Sock it to ‘em

A few weeks ago, I mused on whether or not I could wear leggings and Mary Jane shoes with handknitted socks without ending up looking slightly mad, and everyone here assured me that it would be perfectly fine, particularly if I was meeting knitters. Given that the weather remains a bit on the chilly side for shoes and bare feet and I have really had more than enough of boots and that I was off to the Purlescence open day where I would be surrounded by knitters I decided to give it a try.

Shawl – Brandywine
Cardigan – Cinnamon Girl
Top – Uniqlo
Skirt – Next
Leggings – M&S
Socks – Vellamo
Shoes – Greenshoes

I think it worked, and I’m particularly pleased with the way the Fair Isle bands on the feet of the socks just show above the tops of the shoes.

The Purlescence open day was good too, and I managed to get the three small skeins of Voluptuous I wanted to go with my two large ones for a Chickadee. It was lucky that I had arranged to go with a friend, though, as that meant that when I got in my car (which I think I last drove in early March) and it didn’t start* we could change plans so she came and picked me up rather than vice versa as we’d planned and I still got to go!

*A flat battery is always a possibility when I don’t use my car at all in the week and only do so occasionally at the weekends, and I suspect the fact that for a lot of the last couple of months leaving the house at weekends at all was more than I was capable of hasn’t really helped matters.

Thank goodness it’s Friday

It seems to have been a long week, and I was very glad when it dot to five o’clock today. Even though I didn’t actually leave the office until five-thirty.

Shawl – Juliana
Shawl pin – Purlescence
Top – M&S
Skirt – made by me
Tights – Monsoon
Shoes – Clarks

Anyway, my plans for the weekend include visiting the Purlescence open day (where I’m rather hoping to get some of Skein Queen’s Voluptuous to go with the two skeins I bought in Glasgow to practice my new Fair Isle skills by making Ysolda’s Chickadee), makihg myself some pyjama bottoms and possibly another Birgitte if I get the time. And knitting, of course. Although before any of that I plan on sleeping rather a lot!

Cheerful shoes

There are all kinds of reason for choosing to wear particular clothes. Some people pick clothes for confidence, or want to look sexy or fit in with a particular group. I tend to choose clothes that are fun and make me smile: bright colours, quirky details, interesting patterns. Which is why I ended up buying these shoes the other day, because they were such a lovely cheerful colour and I knew the bows would make me smile every time I looked down at my feet.

Necklace – Fair Trade shop
Cardigan – Monsoon
Top – Gap
Skirt – made by me
Tights – Debenhams
Shoes – Office

I appear to be getting quite a reputation at work for having fabulous shoes, which surprises me a little as I have always found it so hard to buy shoes. Maybe I’m just getting better at picking out the pairs that do work for me and not buying boring shoes just because they’re what tends to be available. I’ve always agreed with William Morris’s exhortation to “have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful”, but better than either is managing to combine the two and have things which are both useful and beautiful!

Turquoise and magenta and cats, oh my!

A surprising number of people commented on how co-ordinated my outfit today looked, possibly because the cardigan and the tights matched so well. In any case, it was a very cheering outfit.

Shawl – Galathea
Cardigan – Monsoon
Dress – White Stuff
Tights – M&S
Shoes – Arche

Don’t give me songs

I spent all morning with my light box on, which seems ridiculous in May, but it does seemed to have helped to lift my mood a bit.

Shawl – Hypernova
Shawl pin – Nova Steel
Dress – Mary Portas
Shoes – Camper

And I must be feeling a little better generally, because the podcast I was listening to on the bus home finished when I still had about ten minutes of the journey to go and I actually chose to listen to some music to fill in the time. I can’t listen to music when I’m really depressed, or at least I can sometimes listen to classical music but not anything else. I think it’s because the essence of most pop/rock/folk songs is emotion, polished and crafted and packed into three minutes, and when I’m so depressed I can’t feel anything at all it feels as though they’re taunting me with my own inadequacy. So actually, the fact that after months of podcasts I listened to three songs on shuffle and didn’t just keep skipping pointlessly through to try to find something that felt right is a really big deal for me, however small a thing it might seem to anyone else.

The black dog is back

Last week’s beautiful weather seems to have gone for good; instead, it’s cool and intermittently chucking it down with rain and even hail. Sadly, my wonderful golden happy mood seems to have vanished with the sunshine and warm weather and instead my mood has been fluctuating between twitchy and anxious, irritable and downright miserable.

Cardigan – Cinnamon Girl
Dress – M&S
Shoes – Clarks

I really hope we get some more nice weather soon, and that somehow it manages to have enough of an effect to last more than a few days. Having a brain that only functions properly in warm sunny weather is something of a disadvantage living in the UK!

On the subject of depression, I would recommend this post from Hyperbole and a Half (and its predecessor) to anyone who wants to understand how depression feels, because it totally nails it. Particularly the bit about the fish.

Anyway, things are not as bad now as they were a month or so ago, even if it may feel worse because I was so much better so recently. And maybe this is just a blip and I’ll feel better in a couple of days; sometimes half the problem is just the fear of falling all the way back down again, even when I’m still not very far down at all.

Trousers!

I was surprised that only one person commented that they’d never seen me wearing trousers before today, but then I suppose I was sitting behind a desk most of the time. I’m rather liking these, anyway.

Cardigan – February Lady
Blouse – charity shop
Trousers – Monsoon
Shoes – Jones Bootmaker

Also, I didn’t sign up for Me-Made May because I thought I probably didn’t have enough me-made work-appropriate clothes, but I’ve been playing along anyway and am quite impressed that managed ten days of wearing something I’ve made so far. Next year I think I’ll definitely do it for real!

New clothes

I’m trying not to buy too many new clothes, because I already have loads of things and I want to try to make more of my clothes going forward, but when I popped into M&S for some tights last week and saw this dress on sale for £12 I couldn’t resist it.

Shawl – Isaura
Dress – M&S
Shoes – Clarks

I also surprised myself today by buying a pair of trousers. I think the last time I bought trousers was about three years ago, and I’m mostly happy wearing skirts, but T bought me a top for my birthday that I think will look better with trousers, and it also struck me that a pair of plain trousers might be a good partner for me-made tops in pretty printed cottons which wouldn’t go with my print skirts (this is thinking ahead, and assumes that I have now worked out how to do a Full Bust Adjustment properly, of course). So I have bought a pair of navy blue cotton trousers in a pleat-fronted, tapered-leg style that a couple of years ago I’d have dismissed as unbelievably middle-aged looking, but which now look rather cute and a bit Fifties, and possibly even surprisingly trendy, and which also remind me of a pair of trousers I had in the late 90s that I remember wearing a lot and rather liking. Whether I ever actually wear them remains to be seen, of course!

It’s my birthday and I’ll wear penguins if I want to

A brief and early post today, as we’re going out to dinner, but I couldn’t think of a better occasion to debut the awesomeness that is my penguin skirt. Especially as I have a day full of meetings that will only be improved by being able to look down at my lap and see penguins!

Cardigan – Monsoon
Necklace – East
Top – M&S
Skirt – made by me
Shoes – Greenshoes

Dotty

I have to say, it is a fabulous feeling to go to work wearing an outfit I’ve made myself, and even more fabulous to have people compliment me on it and be able to reply ‘oh, thanks, I made it myself’.

Necklace – Fair Trade shop
Top and skirt – made by me
Belt – came with skirt
Shoes – Camper

After I’d finished sewing yesterday I watched some of the Craftsy “Sew The Perfect Fit” online class I’ve signed up to. I haven’t been making the test garment along with the course, and I’m not sure I’ll ever go through all the fitting steps the tutor outlines, but it is interesting and helpful watching and the episode I watched yesterday, on upper body adjustments, really helped with my understanding of how a properly fitted bodice should look. It also made me finally realise what the tutorials and sewing books mean when they talk about marking the ‘apex of the bust’, which is part of where I’ve been going wrong. I mean, I’m not stupid; I know what an apex is, but I’d normally associate it with triangles or at least something with a certain amount of pointiness, and busts are not generally pointy unless you’re wearing one of those weird conical bras like Madonna did. My bust is large and rounded and trying to decide which part of the (fairly large) forward-facing part was the forwardmost was really rather problematic. Rather like trying to find the apex of half a grapefruit, with the added problem that said you can only see said half-grapefruit in sideways view and only just far enough away from your eyes to focus on it.

Ah, you might say, but grapefuit have the little indenty bit where the stalk was, or the slightly pointy bit where the flower was. Surely that’s how you determine where their apexes are? To which I reply, well, yes, cleverclogs, but grapefruit aren’t actually perfectly symmetrical and the little indenty bit or the pointy bit might be kind of off-centre and not actually at the apex of the grapefuit at all.

Anyway, what I have now realised is that cleverclogs you are right, and mathematically precise me has been barking up the wrong tree trying to find the exact middle of the most forward-projecting part of my bust, because what the tutorials and sewing books actually mean when they say apex is nipple. Why they can’t just say nipple I don’t know, but anyway, that explains why all my darts end up looking wrong. So armed with this knowledge I might have another go at the Colette Sorbetto next time I have some sewing time and see how I get on!