It was a bank holiday here in the UK – which means a lovely long weekend off work and the chance to go out on a Sunday night – how decadent!

I thought I’d show off a recent project of mine – another version of the reversible blouse from the Japanese pattern book “Unique clothes anyway you want”. The idea of the book is that all the items in it can be worn in more than one way.

I’ve made this blouse before in white silk, but I thought I’d crack out something nicer after my disaster last week with the vintage stuff. It’s a Liberty print – but I can’t remember what it is called.

The afternoon / evening started off quite respectably with a trip to the Whitechapel gallery, just off Brick Lane.
We saw the Government Art collection among a couple of exhibitions. It is a selection of art chosen by various government members – including Cameron (Mr and Mrs), Clegg and Peter Mandelson.  Call me a cynic, but I can’t help wondering how much the paintings were chosen because the person liked them and how much they were chosen based on showing an façade of being an “ordinary” person. I mean, Samantha Cameron chose a Lowery – working class Manchester being close to her heart growing up in a baronetcy.

After a couple of drinks, we headed over to Pizza East in Shoreditch.  Really nice pizzas but I didn’t really like the place – everyone was trying a bit too hard. Maybe I’m just intimidated by the cool gang!

Anyway, as you can see, the respectability deteriorated very quickly!

Anyway, back to the blouse. In fact it is the first time I’ve worn it that way around – buttons at the front. I think it looks better with the buttons at the back.  I’m afraid I didn’t have a decent photo of this – so you will have to bare with me and one of my awful, unsmiling iphone pictures. I just don’t seem to be able to smile and operate the thing at the same time – sorry!

As I said a few days ago, I came home from Brazil to find two Japanese patterns books that I had ordered before going away.

I've been through one in more detail now - "Unique clothes anyway you like" and I am in love with just about every item in it.