Not quite repetition

I actually took a picture of this outfit a few weeks ago, but then I managed to smudge coffee grounds on the top while making breakfast so I ended up changing into something else and not posting an outfit picture that day. Today, however, the top survived the whole day unsullied by tea, coffee or anything else. So at least something went right on what was otherwise a somewhat fraught day.

Top – clothes swap, crochet flowers added by me (to cover tea-stains – there’s a reason why I don’t own many white tops!)
Skirt – Monsoon
Shoes – Greenshoes

Blue and green

I am really coming to like the way Lyttelton shows off my figure. I might have to make another one. Or something else similar, I suppose, although I think part of it is the depth of the back and sides and the vast majority of shrug patterns seem to be much straighter across the back.

Shrug – Lyttelton
Necklace – White Stuff
T-shirt – M&S
Skirt – made by me
Shoes – Greenshoes

I’m also vaguely wondering about buying the Sewaholic Renfrew pattern to try to make really well-fitting t-shirts. But then again, I’ve also been wondering about making my own knickers, and yesterday’s post brought three metres of flowery poly/cotton from Croft Mill to attempt a wearable muslin of the Bebe. I think my ambitions may be outstripping my capacity a bit…

Black and white and browny-purple all over

I was intending to wear my red cardigan today, hence the post title, but my Cinnamon Girl just demanded to be worn.

Necklace – Monsoon
Cardigan – Cinnamon Girl
T-shirt – M&S
Belt – came with a skirt
Skirt – vintage fair
Shoes – Heavenly Feet

And now it’s Friday, after what has been a long and challenging week, and I’m very much looking forward to the weekend!

Year end blues

Yesterday was the last day of our financial year, which meant that today was the first day of Year End – the weeks following the end of the year when we have to finalise all the figures and make sure the accounts are correct before the auditors come in. My team aren’t directly involved in producing the accounts, but things are still a little bit stressful, so maybe I subconsciously chose a more muted outfit than normal. (I didn’t particularly think of it as muted, but a colleague complained in a meeting this morning that she always looked forward to seeing the bright colours I wear, and it was disappointing to find me in blue. Apparently, I have a standard to uphold.)

Cardigan – Hey Teach!
Blouse – charity shop
Skirt – made by me
Shoes – Greenshoes

It was also a very ethical outfit – nothing at all that was bought new from a mass-market retailer!

Meanwhile, the shawl I knitted over the Jubilee weekend has arrived with its intended recipient, so I can finally post pictures!

It’s the p/hop pattern Trinity Shawlette by Anniken Allis. The yarn is also one of Anni’s – Glorious Sock, 60% merino, 15% bamboo, 10% silk and 10% nylon – which I bought at the UK Ravelry Day in Coventry in 2009. Sadly, it now seems to be discontinued which is a real shame as it was absolutely wonderful to knit with – beautifully soft and smooth and with such a lovely drape.

The pattern is quite straightforward and easy to remember, the kind of lace knitting that isn’t really any harder than stocking stitch but more interesting to knit, which probably explains why I found it so absorbing I managed to finish the shawl in a weekend!

Anyway, I hope my partner gets plenty of wear out of it. Meanwhile, I’m eagerly anticipating the arrival of my own shawl some day soon!

Fit and proper

As I think I’ve mentioned before, I don’t really like wearing t-shirts for work – they never quite feel smart enough – but I’ve never managed to find an alternative that works with my patterned skirts, and I do like patterned skirts.

Necklace – White Stuff
Cardigan – Gap
T-shirt – M&S
Skirt – made by me
Shoes – Greenshoes

Wearing a long necklace seems to help to smarten up a t-shirt, and of course it helps that this one is brand new and hasn’t developed random fading like a lot of my t-shirts have, but I think the basic problem with t-shirts is that they don’t really fit me properly, and while it is possible to look smart in a well-fitting t-shirt a badly-fitting one just looks scruffy, whereas a poor fit would be less noticeable in something that was smarter to start off with.

And I don’t think I own a top or a dress that is a good fit on my top half. Mostly, like today’s t-shirt, I end up with something that fits my waist, is a bit tight over my bust and too big on the shoulders and upper back. People keep suggesting that instead of struggling with full bust adjustments I could just copy a top I like the fit of, which would be a lovely idea if there were any tops I liked the fit of, but actually, I’m not terribly keen on sewing and there’s no way I’d be persevering with something which is difficult and exhausting and takes up time when I could otherwise be knitting if I could get things I liked in the shops. So I persevere. Maybe one day I’ll crack it…

Summertime blues

Because it is summer, however much it may feel like it isn’t, and I ended up in blue today although in the more metaphorical sense I’ve been feeling more cheerful than I have done for a long time recently.

Cardigan – Monsoon
Blouse – charity shop
Skirt – made by me
Shoes – Jones Bootmaker

Having worn this skirt a couple of times I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, though I think I need to sew the bottom of the zip to the seam allowance as it kept flipping up and poking into me today, and the skirt also kept sliding up from my waist, although I think that’s a problem all skirts have because my actual waist is several inches higher than my wearing waist and the skirts naturally slide towards the narrowest point of my torso. This is, of course, one of the many reasons I like dresses so much!

I also got home from work to find the contents of the Box of Robotness I won in the lovely Crinoline Robot’s giveaway. Including a genuine cold war Soviet nuclear scientist’s lapel pin, which is really quite fabulous!

Peaches and cream

Today was one of those days when I couldn’t shake the feeling that something awful was going to happen. Fortunately, the worst thing that actually happened was opening the cap of my fountain pen in a meeting and realising that it had dropped two large splodges of purple ink onto my skirt. I’m not sure why, it doesn’t usually leak or blot, but at any rate it was washable ink and I managed to get it to fade to near-invisibility by sticking the affected bit of skirt under the taps in the Ladies’. And I think the rest will come out with washing.

Cardigan – Gap
Blouse – charity shop
Skirt – White Stuff
Shoes – Jones Bootmaker

I seem to have rediscovered my enthusiasm for outfit pictures, at least for now. I actually quite like having a record of the way I’ve worn my clothes, and sometimes looking back over my outfit pictures when I’m struggling to come up with ideas for what to wear will inspire me. And also, I really enjoy reading the kind of outfit blogs that are written by ordinary women who are dressing for ordinary lives – work, spending time with friends and family, that sort of thing – rather than the increasingly fashion-focused style blogs that seem to be becoming increasingly common, full of fashion shows and designer clothes and outfits that would certainly raise a few eyebrows in my office, and while I’m not entirely sure my outfit posts are of much interest to anyone apart from a handful of my friends it somehow feels right that my blog should reflect the things I enjoy reading in other people’s blogs.

And, although I think there has been something of a decline in the number of outfit blogs recently, there are still a few I love, so if you do enjoy my outfit posts you might like to check these out!

Oranges and Apples. Franca is from Luxembourg originally, lives in Edinburgh and is married to a Scotsman, but is currently working in Brussels. I love her colourful outfits and the creative use she makes of vintage, second-hand and handmade items, and I also enjoy her more thought-provoking posts about feminism, body image and the influence of the media.

Tea and Feathers. I first encountered Cat on a Ravelry group, and her blog was one of my main inspirations when I started taking outfit photos; all the other blogs I read seemed scarily well-established, but Cat seemed like an ordinary person and made me feel that maybe I could blog about what I wore without coming across as a vain, shallow idiot with illusions of being a trendsetter. Also, her post titles keep reminding me of songs I haven’t heard for far too long!

Frocks and Frou Frou. I’ve had a fair amount of blog and Twitter interaction with both Franca and Cat, but I just admire Lilli from a distance, because her outfits are such fun!

All white now

I don’t normally wear white tops, because I don’t like how I look in them; I always think the white is just too much of a contrast with my hair and eyes. I recently bought a couple of bright cotton cardigans, though, and it struck me that if I wanted to wear them with my colourful skirts it would probably be better to opt for more neutral tops if I didn’t want to risk looking as though I’d been caught in an explosion in a paint factory, so I bought a couple of plain white t-shirts, and I tried wearing one today.

Necklace – White Stuff
Cardigan – Monsoon
T-shirt – M&S
Skirt – made by me
Shoes – Heavenly Feet

And actually, I think it looked OK, with or without the cardigan.

Blue skirt

I actually managed to sew something that wasn’t made of unbleached calico!

The skirt is from the same McCall’s pattern I used in the beginners’ dressmaking class I took last year; the fabric is Klona cotton which I got from Backstitch. It’s a quilting cotton really, I think, quite stiff and heavy, but that didn’t seem to be a problem for a simple A-line skirt where a drapier fabric wouldn’t really have worked.

The fit at the back is a bit odd, but as I’m planning to wear it with untucked blouses, that’s not really going to be a problem (and nor is the fact that the zip I used seemed to be slightly short so there’s quite a big gap at the top; I’ve sewn on a hook and eye but it’s still slightly odd-looking).

I made it because I wanted a plain blue skirt to wear with a couple of printed cotton blouses I picked up in the charity shop near work, and it does the job. It seemed like hard going, though, especially given that I’ve made the pattern before and this is the fourth A-line skirt I’ve made. Or maybe because of that; maybe boredom at doing the same thing again is making it seem harder. I certainly don’t find that I enjoy sewing the way I enjoy knitting; sewing is all about slogging on because I want the finished garment, but I’ll keep knitting whether I need what I’m making or not. And I do wonder, when I’ve put several hours into making a not-very-good basic skirt and am feeling cranky and fed up afterwards, whether I really want the finished garments enough to keep slogging away at the sewing…

Not much goes with orange…

Not only is orange a word with almost no rhymes at all, it’s a colour that doesn’t go with very many other colours. Or at least not in my wardrobe. Which is why, having successfully paired my orange top with one of my vintage print skirts, I found myself struggling to find a cardigan that would go and ended up wearing my slouchy M&S men’s cardi to work on the grounds that at least the colour was right.

Cardigan, top and tights – M&S
Skirt – vintage
Shoes – Clarks

Not the smartest outfit ever, but I think it was OK.

I’m usually a bit wary about mixing patterns together, but my new mac is rather forcing the issue unless I want to stick to only plain skirts (which is not going to happen). The effect as I was knitting on the bus on the way home was particularly floral:

(Clockwise from top: knitting bag, mac, skirt.)

Then again, I used to have floral patchwork dungarees, back in my hippy-student days…