A Palette Cleanser

Wednesday, I cut out the New Look 6273 cardigan in a black ribbed knit and a t-shirt in a charcoal sweater knit. When I woke up yesterday morning, I opted for the familiar - a t-shirt as a palette cleanser. Using my T & T pattern, it takes me an hour to an hour and a half to sew a t-shirt depending on how things are flowing that day. Sometimes, I just want to buy a RTW tee but every time I'm tempted to run to the store, I remind myself that sewing it will take less time than driving there and making the rounds hoping to find what I could sew exactly.





My favourite neckline is a slightly rounded V. When I drafted the pattern, I used the French curve to draw a curve into the point of the V. It's neither round, nor scooped, nor a sharp V and it works really well for me.





Because this is a sweater knit and unlikely to be worn in summer, I chose long sleeves. Mostly I sew three quarter length.





Here's the outfit. I knit the scarf a few weeks ago and love the way it goes with the print. I plan to wear the outfit at SewExpo and will add comfy shoes and earrings. The pants are out of print Vogue 8712, another design by Marcy Tilton, one of my favourite designers.





I sewed view C with the wonderfully angled seams at front and the princess seams at back. These are what I consider architectural details. With the print fabric, you can't see the seams yet they still add structure. I sewed these pants in 2012. The fabric is a knit. It's the only piece I have with gold in it. Luckily, the turquoise was louder.






In her comments yesterday, Neufy said she feels strongly that I am a type 3 so to honor her suggestion, I looked at least a dozen type 3 pages on Pinterest. There were hundreds of pictures with only a few that resonated. I dislike the color of both of these garments above. Black would be better. I liked the V neckline front and back, the architectural details of the weave, the drama of the diagonal, and the smooth softness of the dress and I liked the perfect balance of the biker jacket and the sharp focal point of the asymmetrical zipper.





Color... color... color... and high heels. I - LOVE - HIGH - HEELS. They're something I have never stopped wearing even at my most frumpiest points in life. I love the sophistication and elegance that high heels add - never mind the height. They work great with my hips and I know how to walk in them too ! ! !






I liked the combination of texture away from and smoothness near the face of this hair cut and the clean lines and simplicity of the necklace. You could easily redesign this with a blue/green/silver toned stone on a shiny black background. In fact, I have something rather similar.





The color of the scarf for my outfit is a pure turquoise plus black with some shaded green undertones. Any pure hue plus black equals a shade. The lovely purplish color of the nails is pure purple plus black. The topaz of the necklace is orange plus black. I'd wear the first two but not the last because I look better in cool colors than in warm ones and I wear silver not gold. Warm and gold equals types 1 and 3. Cool and silver equates to types 2 and 4.

Along with the type 3 pages, I also looked at type 1 and 2 pages and my take on them goes like this. Type 1 - I hate cream, peach, and anything that smacks of beige. Type 2 - except for denim, no pastels. Type 3 - absolutely no brown or olive. Type 4 - I love deep full rich color. That's definitely oversimplification because in reality each grouping has a range of colors but it does zero in on where my interests lie.  




I saw a chart yesterday that equated  type 1 to spring, type 2 to summer, type 3 to autumn, and type 4 to winter and having looked at both programs - Dressing Your Truth and Color Me Beautiful - that makes sense to me.  I can relate to the spring, summer, fall, and winter system of Color Me Beautiful better perhaps because I learned it first and have lived with it longer. When I was tested thirty years ago, I was a summer. Above is the summer swatch set. Below is the winter chart swatch set. Both resonate with me. That may be because now they have blended groupings like a deep summer. What do you think?






Categorizing precisely is not as important to me as re-connecting the dots and moving in the right direction. This isn't new information. I've studied it off and on for over thirty years and I've been involved in artistic career most of my adult life.Yes, I'd slipped but... not completely off the map.

I would hate to think that we all fit neatly into one box or category. I'd rather think that our boxes have similar elements and a lot of individuality.  What makes me me and you you is our individual combination of coloring, figure type, fashion personality, and life experience. And this is good. Because if you keep looking you find more pages with even more information on the same subject. LOL - it looks a lot like my stash.

My next coaching session is on Monday. I'm looking forward to talking to Diane about what I've learned. I sent her an email saying how excited I am - that I feel like I've made a shift from trying to be someone creative to being myself creatively and from trying to sew something "sparkly" to sewing what looks and feels like me and will give me authentic sparkle.

I think when we're exploring new paths - such as my return to fashion sewing and wanting to make that as creatively exciting as textile art was - that it's easy to look at other people's paths and see something you really enjoy in their expression and would love to have in your own. Although at first we might see a certain style of garment, combination of textures and colors, or their fashion personality and think that's it, what we really want is the authenticity we sense and it takes a while to figure out that our authenticity might be in a different style with different textures and different colors that can still have that creative expression we crave. At least, that seems to be how it's going for me. There's been a lot of trying this and that up until now.





Ms. Chloe has been napping in my fabrics attempting to find her own best coloring - VBG. The pink of this scarf is similar to the pink of the t-shirt I showed a few days ago only there's a LOT less of it. It's part of the next outfit I'm finishing. LOL - what looks like that pink is on the summer chart and the winter one!

Talk soon - Myrna

Grateful - the quickness and ease of on-line research