It Began In Afrika

I was planning to post about the dress I'm currently making but I came back with so much stuff from this morning's car boot sale that by the time I'd sorted all out, loaded the washing machine & tidied up I'd lost the will to hem it. I'll never be a professional blogger, will I?

Waxed cotton earrings (Cornbury Festival), Braided cuff (gift from friends, bought in Cuba)
I must have had a bit of an African vibe going on when I got dressed this morning, what with my Rwandan earrings,

and Ghanaian basket.

Photobomb!
So it was no surprise that this dress called to me from a rail (or it might have been the stall holder, declaring her undying love for the Dollyrockers maxi I was wearing).

From a distance I thought it was African waxed cotton but the lady told me it was Kente from her mother's native Ghana, originally worn by Kingdom of Ashanti royalty (but widespread today). Each of the colours have a symbolic meaning so, according to the internet, my dress denotes high status & spiritual purity (gold), maturity (black), purity (white) and femininity (pink).
Not bad for a quid!

WEARING: Kente dress & head wrap (£1, car boot sale), Bertie cork soled platforms (charity shop), Ghanian basket (Kaya Festival), temple beads (Gokarna, 2015), all other jewellery (India)
The dress came with a head wrap, which I'm wearing as a sash, as I've got an annoying frozen shoulder from too much sewing and can't lift my arm high enough to tie it. I'm sure a therapeutic rum will sort me out later.

As for the rest of our finds, I don't know where to start. There's everything from professional disco lights, Aztec platform boots, sackfuls of vintage dresses & fabric, some prescription spectacles Morrissey would kill for and three pairs of the most outrageously pimp-tastic shoes known to man. Got to love a boot sale!

I'll leave you with the inspiration behind my post title, just in case you think I've forgotten how to use the spell check, you can't beat a bit of full-on trance on a Thursday afternoon.