bathing suit. Yup... I now have an Edwardian-style swimsuit. I knew I needed a new swimsuit this year and opted to make something a little more covered up than my previous 1940's bikini. The reason? Well, mainly because the lake is always freezing plus I think Victorian/Edwardian bathing suits are adorable. I had a friend who used to always wear a wet suit to go swimming in the lake, so I figured this is just a cuter version of that. 

The material has a great texture and looks a bit like wool on one side, but it actually very similar to modern swimsuit material. It's super comfy and stretchy enough to make movement easy. I did plan on doing some real swimming in this thing so I worked hard to make sure it was a functional garment. I didn't actually wear the tights or ribbon belt for swimming, but the rest of it made for an excellent swimming costume. The only downside is that it takes forever to dry out.

I researched a lot of historical suits styles before designing mine. In the end, I opted for an Edwardian  suit rather than Victorian (it seemed a little more practical). Most suits also seemed to have a sailor collar, so I felt that detail was a must-have on my suit. While most of the original suits were not black, this fabric was on a very good sale so I opted to add in colour with the trim instead. My main inspiration was the swim costume top-left in the below image:

I'm sure I looked quite a sight floating around in a giant swan in my Edwardian bathing costume...

You may have already seen part of my Canada Day outfit on instagram, but I thought I would repost the uncropped versions here. I wore this the day we left for the cottage and snapped a few quick pictures after loading up the car. I was hot, grumpy, and tired when these photos were taken, but hopefully it doesn't show too much. 

I hope everyone is having an enjoyable summer so far!

That's All.