Last week was my wedding anniversary. Twenty one years! I decided to wear a dress I made a couple of years ago. I thought it would look good with the wine up there, being purple…
We decided to go up to Paso Robles for a night to celebrate. If you love wine and wine tasting, and are in California, than you must visit Paso Robles on the central coast of California. Paso is quickly catching up to the Napa Valley on the wine lovers destination list, and many of their wines have won top awards this past year at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine awards. Some wineries to keep an eye out for are Adelaida, Niner, which won wine of the year, Lone Madrone, and Cass, a winery we discovered last year which has a great restaurant out in the vineyard.
Paso is gorgeous, and the terrain is similar to Spain or the south of France. It shares the same type of Mediterranean climate. Many of the same grapes that were traditionally grown in Spain and France, are now thriving on the near to the coast, but warmer inland areas of Paso Robles.
I was all ready and fixed up in my purple dress made with fabric from Anna Sui. It has this purple flower trim on the neck and well, now that I look at it, this dress is maybe a bit ….too much! I’m not sure if it’s my style anymore. Maybe I will take off the flowers. What do you think?
The thing as I only serged the thing, as it was a quick make and I didn’t use a pattern . On the way up in the car, I noticed the seams on the sides were coming out! I had nothing else fancy to wear and of course I never travel with a sewing kit.Maybe I will now… So I wore my jeans for the next two days. which was fine because truth be told, I was a bit overdressed for Paso Robles. Although it’s becoming very chic, very quickly, it’s essentially a cowboy town, and you can still see people riding their horses through the streets there. But now there are French tourists walking around, too. And I looked like I was ready for dinner at The Hilton in Maui!
Moral of the story: Sew with a normal machine stitch to reinforce knits if you are going to serge something. Serging only doesn’t last.
Old Paso Robles….
Our hotel, the Paso Robles Inn , opened in the 1870’s and has sulfur hot tubs on private decks fed froma sulfur spring on the property. And Jesse James the outlaw holed up there for awhile back in the 1880’s.
And new Paso Robles…
An elegant snack at Niner winery…
Niner winery….
Cass vineyard
A wine tasting at Cass vineyard…
Tasting notes at Lone Madrone
Lone Madrone winery
And stylish new boutiques. ( None of which were here a couple of years ago.
And here is my next DIY project….
Do you have a Queensland Heeler?
True story: when I was a news anchor in Sonoma County, I had this co-worker who went on the air and pronounced Paso Robles as “Paso ROH-blays”. Which is, of course, correct… if you’re the Spaniards who first came to California. As a Californian, she should’ve known we NOW say it Paso Roh-bulls! Just like San Rafael is San Ruh-fell, and Concord, CA is not Con-chord, it’s Conk-erd. She was so embarrassing.
Thanks ! The dog is a Queensland heeler! Good eye. She is a rascal
And here I am a native Californio pronouncing at wrong. Funny!
I stopped on this post to admire the purple flower trim on the neck and I was wondering where you found something so pretty. I love it and I would note remove it from the dress as I really think it makes this dress stand out. I hope you enjoyed your wine tasting sessions! I don’t know Australian wines very well at all, as I drink mainly french wines (being french). But seeing the pics of the lavender and the winery reminded me home! I’m sure it tastes fantastic!
Anyway, I love your dress!
Thanks! i found the trim down at a little trim shop in the LA garment district.
Congratulations on 21 years of marriage! The dress is so pretty and I can’t wait to see how you create that kimono! -Marci @ Stone Cottage Adventures
I’m making it today. It’s very simple. I can’t believe how much they charge for those kimonos considering it takes about 30 minutes to make one probably.
Lovely dress, love the neckline, don’t change it as it looks great. Great photos of the area.
Thanks Linda
Happy anniversary! Love the trim on the dress. I would pronounce it the Spanish way too.
Right before you mentioned the trim, I thought it looked so lovely. The dress fits you nicely, and especially the color!
Justine, happy anniversary.. Hope you two had a good time. The dress is lovely.. Don’t change it, just perfect on you.
Happy anniversary, gorgeous frock, but your lovely blue dog stole the show! We had a lovely blue dog Jess (she lived to 13 years) and a red heeler Rex (he lived to 16 years), they were our babies before we had human babies. And we used to live in Queensland so it was interesting to see Elisha refer to her as a Queensland Heeler. We now live in Victoria (Australia) and our family fur-baby is a wire haired Jack Russell that we rescued from the Lost Dogs Home. Cue lots of baggage but he is a darling and we wouldn’t be without him.
Looks like you had a beautiful trip! Can’t wait to see how your DIY project turns out. It’s that fringe or is it a gauzy fabric on the sleeves and hem?