A wee summertime project

Popping in to show a little embroidery project I did in the past month.  I don't sew very much for myself any more (all my slopers are wrong since the weight loss and I haven't had the motivation to redo them when thrifting is pretty good and fabric stores in short supply).  I thrifted this linen shirt in the spring and wore it a couple of times but found it dull.  It is not quite white so I thought it might be fun to embroider it to liven it up.  I did a bunch of embroidery like this a few years back, so I had a notion of what I was in for.

I used the Sulky Stick and Stitch stabilizer because it can be printed on regular printer.  The designs came from an etsy seller that I adapted into the larger motif.  There were three designs total.  I drew out the lines of the neck and shoulders and then started placing the motifs until I had something I liked and then photocopied that onto the stabilizer.  Worked pretty well!  

The size of the piece meant I had to baste the edges of the stabilizer to keep it from moving around too much, but otherwise, fairly straightforward and enjoyable project.  It was a great traveling project.  

I'm plotting to fancy up a linen top I made a few years ago, as I like the linen but don't wear it very much now.  Maybe embroidery will make me want to wear it.  My go-to clothes this summer have been boxy linen tops just like that one, although mostly thrifted, and linen/rayon palazzo pants.  (These pants fit me like ankle pants, which was what I was going for).  I also found possibly the most perfect warm weather pants evah in the most glorious shade of yellow.  Pants are usually my nemesis, so it is nice to have a few pairs that fit well.  It isn't my usual lewk, and is perhaps not the most flattering thing, but I'm finding in this season, I don't really care: 

I know, I know, I was the skirts and dresses girl.  I still wear them pretty regularly in the colder months, and I do have a nice rotation of summer skirts and dresses, but most days lately, its the palazzos and the boxy tops.  (To be fair, the palazzos almost look like a skirt, there is so much fabric in the legs).  I will say, the biggest factor in the pants is that I don't have to shave my legs!  It is a chore that is never finished in the hot months because it is humid here and my legs still swell a bit in the heat.  And it has been HOT here this summer.    

And, finally, drum roll please...I have a (terrible) first draft of the novel I started writing last summer!  I'm right in the middle of the word count range for this genre, and while the editing road ahead is long, it is nice to finally have a big lump of dough to shape in my hands.  How's that for a mixed metaphor?!?

Sarkle

Most of my finished objects right now are going to be knitted, but it's sweater weather, so I'm not even a little sorry.  I'm not sewing at all except for outside projects for the drama program at my kids' school and have had a good time thrifting on ThredUp.  (It's fine, really.  I've got plenty to keep my hands busy).

To be perfectly honest, I feel better about thrifting anyway, as it takes something out of a landfill and puts it to use, whereas sewing has a similar footprint to buying new.  (It doesn't help that my go-to fabric store went out of business in the spring; I have other places I like, but nothing like fabric.com--RIP). 

Obviously, I do occasionally buy something new, but I find thrifting fun. And confession: I find I have different seasons with some styles or particular pieces, especially with major body changes (about which more, at a later date).  So thrifting works better for me on a lot of levels right now.

Anyway, I present my Sarkle, made in August mostly.  It was a totally straightforward KDD knit, and since I'm pretty confident about her blocks, I got gauge and just got on with it!  The twisted stitches were fun (more so than cables) and the pattern varied enough not to get boring.  

I'm working on the coordinating cowl to this pattern right now and am struggling with pattern boredom since the twisted stitch pattern isn't quite as varied as the sweater yoke.  (Which explains how I managed to make a whole other sweater from my unraveled Weekender in the past three weeks while the cowl has languished since late August).  I've also been poking away at a lace shawl and am just over half-way on it.

The color was a bit hard to photograph but it is a lovely deep teal that leans slightly toward green.  It's similar in shade to my Carbeth, but the DK weight is a lot more useful to me.  My next sweater project is another Teti Lutsak pattern.  I love how her stuff fits me and find her patterns visually interesting and fun to knit.

Nothing to say that I didn't note on my ravelry page.  I will say I still struggle with finding the right sweater length on my figure.  I'm short-waisted so I have to watch body length very carefully but my measurements are a lot straighter than they used to be, so I can get away with slightly longer sweaters now.  It feels like a Goldilocks dilemma and I wonder if this sweater could stand to be another 1/2" or so longer, but it is a bottom up sweater so there is no way I'm messing with it!  The leather skirt is a new thrift and it is *mwah*!  Put it with a recently thrifted black leather jacket and I feel extremely stompy.  

Me-Made May Week 3

We are having a small run of mid-summer weather at the moment, so I'm in linen, linen, and more linen right now.   Supposedly it is going to rain later today and tomorrow and bring the temps back into a more normal range for May.  I just hope my fledgling strawberries don't cook!  

I'll list what I wore, starting upper left corner, going clockwise.

Sunday (upper left): Bluebird dress (made in 2016, altered 2020.  Probably oldest make still in my closet!)

Wednesday: lilac linen Remy raglan (just finished!), beet linen Free Range Skirt hack (2021).

Tuesday (upper right): dawn linen self-drafted drop shoulder shirt (2021), linen noil spruce Free Range skirt hack (2021)

Thursday (lower right): thrifted tank and jacket, linen/rayon black pepper Free Range skirt hack (2021)

Friday: Altered white linen Remy raglan (2021), sage linen/rayon M7353 skirt (unblogged)

Saturday: Meadow linen Sorrel shirt hack (2021), Purple Violet Squish skirt hack (originally made in 2019, hacked 2021)

Monday: altered thrifted tshirt, thrifted skirt.  This outfit was very meh.

My Thursday outfit was for a meeting I had to run at school and I felt totally awesome in it.  I thrifted that jacket months ago but have struggled to find a way to wear it.  I'll keep this outfit in my back pocket!

I think I like the Purple Violet Squish skirt enough to keep it in regular rotation.  It goes very nicely with the sage linen top, and probably will go with some other linen tops I've yet to make.  I made the lilac linen Remy early this week (I think!) to get my feet into sewing garments again, since it's been a minute.   I had just enough left over from a sewing student's project to squeak out the Remy.  I had to piece a tiny bit of one sleeve, but it ended up inside the French seams, so it's all good.   The color can wash me out a bit, so I made sure to have interesting colorful jewelry on near my face and that did the trick.

The sage linen skirt that I squeaked out of the leftovers from a Remy last fall turned out to be a good skirt!  I was skeptical when I first made it and didn't even bother to blog, but I think it will be a lovely summer piece.  My only regret is that I didn't have enough fabric for pockets, but since I got a skirt and 3/4 sleeve shirt out of less than 2 yards, I can't complain.  The white linen top will be much more useful with short sleeves, I think.  I want to do some tone-on-tone embroidery on it, but I keep waffling about the design.  That said, I did really like it with the sage skirt, although I did risk blinding passersby with my burns in the moonlight skin and light colored clothes.  Ha!

I finished the embroidery on my sage Remy raglan and will try to get a proper post about it soon.  Since almost none of my summer clothes fit right now, I'm on a mission to make stuff and try new things.  Yesterday, I made an Isla wrap dress out of some Indian block print cotton and cut out a cap sleeve Hinterland this morning, plus a simple linen top, so I should have new some things to post soon! 

Racing Stripes

I mentioned last week that I had taken apart my spruce Elemental skirt to add some extra fabric to the side seams, since it had come out slightly too snug for comfort.  There was just a bit of fabric left, but enough to cut out two 1" strips that followed the curve of the side seam.  

From the experience of making my Woodrose skirt, I knew that I needed an extra 1/2" on the sides, and figured a 1" strip with 1/4" seam allowances on both sides would get me there.  I wouldn't do it on purpose, but as a fix with no alternatives, it worked pretty well!  

I'm hoping it looks like a design element, but even if not, the skirt is so much more comfortable that I don't actually care that much.  I wore this outfit over the weekend and it was supremely comfortable.

 

Sadly, I think yesterday was my last day for tights until fall (and even yesterday was a bit of a stretch).  The temps are climbing again and the humidity is back (wahh!  I had just got rid of the 3 pounds of water I was holding from the last heat wave.  So it goes).  

But I'm grateful for the brief reprieve anyway.

Mending: That Corduroy Skirt

Recently, Kate Davies reposted a chapter from her last book, Wheesht, entitled Mend.  I read the chapter about a year ago and found it quite resonant then.  I have been darning my tights for a number of years now, and mending my own clothing, but I had started to darn my kids' and husband's socks by then as well.  I've always repaired mine and my kids' clothing (holes in knees, or those irritating places in tshirts that get little pin holes over time and wearing, holes in sweaters), but I liked the intentionality of Kate's chapter.  

 

 

That said, last month, the kids all needed bigger socks, plus the darned socks were to the point of more darning than socks, so it was time to replace for all of them. 

 

 I confess I heaved a sigh of relief. 

It's one thing to romanticize mending as a slow fashion way to keep your footprint light on the earth, but it is quite another to keep up with the darning for six people and everything else that needs doing for four kids, special needs not withstanding.  It had got to the point where I had to spend about a day every week or so doing the darning or else it piled up beyond doing.  This on top of the increased load of cooking and baking, and everything else that became harder last year with the extended lock down.  It seemed like every laundry cycle added to the never ending pile of mending.

 

 

 (I still think it is worth it to mend most things if possible, buy used, and pass things down within the family, but the cost of this approach is labor- and time-intensive for me, a cost that I think is largely ignored in these sorts of conversations).

 

So with that in mind, remember the dark blue corduroy skirt I made in the series two years ago?  I wore it twice before realizing the fit was really off and the fabric and pattern were a poor match, so I dumped the whole thing in my fabric bin, hoping to salvage the fabric for something else.  Sometime last year, I thought to put ban-roll elastic into the waist band to see if that fixed the fit.  I unpicked all the darts (all six!) and threaded the elastic and whomp, whomp, whomp.  Still really poor fit.  Back into the bin it went.

 

 

Fast forward to January and I thought maybe tightening the elastic would help.  Lo and behold, that worked!  The slightly less structured body of the garment works better with the light weight cord.  I won't say it is the most flattering thing I own, and it isn't warm at all, but it is light and comfortable for these days of chilly mornings and pleasant afternoons.  I have some dark green baby cord that may become another skirt like this.  Just as soon as I can muster some sew-jo, which has been in serious short supply round these parts.

 

My thoughts are slowly turning to warm weather garments (even as I have three sweaters on needles.  Three!  I make no apologies...)  I have two dress lengths of rayon challis from past birthday presents that have been waiting for the right pattern.  I thrifted a maxi dress last fall (that you can just see the top of in the pic above) that I love the fit of, and can replicate by doing a bit of frankenpatterning, so I intend to get to that at some point in the next couple of months. 

A dress, a dress, my kingdom for a dress!

Well.  It's been a minute, huh?  I took a slightly impromtu trip with my kids to visit my parents last week, and am now catching up on everything.  It was a good visit overall, and good to get out of the city for a while.  But I can tell that the last months have taken a huge toll on me.  I went to Walmart with my mom to pick up a few groceries and the sight of bursting shelves and food abundance about did me in.  Call it post-Soviet-grocery-store-syndrome.

I had it when I visited the States for a brief visit while living in Russia, but this time was different and harder, somehow.  Because the difference is this: in Russia it might be hard to find some specific things, or to find them consistently, hence the авоська or perhaps-bags, but you can always find something in the stores.  The shelves weren't bare of staples like bread and flour and canned goods, at least not in the early naughts.  The late 90s was a bit more precarious, though, it must be said.  You just get used to the one brand of toothpaste, soap, tomato sauce, or whatever, and when presented with row upon row of options in the States, it proved overwhelming in a different way than the past three months of privation and stress about provisioning a household of six people, five of whom eat a lot. 

I think there was a little bit of feeling like I had been gypped in the quarantine.  If you feel like the whole country is suffering privation together, like it is for the common good somehow, you can put your head down and get on with things, but to suddenly understand that the privation is really only in specific places in the country, because of who knows what, that there is grocery abundance elsewhere, it is harder to sort that in your mind.  

But enough about that.  You're here for other things today, I'm sure, so I will give you a dress.  Perhaps you remember the first two iterations?  I wore them both a ton (although somehow never got a good photo of the second one), and was a bit sad to put the last one in the fabric bin to cut down for the girls because the style no longer suited.  I still love this fabric, and was kind of missing it in my closet, so I decided to try and refashion the dress into something that suited me better now.

I have a ready-to-wear dress that I thrifted last fall (see above) that I like the shape of quite a bit, and decided to model my refashion on that.  My only complaint about the RTW dress is that it is sleeveless, but I tend to wear it with something else over it anyway, so that is okay.  But for summer, I needed some kind of shoulder coverage for skincare reasons.  #burnsinthemoonlight  

Since the original S1080 pattern had cut-on sleeves that I had redrafted, I left those alone, but shortened them about 1/2" or so, since I didn't care for the volume or length.  I took off the kangaroo pocket, unpicked the tucks and back elastic, and shortened the dress considerably (almost 4 inches!).  With the fabric from the hem (I had no leftovers in my bin from making either version of this dress), I made a casing and waist tie. 

The main feature of the RTW dress I like is the casing and waist tie, and I used that dress as a guide for placement.  I'm pretty pleased with the outcome!  I won't say it feels exactly like me, but sometimes you just need a dress.

I do wish I had pockets, and I could make inseam pockets with plain fabric with the edge out of the little bit of matching fabric I have left.  But that is a project for another day and more mental energy.  For now, this is a good, easy-wear summer dress.  I made two more and will share those shortly.

Me-Made May: Part 2

To say we are living through history right now would be an understatement.  This past week has brought the highs of the successful SpaceX space launch, the pains of the continued lockdown and consequent economic devastation, to the lows of riots and looting, of peaceful protests turned violent.  

Saturday night was pretty tense here, as rioters and looting took over the main part of downtown, which is a mere stone's throw from us, and the air was uneasy.  Police choppers had been overhead for hours by then, and it was clear that things were escalating rather than dying down.  A neighbor returning from a shift at one of the hospitals knocked on our door to offer to store our bikes overnight in his garage, as he had seen first hand what was happening, and was worried about what the night hours would bring.  We scrambled to move the bikes as choppers circled our streets and the curfew loomed.  (We securely lock the bikes to the iron grates and railings on the outside of the house and cover with heavy duty covers most of the time and do not have a garage to store them).

This morning (Sunday), the heat and humidity broke, and the day dawned sunny, cool and pleasant, a welcome relief to the stifling wet heat of the previous days.  This last week of May has felt more like the dog-days of August.  

The choppers are still swirling overhead, but with less frequency as the day has passed, and the sound of sirens is mostly replaced with the more homely sounds of birdsong.  Some clean-up has begun.  We shall see what the night brings.  I have many thoughts jumbled in my head, but no coherence to write about it.  

With that said, I'll just wrap up Me-Made May, this being the last day of the month.  I'm well aware of the frivolity of such a post on a day such as this, so please forgive the dissonance.

May 19-24

This week was still cool, but definitely the last gasp for my corduroy and denim skirts until the fall.  I pulled out my Fusion dress again on May 21, and enjoyed wearing it, to my complete surprise.  I wore it quite a bit in the fall, and liked it with my Seafoam shawl then and now.  That shawl is probably my most-worn make from the past year.  May 22 would have been my gram's 93rd birthday, and I wore a bracelet of hers that day in remembrance.  I miss her so.  It was also a bit of an outfit experiment I had been wanting to try with my Purple Violet Squish dress, which had been slated for the block, but has been granted a place in my closet again.  

Incidentally, I'm not sure if I ever explained the origin of the name of the dress.  When I was in college, I had a semester where I wrote two 30-page papers simultaneously, one on the Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, and one on Robert the Bruce and the fight for Scottish independence.  It was a bonkers semester, as I would spend one weekend immersed in the American 1960s, and the next in medieval Scotland.  "Purple Violet Squish" was referenced in the Haight-Ashbury research--a hippie poem, I think, and I used it as part of the title of my paper. 

May 25-31.  I suppose I need to practice looking to the left for a change.

 This week the weather turned hot and steamy and just gross.  It was pretty hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other, and maintain routines, particularly with everything going on in the world.  

 The cooler weather today has been a major boost to me.  My only complete outfit repeat of the month was May 25, when I wore the red Brussels linen Everyday skirt again with my stripey top, and I think I like it well enough to keep it in the closet for the summer.  We celebrated Ascension on May 28 (thrifted RTW mint skirt and white top, with my Chinook scarf, a MMM stretch but I'm counting it). I debuted two new skirts and an altered dress this week (May 30...details to come).  I also cut down my green linen skirt for Birdie, and refashioned an old toile into a dress for Ponchik, as well as cutting down another old dress of mine for her.  I'll post those photos separately. The blue skirt on May 26 is really a refashion of this dress, but it is a decent comfy skirt for gross weather, so I'll take it.

So that's a wrap on Me-Made May for this year.  Over and out.

Me-Made May 2020, Part 1

I've done Me-Made May for several years now, although I think last year I didn't document it at all.  No particular reason--I think my school drop off schedule in the morning just didn't allow for any picture taking and it seemed like too much of a hassle in an already overburdened month.  But I enjoy seeing other people's photos during this month, and what comes out of it in terms of my own sartorial thinking and making plans, so I decided to do it again this year.  (Being on lockdown has actually helped because I have two willing photographers in the house to help.  Some days I've just used a tripod and timer, though).  I've done all my sharing on Instagram, but since my account there is private, I thought I would do a couple of summary posts here with the photos and a few thoughts. 

May 1-6

The first week was mostly a bunch of favorites--my corduroy skirts, my marigold linen skirt, my Rent/Tess shawl.  The oregano cord skirt (May 6, bottom right) fits ever so much better since I did a lazy alteration on it in March and I've been wearing it regularly since.  I did pull my red Brussels linen skirt out of the bin to wear again (May 2, top middle), and it is...fine.  I think maybe a shorter hem and a narrower waistband might help me like it better, but it is okay for now.  I like it with the stripey top, so that's something.  The burgundy twill skirt is from the fall and had gone into the donation pile because it doesn't fit me quite right and the material sticks to itself more than I would like, even with a slip under it.  It is better without tights, though.  I can't quite decide whether to take it in or not. 

May 7-12

I was eager to wear my newly finished Doocot (top right), but the weather didn't really cooperate until May 9, and then I was happy to wear a wool sweater all day!  The Doocot went surprisingly well with my yellow Chinook scarf, which is a shade of yellow I struggle to pair with things, even though I like the scarf a lot.  I love the pairing with that dress, too.  I also realized that the mint sweater (top left) doesn't look that great on me.

May 13-18

I did some outfit experiments during these days, and came up with a couple new things and I think I like them!  The top left outfit was a new combo, and not my usual silhouette, but I felt really great in that outfit.  I also dug an old Washi dress out of my fabric bin where I had planned to cut it down for one of the girls and paired with a recently thrifted sweater and I like the combo very much.  That dress always went really well with my Spruce Carbeth too, but it is way too warm for that sweater right now.  The green linen skirt on the bottom left has undergone further alterations since the photo, but I have yet to test drive them.  I also made a small alteration to the marigold linen skirt to fit the back elastics better.

I've read a few things from some makers lately about whether it is better to dress to flatter (a word some curvy sewists find offensive because they've been told all their lives that they "can't" or "shouldn't" wear such-and-such, or have been excluded from fashion all together by a thin-obsessed industry) or to wear what you like/feels comfortable, regardless of whether it fits a conventional idea of figure flattery?  I'm not sure the two things are mutually exclusive.  

It is a tricky question, however, because anyone who does not fit our particular cultural visual ideal of tall, straight-figured, relatively flat-chested, and very thin can find certain styles that appeal don't look the way they are "supposed" to look.  There are lots of styles that I like the looks of (the loose culotte style pants that have been floating around the last couple seasons are a good example) but look really unflattering on my figure for one reason or another.  I tend to feel yuck in stuff that doesn't flatter in a conventional way, and so tend to gravitate toward stylings that work best for my proportions.  (I did make a pair of Rose pants to try out the pattern, but the fit was so badly off, I couldn't even make myself revisit the pattern to try again.  My experience fitting pants to my proportions is always maximum frustrating, and I never get something I really like in the end, so I give up easily.)

On the other hand, I do get sick of having to tuck in my shirts and sweaters all the time for maximum flattery (and feel good about what I see in the mirror).  The outfit on May 13 was born of my desire to not have something tucked in, and also to have an easy-fitted waist, something I can only get with my Everyday skirts.  It turned out flattering, but normally it wouldn't have been because almost every ready-to-wear sweater or shirt is cut too long for my proportions and looks weirdly big on me or emphasizes my lumpy bits.  So I tuck most things in to get around that.

Which leads me to my perennial warm-weather quandary.  What in the world am I wearing this summer?  My preferred silhouette these days is a knit stripey shirt with 3/4 or long sleeves, tucked into a fitted straight skirt that ends at or just above the knee (i.e. May 18, on the bottom right).  I can't seem to fit a skirt in a warm-weather fabric that meets that requirement, and while my Everyday skirts are good and swishy, I can't seem to find a length or volume that is just right.  And tucking in shirts in hot humid weather is not always my idea of a good time. 

Cropped woven tops that end at the waist like the Ashton with some kind of capped sleeve like the Washi sleeve cap are a good thought, but I really prefer t-shirt type tops in the heat.  (I don't mind bare shoulders, but I burn extremely easily and so try to keep my arms at least semi-covered in the summer, but I have to strike a balance between hot flashes and skin cancer avoidance).

I did thrift a few basic t-shirts that are the right length for me to wear untucked, so perhaps it will be okay.  I made an Everyday skirt out of some clay-colored linen this past weekend and it is a smidge too big and slightly too long, so I'll need to fix that before I wear it out, but I was looking to make something tried and true since I haven't really sewn anything for myself for months.  (Just endless sock darning and lazy skirt alterations). 

But the current cooler weather means I can put those thoughts on the back burner at least for a little while yet, and be glad.

And Now for Something Completely Different: Palette

Happy Bright Week!  We celebrated Pascha over the weekend, and are now limping through Bright Week in an ordinary fashion befitting middle aged adults who stayed up half the night and then had to care for children all day and then start homeschooling again bright and early Monday morning.  Which is to say:

Image from GIPHY

Right.  So.  How about we talk about color, hey?  Gillian at Crafting a Rainbow has been talking about colors and palette this week, revisiting a favorite theme of hers.  I thought it might be interesting to write about that here, since I spend a fair bit of time thinking about color.  Some of it is an old habit from paper crafting days--what colors work well together, what are unusual color combinations to make with this card or project, etc.  

Some of it is making a lot of my own clothes for past few years--in order to have a harmonious wardrobe, not create wardrobe orphans, and find what looks best on me requires thinking about colors and tonality.  Some of it is the artist in me is just drawn to color.  (I did some coloring with markers during our spring break and I'm thinking about drawing some of my own designs, based on Slavic folk florals and running with it). 

Three season palette

I'm particularly drawn to saturated jewel tones, but I also like the dusky earth tones that are popular right now (they just don't look good against my skin tone, which is probably best described as "burns in the moonlight"--ha!) After filling in the boxes with color using Gillian's method, I decided that I really needed two palettes, as I tend to wear one three seasons (Fall-Winter-Spring) and the other in summer.  This is why my summer wardrobe is a source of constant irritation to me.  I really prefer my three-season palette and wardrobe, but can't quite replicate it in the summer (for a variety of reasons).  That said, I am liking the summer palette and hope it will guide my thrifting a bit.

Summer palette

There is a small amount of color cross-over between my spring-summer and summer-fall (I have a bright orange cotton sweater I've been wearing a lot this spring, for example, and tend to wear that bright raspberry color well into the fall, along with the jade green and teal).

Jade green with mint and brass and brown neutral accents.

 An interesting discovery for me is how to make color combos I love on other people work for my skin tone and wardrobe.  Last fall sometime, Meg at Sew Liberated had an Instagram post about her favorite color palette: vanilla, copper, and mint.  She is more olive-toned than me, and her wardrobe is full of gorgeous earth tones, anchored in ochres and muted neutrals, with teal, indigo, and clay accents.  I love her palette, but it would look terrible on me in that particular iteration.  

I thought about how to work with the palette, but in hues that better suited my skin tone.  (This was about the time that I decided to make another rust cord skirt).  That saturated rust gave me the earth tone I was craving, but in a nice deep jeweled shade that suited my skin.  Since white and vanilla tend to wash me out when they are right next to my face as a solid, I paired it with mint on top and accented with copper, or vanilla/white with a teal-toned scarf and copper jewelry.   

A few of my favorite things from the last few years.  I don't have all these clothes now, but I still love the color combinations or the outfit.

 Another one is yellow.  I love yellow, but can't easily wear it near my face in a flattering way.  I love the mustards and complex honeyed colors that are popular right now, but they really don't suit me at all, even if I wear it on the bottom and pair it with something saturated on top.  At best, I can wear them as a small accent somewhere away from my face, like in a patterned scarf or amber jewelry.  That said, I like yellow as a neutral, and have found that certain shades of yellow are fine for me--a bright buttery yellow is generally good near my face; I have a summer cardigan in that shade that I wear quite a bit.

I have that jump rope rhyme about Cinderella dressed in yellow stuck in my head now.  (Stock images from pantone.)

 Likewise, my marigold heavy linen skirt is a nice yellow for fall and spring (the color isn't as good with bare legs, but perfect with tights).  It's in the direction of mustard, but brighter and more saturated.  I've tried pairing it with blush and dove gray (such a great color combo!), but it doesn't look good on me.  If I'm going to wear marigold, I need to pair it with a bold blue-toned accent color like raspberry or bright navy, or jade green.  

I'm wearing far fewer prints than in previous years, and many more stripes, but I'm a lot happier in my clothes these days.  At the moment, I mostly prefer texture to prints and separates to dresses, which is a new place for me sartorially.  When I put an outfit together, I try to look for interesting ways to combine texture with color and interesting accents.  

I'm still trying to work out the best hot-weather clothing that doesn't make me want to die of heat stroke but also doesn't increase my risk of skin cancer any further by exposing my arms and shoulders.  Last summer, I wore lightweight 3/4 sleeve shirts with shorter skirts or shorts, but it wasn't really quite right.  I liked what I wore from a style perspective, but my hot-flashy self had trouble coping with the sleeves, and sleeveless is just not a good idea for my skin.

In the meantime, I'm thrifting for saturated colors, and enjoying the cool pause before the heat of summer descends.

Alter It August: Part the Third

 I had a hard time posting these photos.  Not because I don't like the dress (I do!) but because I don't think these are particularly flattering photos of me.  My face feels puffy today and my hair is a hot mess from the heat.  Also: this is me with color in my skin.  I just don't tan (I don't mind, actually). #burnsinthemoonlight 

I keep trying to lower the carb load in my diet to get rid of the bloat in my gut and the puff in my face, but then I get stuck about what to eat since my options are still more limited than I like to admit.  I spent most of last month fighting a gastroparesis flare and was nauseated almost every day, no matter what I did.  I had to take Zofran for the first time just to stay functional.

But I'm trying to live in my brave, and to understand that my body is my body and this is how it looks.  And will probably look no matter what I do.  Pffft.  I had an interesting conversation with my kids' therapist this week about how to think about body image and how to communicate with them about their bodies and weight and so forth (this is something I'm very aware of, given my own issues, and it was good to discuss it with her too).  She basically said, don't talk about weight or size or anything like that.  Just talk about healthy habits, and how bodies change and grow, and that all bodies are good.  No qualifiers, nothing.  I like that because it goes so well with the lesson I keep trying to drum into my own head: ALL BODIES ARE GOOD BODIES.  Have a body?  Good.  

I keep getting stuck in my head about the cultural female ideal, and struggling.  Even though I try to make sure my visual diet is full of women of all shapes and sizes, and to avoid the cultural visual ideal, I still have trouble.  Maybe I always will, but I'm starting to see light on the tunnel, that I can think about it differently for myself. 

 

Anyway.  An alteration, albeit a very gentle one.  I thrifted this dress from ThredUp (it is from Old Navy, and a linen/rayon blend that is really nice).  The dress fit very well except in the bodice, which had a whopping four inches (4! inches!) of fabric around the bust area.  I almost returned it, but the color really spoke to me, and I like the style and unusual details, so I decided to have a go at altering the bodice to fit better through the bust.

It was a surprisingly quick fix!  I think it took all of 20 minutes to unpick the bias binding for a couple of inches to either side of the side seams, pinch out the excess fabric (2" on either side) and then sew a seam that tapered to nothing at the waist seam.  So basically I made a big wedge on the side seam.  I could have trimmed it, but I just folded it to the side and resewed the bias tape back over it.  It isn't as neat as the original because I had to lap the excess bias, but it looks much better on me now, and I've worn it twice already since altering it! 

Alter It August Part the Second

 

This week has been a rough one.  I ended up with a less-than-ideal camp schedule due to booking things too late (apparently, around here, February is too late for camps in August), so I had two kids on one end of the city and two kids on the other end all week.  I have basically been living in my car.  

 

In the brief moments of home time, I've tried to squeeze little projects in here and there (or editing a few lines here and there).  I decided to alter these ready-to-wear culottes I thrifted in June.  I bought them new with tags, and took them to visit my parents.  I wore them several times that week, and while I enjoyed them, they didn't quite feel like my style, as well as the fact that the rise was just a bit short.  (My rise is crazy long, so this isn't a great shock to me).  Fast forward to me washing them the first time and suddenly the rise was uncomfortably short.  Every time I put them on after that, I couldn't stand the fit, so I would immediately take them off.   (Sorry, I don't have any good photos of me wearing them as culottes.  Just take my word for it that they were awkward).

I had the idea to alter these into a skirt after seeing Helen's Winslow hack.  This is a hack to make on the front end of a sewing pattern, but I figured if I picked apart the center and inseams, I could make it work.  And I did!  The longest part (which wasn't that long, really) was unpicking the robust seams+serging/overlocking.  Once that was done, it was a simple matter of pinning the center seams together and cutting off the excess from the crotch curve.  I'm actually pretty pleased with the resulting skirt--it is cooler than the pants and more comfortable, plus it has pockets!  I think it will be a nice transitional piece in the fall too.

In other news, I finally watched Chernobyl, and you must run, not walk, to your nearest HBO provider and watch it.  The show is stunningly well done, morally complex, amazingly acted.  It draws a bit on Svetlana Alexievich's excellent book, Voices from Chernobyl (I highly recommend it), but many other sources as well.

Project 333: Spring/Summer

Christ is Risen!  Truly He is Risen!

Христос воскресе! Воистину воскресе!

Χριστὸς ἀνέστη! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!

Crist aras! Crist sodhlice aras!

Christus is opgestaan! Hij is waarlijk opgestaan!

Happy Bright Monday!  Our Bright Monday started off with a bit of a bang, as my husband was involved in a fender bender on his way to the Bright Monday liturgy.  He is fine, the other driver is fine, but our (very old, very decrepit) Toyota Corolla is on its way to the great car graveyard in the sky.  Rest in peace, faithful friend.  We are going to try and get by on car shares and Uber for the next few months while we evaluate whether we need to replace the car.  Weekends are the toughest, as that is primarily when we need to drive and need two cars to accomodate my husband's clergy duties at church.  But.  It could have been much much worse, and we are grateful for all the mercy of the situation.

On to less serious things.  I never posted a winter rotation wrap up for Project 333, nor did I post about my spring rotation (and here it is almost May already!).  This was actually deliberate on my part, as I'm sort of experimenting with things right now.  I've noticed, after doing this rotation thing for a couple of years now that March and April are kind of miserable clothing months for me, and I realized that rotating out most of my winter wardrobe at the end of February had a lot to do with it.  

Our weather in March and April is completely bananas.  80 degrees and humid one day, down to below freezing the next.  Snow storms and torrential rains and everything in between.  It is epic.  My spring rotation just wasn't up to the task.  The problem is that by May, I do want some lighter things, but it usually isn't that warm for most of May (although, again, huge and extreme temperature shifts).  Some years I am still wearing boots and stockings the first week of June and other years it is sandals weather by then.  

What I did at the beginning of March was to rotate out the heaviest of my winter garments and to rotate in a few things from my spring that could be layered appropriately for the colder weather we were still having then.  I didn't put my parka away for the season until April, so it was plenty cold.  I also added a few heavy cotton sweaters to my closet from ThredUp, and found those to be extremely useful additions.  (I'm wearing one today with wool tights and a denim skirt, as we're back in the 40s again after about a week in the upper 60s/low 70s).  

I tried not to focus very much on the total number of garments in the closet or in the drawer.  My style continues to evolve away from the relaxed silhouette/quirky art teacher vibe I've been wearing the last few year, but I can't quite tell where to land yet.  I've been experimenting with different hem lines and silhouettes, trying to work out what makes me feel good in my clothes.  

I've been wearing a lot of separates this year, but one problem my Everyday skirts have is that the waistbands roll a lot during the day.  It makes me crazy and looks frumptastic.  I'm trying to work out why--I've decreased the height of the waistband to 1", which helped, but maybe I need to go down to 1/2", which makes the back elastic bit tricky.  I don't mind wearing a fitted waistband, but I have trouble getting those fitted well because my middle can fluctuate a bit during the day due to gastroparesis.  

The side profile of the Everyday Skirt also doesn't do me a lot of favors.  It makes me look much wider/thicker than I am, and that doesn't make me feel particularly good in my body either.  My sewing limitations are such that I know I have some fitting issues to overcome, but lack the skills to figure it out.  

There is also the perennial struggle of making new things when there are so many second hand clothes that could be thrifted instead, saving some waste and churn on the environment, but my proportions are such that finding RTW skirts that fit well are difficult.

I'm very much into slim skirts right now, but they can be hot in the summer (particularly the disgusting swamp the city becomes every summer) so I'm thrifting, trying to find something that will work for me (thank goodness ThredUp has a nice return policy!)  I'm also between sizes which is always challenging.  I have some navy yarn dye Brussels linen to make into some kind of skirt once I figure out a summer silhouette that feels good.

I didn't even bother to get or make a proper Pascha dress this year, because it just felt too hard.  None of my me-made dresses make me feel great.  I ended up wearing my basic navy knit dress with a new headscarf and a long navy cardigan and boots and calling it good.  As it happened, I would have been better off in my wools, as it was quite chilly, and the AC was on in the church to keep the clergy comfortable.  It was so cold all night!!

Blah-blah-blah, clothes are hard.  I'll let you know when I settle to something!  

Over and out.