Can you tell?

... that I have time of college? After weeks of writing one test after another I finally have time to lounge around my parents house, cook, sew and write blog posts :) Today is all about my personal colour palette. And how to find yours if you're hard to fit into the classical four colour seasons or the 12 or even 16 flow colour seasons.

The list of death

Good morning blog-land!

I can't believe how crowded the past few weeks month have been. I went from writing pages upon pages in my diary every day to writing maybe a page every three weeks :( I always just fell asleep before I got the chance to write anything. But thinking about my personal style and all the clothes I'm going to make when I have a break from university calms me down and helps me focus better afterwards. So let's get started shall we?

In my last post about body shape and personal style I came to realise, that I am an hourglass with shoulders that are just a bit to wide. It might just be my preference for pear body shapes over hourglasses. I don't know why but I also prefer heart shaped and inverted triangle faces over oval ones. Contemplating why that might be is a matter for another post though. So my aim today is to find a list of desirable properties for my clothes and also a list of things I should avoid at any cost.

Since my ideal body shape isn't the same as the “ideal body shape” all body shape bibles etc. talk of I had to piece this together for myself. I mainly used two great websites to help me do so:

• http://www.insideoutstyleblog.com which is simply amazing! Imogen Laport – who runs the site – defines more than just the standard four body shapes and even shows photos of different women for each shape. All the tips are very well thought through and coherent. I found her hints for minimizing square shoulders especially helpful.
• http://bodyshapestyle.com is also a great place for advice. I especially enjoyed this article about the whole skin vs. shape dilema and also the butt vs. bust if you go for showing skin. Though it is meant only for evening wear I think it can also be used for every day wear. There was also an article that contained the sentence: “Use the best type of fabric you can afford.” What's not to love about that?

So I started with the list of things I shouldn't wear:

THE LIST OF DEATH (not melodramatic at all)

• high necklines, especially turtle necks as they make my shoulders look wider and overemphasise my bust
  
• cap sleeves or gathered sleeves: again to much emphasis on the shoulders
  
  Since this is a fluffiness issue extra fullness at the hip and emphasis on the waist could work
  
• frills and colour accents around the shoulder line
• this one goes without saying: baggy clothes! No-one looks good in baggy clothes! And I don't sew for myself only to have clothes with horrible fit either.
• 
  
  Wide necklines – I'm taking this to mean necklines that go past my bra strap as necklines that just about cover them look great as long as they're not to shallow.
• Chunky fabrics – I'm not objecting as I like “feminine”, drapey fabrics that move in the breeze much better
• anything strapless as I like to be able to dance in all of my clothes and I think a strapless bra sliding up and down all the time wouldn't be very helpful
  
  
• this picture also illustrates that I have to be careful with short hemlines as it tends to look cheap very quickly (but I'd be happy to accept other opinions on this … do you find this dress appealing on my figure?)

On another note: These pictures make me realise that my ribs seem to be sticking out quite a lot. That might explain some weird fitting issues I have around the waist and under bust region. Do you think I could/should wear a corset for formal events to push my ribs in? It wouldn't need to be industrial strength as I can just push my ribs in with my fingers. A long line bra might be all that's needed now that I come to think of it. That might also help with the strapless bra problem. Does anyone have experience with wearing a long line bra to go strapless?

Butterfly

PS: Thank you for the nice comments :)

Remember me?

Once upon a time there was a little butterfly, who started to write a blog. And she was really exited to finaly have a place to show of her work and ask more advanced seamstresses for advice. But then she fell into a most terrible sewing de motivation factored by two things:

• The new sewing machine she was supposed to get for Christmas simply wouldn't arrive. She drove by the shop on a daily basis. The shop owner always saw her coming in and before she could even inquire about her new baby he made an apologetic face and lifted his hand's in an it's-out-of-my-power-gesture. Now who would want to continue doing anything creative under those conditions?
• The one thing this little butterfly loved more than sewing was dancing. Unfortunately spending twelve hours per week at dance practice resulted in some mayor changes in her figure. And so she'd have to unpick everything after less than a month and do alterations. And the little butterfly hates unpicking seams.

But eventually the sewing machine arrived and the little butterfly at least started to write her blog again in order to ask people for help with defining her new shape.

So uhm I'm back again :) As you probably realised I'm the little butterfly. Even though the story might be just a bit melodramatic.

But let's get to the point shall we? Nothing fits any more! The practice skirt I'd sewn for myself now looks like a sack of potatoes on me. If I hadn't sewn in a waist band elastic by hand it would just fall over my hips. It's not all due to weight loss though since it went in the tumbler and the stretchy fabric came out permanently stretched.  I'm still not sure if I want to sew a new one any time soon. It still looks better than the other practice skirts in my formation. They're just meters upon meters of jersey gathered to a too tight, too thin elastic waistband. They also have a lot of holes around the gem because your heels will still get caught if you shorten the hem to 30 cm of the floor. Paint a bad enough picture yet?

What I'm currently concerned with is finding out what my new body shape is and what  would suit me now.

What body shape am I?!

 I took this picture right after breakfast so my stomach is a bit puffed out. It's usually more concave. I also had ten hours worth of dance practise the day before so I'm still half in dance posture

But lets get started on analysing that shall we?

I seam to have:

• equally wide hips and shoulders
• a high (short) waist, which looks average since ...
• my bust is a lot higher than most peoples
• my widest point from the front (just around crotch) is not my widest point from the side (butt)
• I have muscular thighs from dancing on slippery floors (the "quicker" the floor is, the closer you get to squatting)
• my calves are also well defined from the rise and fall action in standard dances (rising unto the tips of your toes and going back down in something that resembles a sine wave)
• I screwed up the arms because they are actually more muscular than some of the boy's I know (thank you seven years of climbing)
• my waist is my smallest part

That would leave me as an hourglass wouldn't it? But the side view doesn't look very hourglassy to me. It's more like an inverted triangle with shapely legs .... What do you think?

Since that didn't really help I tried to find which body shape I am by layering these pictures over my own:

After a bit of stretching I could finally start looking for my body shape.

I'm not a vase since my shoulders and hips peek out and her waist peeks out behind mine. Can you see what  I mean?

And then I can't be sure if I'm a cello or an hourglass since both pictures seem to "fit" my body equally well. Of course that leaves you wondering at what the difference between the two is. Anyone want to help me play spot the difference?