On colour, personal style and palettes

My ideas on this one are all over the place, what else is new, but I will start in the middle and work out.

I think we all go through life transitions when we wonder about our personal style and if and how it should be updated.

After all how you look on the outside reflects a lot of how you feel about yourself on the inside. In my experience when there is something of a match it's a good thing.

Hands up anyone who has looked at their clothes at some point and said this isn't who I am any more?

New mothers with work clothes, students going into the workforce, moving from the ranks to management, somebody's mommy to suddenly somebody's mother-in-law.

Of course at every stage there are undertows that seem to carry you along, and promise that will be in the right direction. Career basics - black, grey and that damned white shirt for example.

Age appropriate is a good one too, and kind of tricky when you don't actually feel one bit older. 

Some of us, OK its me I am talking about, in fact feel as if we were the original hipster all along and a lot of folks are just now catching up.

You know, the sewing before it was cool crowd.

Which brings me to the expectation that black and grey loose clothes are sort of good taste. Timeless the word is, and I think this is probably true. 

I figure the last oversized vest outfit in its own way documented that.

However I really am drawn to colour. Even when it's not particularly tasteful.

I'm big on cheerful.

After all have you ever noticed that whenever someone says Gee you look nice today, it is nearly always the day you have on that red dress and almost never the day you are wearing a grey raincoat.

So despite the fact I have a bin of black and grey scraps I snagged at a designer's off cut sale, and have brought along to experiment with, I am still drawn to colour.

Case in point here, in an awful photograph with my most googley eye glasses on to catch the light, is a version of Stylearc's Blaire shirt.

 I made this as a chapter garment for the chapter in my book that's about measuring and patterns - obvious I know but I am a literal sort of person.

This is a really loose shirt, I made mine in a 10, down from the 12 my measurements would have indicated and I want you to know that I am completely aware it is kind of nutty.

But I laughed when I made it, and I laugh when I wear it, and it sure goes on and off fast when a person is trying on something she is sewing to check fit.

This one is sort of a sewer's Hawaiian shirt but since sewing is about as close as I get to feeling like Jimmy Buffet, it's perfect.