Fusion Dress

Today: the Fusion Dress.

 I have been obsessed with this fabric since Art Gallery released the collection in the spring, and while the price was a bit dear, I bought it this summer, because I was afraid (correctly as it turns out!) it would be sold out by fall.  I ended up getting it at Hawthorne Supply Co. (formerly Hawthorne Threads) as they had the best per/yard price.

It behaves just like every other Art Gallery jersey I've worked with before, and was a good fit for my beloved M7353 pattern.  It was nice to make this again in a knit--it had been a while!  

Took me a bit to wear it, though, as we were kind of stuck in the armpit of the weather system for most of September and the first 12 days of October.  Thankfully, it has cooled down a LOT and is now pleasant and lovely October weather.  

The color is a bit difficult to photograph accurately (and truth be told, I missed my optimum lighting window this morning because of public bus issues and had to make do).

The most accurate photograph is the one at the top--the background color is a sprucey green, and the centers of the flowers are a deep saturated red-purple color.

As a happy accident, this necklace from ThredUp was a perfect color match.  I like them together very much.

No construction notes except I made the skirt slightly shorter (2" of length added, instead of 2.5") and I could even take it to 1.5" for a future iteration).  I guess I like slightly shorter dresses right now. The hardest part of the dress was thread matching, because it isn't quite green and it isn't quite blue. 

The scarf was another happy ThredUp find, and it is a reasonably good color match to the centers of the flowers.  I'm wearing a lot of scarves this fall--I seem to latch on something each season and wear it constantly.  I guess this is the scarf rotation.

I did a big try on over the weekend, which made for some major culling.  I'm feeling pretty good about how my clothing stands at the moment, as well as how future projects will fit (I have about one dress per rotation planned through summer).  I've reduced the total number of pieces I have by quite a bit, and am curious to see how it works out.  I used to have about 85 pieces total, and I'm sitting around 65 currently (including planned makes).

I've been having a bit of a think about what it is to be healthy, as I've gotten pretty hung up on the number on the scale.  I had a bit of an epiphany last week when my mom was here, as I realized that while our scale numbers are close to 40 pounds different (she is skinny!), our clothing size is very similar.  The difference?  I have a lot of muscle mass, and always have, always will, and muscle weighs more.  (I've always known that, and knew I was densely built, but somehow, having the comparison of my mother, who carries her weight similarly to me, but isn't densely built, was eye-opening).  

I'm not sure what healthy looks like for me. I've always measured health by the scale and measurements and BMI, and I'm no longer confident that they are good measures to go by.  I get 10,000 steps in most days, my CBC numbers are in the normal range, and my A1C has been normal for a few years now, and my waist measurement is below 35" but is that healthy?  I'm not sure.  I've got this ideal in my head (along with a particular scale number and measurements) that I can't quite seem to shake (but I do feel that I'm on the verge of being able to do so).

I'm not quite to anything definite yet, but I will say, I'm feeling better in my body, and learning to let some things lie.  I don't want to be the woman who is always on a diet, always trying to lose weight, trying to look a particular way, constantly obsessing about it all, but neither do I want to be a poor steward of this vessel.  I'm getting there.