And the last word on colour

Wasn't that interesting?

Colour seems to be such an important topic because it is so personal (see comments, and note that teal has more fans than anticipated). Colour seems to be  part of the decision not be be neutral or the personal decision to compliment a neutral.

All of your comments have me thinking.

Here are some of those thoughts, or questions really:

• How many of you wear your favourite colours a lot, or at least give them a priority?

• How much of our basic colours are those that manufacturing has presented us with? We all know that cutting one colour for multiple garments sure saves fabric. How much more fabric would be saved if the colour range is contained? Look at this very interesting article from today's NY Times on how we are trained to feel the "Colour of the Year"

• Really I think a person would be hard pressed these days to sew a wardrobe without black if she wanted. In the winter at least black dominates. Try even finding navy leggings for example, or yoga pants easily in any thing other than black. Can you imagine how much even harder that would be if you were trying to build a wardrobe around teal or say plum?

• Only sewists have the choice to swim upstream colour wise, but then they can expect to stand out even more in the RTW sea around them.

• Coordinating is stil tough for many personal palette sewists, which is why many who decide to do this sew in "outfits" rather than separates, or use colour more for stand alone items like dresses and coats than basics. This would be me.

The other thing that impressed me from your comments is that a few of you mentioned that colour often attracted compliments and attention. Just yesterday in a Walmart I complimented a lady on her most beautiful shocking pink sweatshirt - she just looked so happy.

So if you accept the idea that colour can communicate or at least create emotional connection this is a tool of life worth considering.

I hope that none of you who saw this series were expecting a brilliant what French women wear type wardrobe plan in our discussion of personal style.

I am pretty sure that is being done elsewhere and being done well.

I think what's going on here instead is a conversation on how we use clothes, and as sewists we can define those, to talk to the world about who we are, or more importantly speak to ourselves about who we really are.

What's up next of course has to be body image.

Brace yourself for that one.

It's a biggy and will be something I will be pondering as we head west out of Texas tomorrow.

Finding your style series part two: inside colours

First of all, aren't the comments great?

I want to thank all of you who took the time to participate in this discussion. I am sure I am not the only one who has come away from reading all the thoughtful comments left here, with new insights, something new to think about.

In fact it was the mulling over that has taken me a few days until I was ready to write this next post, on colour, which I think is an important one too.

To recap though on neutrals here are my take aways:

• a neutral based wardrobe makes dressing easier and more efficient
• for many of us neutrals are comfortable - we feel less dominated by what we wear
• neutral dressing, at least as a component, is key to mix and match (what a great 60s term too bad no one but us uses it any more) separates dressing
• a colourful wardrobe is more challenging to construct as a cohesive unit

I certainly would add that neutral based dressing also tends to hit the suitable for the occasion mark more easily.

Now all that said I am not sure it is enough, at least for me.

Over time you come to terms with yourself I think. 

At some point if you are lucky you outrun the school system and societal standards (your body has flaws that need to be disguised for instance) that it was all about compensating for your "weaknesses" and realize that you will go a lot further if you just forget about those and build on your strengths. 

If you are a bossy older child become a manager, for instance rather than try to learn to settle down. If you ponder this long enough you are able to apply this to other people in your life too - see what they do really well as an expression of themselves rather than on the things you wish they would do differently.

Nurture their natures, as my daughter says about parenting.

Thinking about this has made my think about neutrals.

The thing is I don't feel neutral.

It has occurred to me that if you look at the above neutrals list of virtues that it is mainly about functionality and how clothes look from the outside.

But today I want to talk about how clothes feel from the inside and I think that's about colour.

About three years ago I saw a photo of myself all dressed head to toe in black - in my mind I was marvellously coordinated - but when I actually saw myself dressed like this it just looked so severe.

Not who I am at all.

I am just not that serious a person. The one quality I value in my friends is that they make me laugh. If someone is funny I more or less can forgive all other character flaws. I am random and am pretty sure things will all turn out. I eyeball it through life and get wound up about things I care about, about things I am making. I cry easily but not for very long. 

I think you get the picture. I am also sure that these aspects of me aren't going to change any time soon.

So within this context head to toe black, despite the fact it sort of suits my colouring, is not an accurate representation of me, a misrepresentation actually.

So about the time of this revelation I had to think about colour schemes for my book. The text of the book is pretty anecdotal and handy hinty and the one thing I wanted readers to do when they read it was to smile and to feel sewing was fun and not that hard.

As a result I decided to make all the garments bright, light and colourful. Probably more so than most people would wear (oh yes and a bowling shirt too, but I do like to bowl) but I thought it would look cheerful on the page. Maybe this was a dumb but at the time I thought this was a great idea.

During this process I decided to let myself just feel the colours I was drawn too. 

I realized this was a lot of colours I didn't often wear but just felt to me like a juice my insides craved. 

This ended up being a Lilly Pulitzer palette:

These reminded me of these colours, another thing that makes me happy, Bollywood dance scenes:

Yes I know this isn't heavy stuff but theses are the colours I feel inside.

So I am under revision.

I no longer wear black on its own. Best I can do is always wear it when I do with a lighter colour, like I did the other night when we went out, Jalie top, Style arc Brooklyn pants and Beshari jacket in off white silk:

 

Not really me but O.K.

I am also shifting over to grey as my base neutral. It goes with the palette above easily and I have discovered as far as one colour dressing different shades of grey look fine with each other, which is something you can't say about black or even navy.

I am opening myself up to colour these days and it resonates with me and who I am.

For example I was thrilled to see that the rivers here in Texas, Austin and area at least, are turquoise:

I have been swimming here in the unbelievable Barton Springs pool and you can't imagine how happy it makes me to be in water this colour.

Just like this shoes I wear to walk there along the river trail:

Now you tell me about colour.

What colours do you feel inside and how do they make you feel?

And even what is your favourite colour?

This so often the first question children ask when they are making conversation and something adults never ask each other. 

Think about that fact.

What is your favourite colour?

Finding your style series part one: Life is not a funeral and the neutral dilemma

O.K.

Well remember when I did a hemming knits series?

I really enjoyed doing that but even more I enjoyed the comments.

I like this blog best when it is a discussion, not a presentation.

So before I do a series on hand stitches, and I am still going to do that, I thought it would be interesting to open up the floor to a discussion of finding your style.

This is an issue a lot of women think about a lot.

Like me.

Yesterday.

And today.

People who are thinking about their personal style, in my opinion, have just had one of these life experiences:

• they catch sight of themselves in a window on the walk down some street. They see that reflection and they think "is that dowdy/fat/schleppy woman me?" They realize at some point they have become the person their younger selves promised they would never be.
• they go to an evening event where all the other women seem to be wearing high heeled boots and tight black sheath dresses and they feel they have a sign on them that reads "I got my pants at Costco and I spend most of my nights in bed knitting while I watch Netflx." As opposed to say drinking Nergronis.
• they get out the clothes they save for good to go out to a meeting, or to meet folks they used to work with, and realize while they were waiting for good the same clothes got way out of date and way too tight.
• they realize that if they had to pull together a favourite outfit there is nothing they have in the closet that they really like all that much, in particular those things that they put on their bodies most days.
• they go to parent teacher and they wish they could be as fashionable as the grade three teacher.
• they show the kids pictures of themselves when they were younger and the kids say "Mom you were so stylish!" in surprised sort of voices.

Women start to think about personal style when they suspect they don't have any.

Real style that is.

I have been reading, as we all have, a lot of wardrobing and style advice. 

My idea right now is that we consider, on a large and philosophical level, some of the big ideas in the style advising world, kick them around and explore what isn't and is true.

How does that sound to you?

To start with I want to talk about a central concept. 

And that is that every wardrobe, every plan of a bunch of clothes that express your own personal style, begin with some neutral basics.

As a common sense approach neutrals make a lot of common sense. Here, in my view, are those sensible ideas:

1. Economic. If you want to save money and cover the something to wear to a lot of events territory, then neutrals will do that. I know when I worked a fairly dressed up job my two black skirts and two black pants were worn in some incarnation nearly every day. No one in human history has ever said "Hey aren't those the same black pants you wore just Tuesday this week?" 

Who can tell? Who would remember? Who would even care?

You wear the same orange mohair sweater three times a week for six months and someone is going to say something eventually, guaranteed, as in "Gee you sure must like that sweater (I sure don't)."

Black separates are the ultimate invisible man garments.

2. The neutrals go with everything, assuming you can contain yourself to some sort of a colour family. Navy, grey, brown, beige, black. Except for navy which is sort of its own territory reserved for the navy I guess, most neutrals can even be extended into neutral pairs, black and grey, beige and brown. In this case the neutral even can go with itself. Economic and practical.

Mind boggling in its efficiency.

3. A lot of neutrals, particularly those that go with themselves or something nearly like itself, really reduces dressing thought. Put it on, it goes with everything, and no one will remember it anyway. Men have this down pat. Maybe twice a year a man might think "navy suit or grey suit" and his wardrobe plotting is done for the rest of that calendar year. If you are too tired or too busy or too thinking about more important things than clothes neutrals take the pressure off.

In general taking the pressure off IMO should always be a major life aim.

4. Neutrals are classy. We are back here to that orange mohair sweater. Neutrals are elegant. Monochromatic neutral outfits are dignified in particular and always appropriate. The same cannot be said for clown pants for example. And since pretty well no one I know, myself comes to mind, are really on the inside all that elegant, dignified, or always appropriate, it surely is helpful to have clothes disguise you out in these areas.

Now all of this leads us naturally to press conferences.

In my other life, one of my several other lives, I had to go online and watch a press conference on the local news so I could comment on it.

I can't show you the whole panorama but here is a small part of the view of the folks on stage:

Now there were about 40 people there and remarkably every single one of them was wearing black, all or mostly. 

This is in Nova Scotia in February which is itself pretty dark and depressing to the point that folks either end up in RVs down south or are sitting at the kitchen table in front of seasonal affective disorder lights (I sold mine on Kijji when we decided to go south in the winters and spent the money on fabric).

I looked at this press conference and thought, well life isn't a funeral and maybe this whole neutral thing has got out of hand.

Really it as enough to make this girl go put on this top made out of some nice poplin bought in New York at one of this tiny shops that sadly is now out of business. The pattern Stylearc's Maggie Shirt

Not one of my more flattering pictures, so just look at the top not the face. And of course the navy pants.

So my questions to you for tonight is this:

How important to defining a personal style and building a wardrobe to reflect it are neutral colours. Do you think you have to pick one, or two?

Is your position on neutrals settling in or changing?

What advice would you give anyone on the subject of neutrals?

Over to you.

Dropped pocket cardigan review Jalie 3248

My photographer is supposed to notice things like a wrinkle over my belly, but he never does, sorry

If you live in Canada, as I do, the word cardigan makes you think of something thick and probably pilled that you wrap up in because you are freezing.

Everyone needs a couple of cardigans like that, hanging over the back of the office chair, on a hook near the back door.

But cardigans, done right, can be a pretty classy layering piece, every bit as finished as a jacket when you are a situation where one is required, or you want to look classy when one isn't.

The idea is a twin set, a shell with a matching jacket underneath. As a concept I love twin sets but the boxy just below the waist traditional teams just don't flatter me at all.

I am long and need something longer to feel covered.

But I still wanted to make something twin set-esque and I  had this pattern, Jalie 3248 for a while now:

Interestingly the pattern description says it is meant to be worn over a shell or tank. It makes sense to pay attention to this description.

This is not your cozy winter cardigan. 

The fronts are not meant to meet at all and the sleeves (widen them from the elbow down if you want more room) are narrow, too narrow for a sleeve underneath.

That said for a little something to have on over a shell or tank it is perfect, just perfect.

There is a real place for that little extra something, once the weather warms up. But best of all to me is that this cardigan can add the functionality of real pockets to a summer top.

If the fabric is light enough, this  cardigan is a way of adding pockets without a lot of warmth and weight - I'm thinking of taking your phone with you when you walk on the beach, carrying poop bags when you walk the dog, having your car keys and debit card when you run into the store.

That kind of pockety thing.

So here we go, beautifully shot and styled in the inside of the RV because it started to rain outside.

The shell underneath was made out of an old T shirt pattern I lengthened. Because the rayon knit was so thin I double fronted it and lettuce trimmed the hems by stretching as I rolled hem on my serger.

The cardigan was made from the same colour of a heavier knit, still very light, but with a lot more texture - one of those slub knits that you never know what you can make with it.

I was pretty concerned actually that even this slub knit was too flimsy to really hold a cardigan shape. That was one reason I chose the dropped cardigan pattern.

The fronts are doubled - that's how the the pockets are made, pretty nifty technique as are so many of Jalie's pockets - so that added enough weight to hold the shape of the front edge.

I was so happy with this set I put it in my book - bright I know - but who doesn't need cheerful?

I have another version of this at home - will show you that one when I get back - and I wish I had brought that set with me too for the trip, very useful.

And I am definitely going to make myself another one in white for summer too - there are many times when I walk a beach and need a place for my debit card, my keys, my phone and of course Daisy's little bags.

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.

Podcast news

As some of you may know, and I think I mentioned earlier, I did a podcast interview over at the Clothesmaking Mavens a while ago.

The interview turned out to be sort of a spoken flypaper thoughts.

As a result of that experience Lori and Helena, the mavens, asked me to join them with a little contribution each podcast.

You can find the latest podcast, including my little bit recorded live in the rv from Austin Texas, while I had a cold, here. 

Apparently I am now going to be one of the mavens, a development I never would have expected but isn't life interesting?

Sewing a reversible unit to wear on top of leggings

Reversible vest unit (fake suede side out) over Costco leggings and a stand alone cowl made out of a scrap I got in sort of a grab bag bin at a sale.

As all of you in the American South know already it has been a cold winter. Not Nova Scotia cold, nowhere near it, but relatively speaking cooler than anticipated.

The trip down here, we left in January down the roads from the frozen North, was also pretty cold and I have been wearing my fleece lined leggings (thank you Mr. Costco 2 for $20) a lot.

A lot.

The thing is that I am not usually much of a legging wearer generally.

I worry that I am past appropriate legging wearing age. And have wondered if I would look like so many of my students who have been wearing them as pants substitutes with tiny tops and so often look like there must be part of the outfit left at home.

As a consequence I don't have a lot of warm tops that are legging long enough, to cover the areas I have been working hard on with my husband's wonderful dinners and the appetite of a 14 year-old-boy that is one of my trademarks.

So in fit of utility sewing (I nearly never make something practical just because I need it) I decided to jump off a cliff and make something that I would not normally wear at all - a pullover vest unit thing.

I already had this Vogue pattern I had originally bought for the jacket (yet unrealized). 

Since it was a set it also included this top and I thought well why not? It would cover the wide parts encased by leggings and would let me to use a variety of random turtlenecks and tops underneath for warmth:

The fabric I used was a weird knit that was grey single knit jersey fused to some fake black suede. I got it  by the pound bin at G Street Fabrics in DC when I was there for a wedding in the fall. I actually ran out fabric shopping in one of those lulls you get in weddings while everyone takes pictures.

I had no idea what I was going to make from it at the time, but since there aren't any washing machines in state parks and because I struggle to stick to a carry-on when I fly, I got the great idea to make a reversible vest.

Nothing fancy of course. 

I loaded up the serger on the picnic table with black thread and 4 thread serged up the shoulders and side seams, grey sides together. This gave me neat seams on the grey vest and I just straight stitched the serged seam allowances down on the black side.

Looks OK.

For the raw edges of the hem, armholes, and neckline I serge finished them and then folded the black to the grey side and topstitched them all down.

Note the original pattern called for an attached cowl but I wanted to keep such a multi-use garment versatile. As a result I left that off and just made a cowl like ring to put around my neck from a remnant I found in another bin in another location.

Surprisingly I kind of like how this turned out. 

I have cut out another one in red fleece for cold weather - I am aware we are going back up North again at some point.

And here we go. 

The dress code in Texas state parks is not that defined and anything fits right in: