restingmotion

winnowing and consolidating

On the evening before I realized I was coming down with a cold I came home chilled to the bone.  I wanted nothing more than to find a favorite oversized, thick, cashmere sweater and curl up into a ball in a comfy chair.  But I couldn't find the sweater in question, a bulky Icelandic-style sweater that I had knit in the late 90s using a lusciously light and soft cashmere yarn.  For a moment I was distraught.

 

But I remembered that I had either given it away or sold it on ebay.  The sweater was too heavy for me to wear here, my house is never cold enough, and the color was not good either, camel, and oatmeal and gray.  Even though I had loved and worn this sweater for many years, I didn't love wearing it anymore, and it was well-past time to share the love. 

 

Once I remembered all this, I was content.  I realized that I wasn't really looking for that particular sweater, I was looking for the snuggly warmth and coziness it represented.   I could wrap myself up in a cozy blanket, or layer thinner sweaters.  I can even knit another sweater in a shape and colors I like better now.  That sweater was a part of my past, a treasured part, yes, but nonetheless past.  I don't need to hold on to that sweater.

 

It seems strange to me in a way that now, when I am not writing about style all that much, or fashion or clothing, I am focusing so much on the details of what I wear.  My closet keeps shrinking, and the process of refining is ongoing.  Perhaps the winnowing and the not-writing are related.   But it seems odd that in this time when I am focused the least on what is going on the wold of fashion and style, I am focused the most on what is essential in my own closet.  Where is that taking me?  I don't really know.

 

Or is this process of winnowing and consolidating, or creating a space that is both personal and essential a necessary step in being able to explore creative impulses, in being able to go out into the world and do good? I always knew that home represented sanctuary to me, but I have in fact rarely embraced that impulse.  Perhaps I am doing so now.  Perhaps, as usual I am over-thinking, struggling with my own personal tortured path to learning to let go.

 

I only know that at this moment this is what I want my wardrobe to be.  I want to be enveloped in these colors. I am sure that the spectrum will flow and evolve over time, as will the details of the pieces, shapes, and structures.  I am willing to move slowly only because it seems that whenever I seem to think I know exactly where I am going, I learn that I have misread a sign and wandered off the path. There are days when I wonder where this path will lead, if anywhere.  Today seems to be one of those days.  But perhaps that is really just congestion speaking, and eventually my brain and my path will clear.

 

Of Clothes and Questions and Preparing to Sew

I've been stuck on a few basic conundrums of late:

• My closet has been shrinking as I narrow my choices down to items and combinations that I love and in which I feel completely myself, as if the person I am and the clothes I wear are seamlessly one. And yet I love to sew, love to make clothes, and have a wall of fabric that is calling my name.  How do I reconcile the "more" of sewing with my steady move to "less but more loved"?
• Several garments I've knitted in the past few years have been epic fails -- fun to knit, lovely to look at, but completely wrong when I am wearing them. I don't regret making them, mistakes are part of life, but I also need some successes, and that is difficult unless I can figure out where I am going wrong.
• How do I reconcile the me that loves beautiful fabrics and beautiful objects and dressing up sometimes with the me that would be perfectly happy with wash and wear hair and an old shirt, ratty jeans, and sneakers?
• If I am going to sew and knit, and write about sewing and knitting garments, how do I go back go posting photographs of myself wearing said garments given my own discomfort with self-photography and the fact that I have fairly successfully (I hope) avoided this very issue for some time now?

 

I haven't come up with answers to all those questions yet.  I suspect it is a lifelong project.  But I did make a huge leap forward in my understanding.  Oddly enough, this new revelation is something I have known about a long time, and used, but which for some reason, just really clicked in a deeper way in the past couple of weeks.

What am I talking about?  The Golden Ratio of course.

 

It isn't new.  I've been aware of the golden ratio for a long time, as well as its many applications.  Aside from its prevalence in the natural world and its applications in architecture, the golden ratio is also often used when discussing proportion and style in fashion.   Sometimes it is simplified into the 3:5 rule or the 5:8 rule.  Some people play fast and loose and just use "the rule of thirds" which isn't actually as effective, at least not for me.  But I digress. 

 

What is different now?  Well, truthfully I hadn't thought about the golden ratio in a while, at least not in terms of how it relates to my own appearance and clothing.  In fact, there was a period where I could have gone out in a paper bag and not cared, but that was the world of grief and depression and confusion. Thankfully I am past that.   When I was young I was also so blinded by what I didn't like about myself and my self-perceived flaws, that I couldn't see what was good.  I used the golden rule, but I used it as a tool of manipulation and shadows.  I never really understood how it could work for me. Age has a way of bringing wisdom, at least if we are willing to open the door.

And so it happened that one evening, when I was tired but not yet ready for bed, I was simultaneously flipping through a design book and half-watching TV when something about the golden-ratio clicked.   Not only did I make the connection between the golden ratio and the outfits I loved (and why I loved them) but it was suddenly clear why a few favorite pieces just weren't working. 

 

I ended up spending that evening in measuring and calculating and then rearranging my closet and testing my theories, all with great success.  I am sure I could not have been more elated if I had found the holy grail. I learned a few things about myself, including the ways insecurities blind us and cloud our judgment.   But I also found greater a greater appreciation of my own preferences and peccadilloes.  I don't believe that any one of us has to define ourselves, our sense of beauty, or our comfort levels, by some outside perception "ideal" or "rule" of how we should look, and once I accepted my own sensibilities, I could see that there is a pattern here as well, a pattern of where proportion matters dearly, and where I am more than willing to play fast and loose. 

 

For reference I am using this photo from my sewing blog circa August 2010.  It is a great example of the proportions of the golden rule (why didn't I know this?) The colored rectangles were added now, and I ask your forgiveness for my ineptitude in PhotoShop.  Nothing is exact.  Mea Culpa.

This is what I learned:

The Golden Ratio is 1.618

I am 68 inches tall.  The distance from my waist to the floor is 42 inches. If I divide my total height by 1.618 I get 42 inches. (see green bar on the left side of the photo. The length of the skirt, at 26 inches is the total distance from my waist to the floor divided by 1.618.  The same is true for the top.  The distance from the top of my head to my shoulder line, and the distance from shoulder to waist  works out to the golden ratio. 

 

If you look at the purple bars on the right of the photo, my preferred dress length is 1.618 of my total height.  The distribution between skirt and t-shirt also breaks down to the golden ratio.  This is so much fun! 

 

But this outfit is from 5 years ago.  Even though I was 20 pounds heavier then, my waist was proportionately smaller.  I don't know that I will be wearing a similar outfit again, but I've also learned never to say never.  The prospect of dresses and skirts is looking more and more enticing.

 

This summer I've been wearing pants and soft shirts.  Both of the two photos showing me in pants fit the golden ratio scenario as described above.  I know this is a gross simplification, just as I know the turquoise tunic plays a bit fast and loose with those rules. And perceptions of proportion vary depending on whether one is wearing pants or a dress, vary with width and shape as well as length.  But having a few simple guidelines is helpful: one can follow the guidelines or chose not to follow them, but it is the structure itself that allows for intentionality.

 

I'm not sewing yet, aside from some simple machine testing.  But I have wildly unrealistic plans of sewing a dress before an upcoming trip.  Considering that my plans are far more complicated than can likely be accomplished in the available time, it is unlikely that the dress will be finished on time.  If anything that is a relief as I have both incentive, but also freedom from the stress of a deadline.  I have freedom to play.

 

Two Sweaters

It has been rather shocking to me how quickly my focus and attention has faltered after a few short weeks where I did not maintain my early morning ritual quiet/contemplative/writing time.  Of course other things were going on as well, and I knew February would be a difficult month, schedule-wise, but even so, I am reminded of the importance of taking time to center oneself as a first priority, rather than as an afterthought.

 

On the other hand, only a couple of short days of refocusing has brought a great deal of clarity to my thoughts again today (although I could not have said the same yesterday).  And I am relieved at the benefits of  practice, and of building some sort of "muscle memory" be it for physical or mental activities.

 

I am also thrilled at the calming effects on my disposition that have arisen out of this last round of sorting, which I mentioned last week.  Perhaps I should be somewhat reluctant to admit that it has taken me three rounds of sorting to take control of my closet, but in this case it is true that "three's a charm".  I also knew that I brought too much from New York, that I accumulated too much in New York, and that I was incapable, at that time, of making any kind of decision about personal effects.  This is not surprising, as I wrote extensively about the process of George's decline, about feeling like I had lost a major portion of myself in the process, and the continued sense of rediscovery that I needed to undergo before being fully able to move forward.

 

What I can report is that the third round was the easiest one.  The scutt work had been done.  There was nothing left that didn't fit, that wasn't flattering, that wasn't useful.  But fit and flattery aren't everything. Although I realized long ago that although I would feel no great sense of loss if everything I owned disappeared tomorrow, I also needed to reconnect to a feeling that I have held since childhood, a sense that everything I own or use must also spark sense of joy or happiness in and of itself and its relationship with me and how I interact with it. Once the decision was made that I would only save those things I truly love, it was easy to let go of everything that remained in my closet out of a sense of expectation or obligation or just a plain old guilt.  Decisions were easy.

 

Take these two sweaters:

As you can see, they are very similar. The sweater on the left was purchased in 2010 from Pure Collection, and is 100% cashmere.  The one on the right was purchased from Eric Bombard in either the late fall of 2011 or early winter of 2012, right after I moved to Knoxville, and is a cashmere and silk blend.  I do not recall if I knew it was this close in color to a sweater I already owned when I purchased it.  I may not have, as I was either living in a hotel, or had not yet unpacked everything at the time.  I do believe I was thinking that the cashmere/silk blend might be lighter and more wearable than the pure cashmere, and the winter of 2011/2012 was very warm in Knoxville.

 

Until this past weekend, I couldn't let go of either, even though I wasn't really wearing both of them.

 

So which sweater stays and which one goes? 

 

As you can see from the photo above, they are about the same size.  The Pure Collection sweater (bottom) has slightly more room at the bust (which I need) and is fuller through the sleeves (which I also like) although I wish it were narrower at the cuffs, like the sweater from Eric Bompard, as I have small wrists and really like sweaters to fit closely at the wrist.  Otherwise, the sweaters are the same at the shoulders, waist, hips, and are the same length.  I like the v-neckline better than the scoop, but I prefer the soft fuzziness of the Pure Collection sweater to the harder finish on the Eric Bombard.  And the sweater from Eric Bombard pills badly whereas the one from Pure Collection has never pilled, even though it gets more wear.

 

Have you figured it out?  I kept the sweater from Pure.  100% cashmere is easier to wear than the cashmere/silk blend, which I find is often too hot, even though the sweater is slightly thinner in gauge.  I also like the extra softness, and the ease at the bust and upper arms of the Pure Collection sweater.  I am not however, disparaging Eric Bombard as I have other sweaters from this company which I love, and which have remained in my wardrobe.  Only this particular sweater will be moving to a new home after a brief stint on eBay.

 

I only sorted through tops/blouses/jackets/sweaters in this round so there is still more to do.  Bottoms are next, but not until after I pull my taxes together.  But even this has made a tremendous difference.  When the only things that are in my closet are things I love, getting dressed is a joy.  Nothing is lost in the crowd.  I am actually looking forward to the next round.

 

 

A Slow Morning Means Time for Sorting

Tikka, who loved Saturday's snow, is not convinced that the greater volume which arrived overnight is all that appealing.  There is something about snow up to your tummy, or trying to jump up on a curb and landing in snow up to your chin, that makes one want to curl up and take a nap someplace nice and warm.

Especially if one can watch one's humans doing strange things like piling up and sorting through clothes and laying out a polyvore on the floor.

Yesterday's outfit (with Sam).

 

It struck me yesterday, while I was pumping gas, that I had managed to pull together the perfect outfit, one in which I felt completely at home and comfortable, completely myself.  The critical detail was folding the sleeves of my sweater, which are a little loose and long, and which I intentionally wear rolled up indoors, over my coat, which both reduces bulk inside the coat and keeps the sweater sleeves from hanging loosely below the end of the coat sleeves, a situation that drives me bonkers. Everything I was wearing was something I love, but it was that little detail that just made me feel settled.  It was more about how I felt than how it looked, although it is gratifying that the polyvore-on-the-floor, above, looks the way I felt (sans cat on the chest of course). But what a photo can't capture is how at home I felt once I rolled up those cuffs, how that small detail integrated the internal and the external.  It was the sartorial equivalent of curling up with a cup of coffee and a good book and just being myself.

 

This is something I am still exploring to some extent:  What do I want to wear? How do I want to wear it? How much do I care if my vision of what is flattering and comfortable to both the internal and external me, corresponds to what the greater culture deems as stylish? Or Fashionable? Or just plain boring?

Tuesday's outfit was not quite as successful.  But this was not because it was not flattering, not because I didn't love the particular pieces in and of themselves.

The problem was really with the turtleneck, and it was not the way it looked, but more the way it felt when wearing it.  The turtleneck is the perfect shade of blue, both for this sweater and for several other things in my wardrobe and it is soft against the skin.   It is, in fact, a little large, but the fabric and the single rib knit make if skim closely to the body.  And that is the problem.  I have come to realize I do not like the way single rib knits cling.  The turtleneck layer moved when I moved in ways that I wished it wouldn't.  I felt like I spent the day constantly readjusting, and in retrospect I realized that I have been fidgeting every time I wear this top for the past 5  years.  I keep it because it is the perfect color, but that, in and of itself, is not enough. I have eliminated almost every other single rib knit from my wardrobe, perhaps it is time to just let this one go.  There is freedom in only owning and wearing what I like now, what I feel comfortable in now; not what I think I should like, not what I once liked, not what I think I might like again if x,y,or z should occur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woman in a Hotel Mirror

 

Hello from San Antonio!  I'm off on one of my quick-trips,  around 56 hours this time.  Although it might seem that a 2-3 day trip would be exhausting, I am actually finding them to be more of a mini-vacation. There is a thrill to hoping on a plane, going somewhere, and being home again before I start to miss my own bed, my cats, and my normal routine. The short trip is exhilirating and refreshing whereas the thought of a long trip just overwhelms.  At this moment in my life these short jaunts are just perfect.

It is hot here in San Antonio though and I have not yet become enough of a southerner that I embrace the idea of temperatures in the 80s in late October. Goodness, I don't embrace temperatures in the upper 80s in the summer even though I grew up in Texas.  All of this is just a meandering way of saying that, mentally, I am in fall mode, not summer mode, and keeping to the minimalist theme of a 56 hour jaunt, I was not particularly inspired, packing-wise.

 

I don't think I did badly however, and, inspired by the fact that there are mirrors in my hotel room (but not really at home, one of many things that needs to be addressed in good time) it seemed to be as good a time as any to brea k down any walls I had been building around avoiding self-portraits.  You can't see what I know, which is that I am standing straight for probably the first time in years, and really there is no reason for anyone to know that, except me, but it thrills me nonetheless.  Just being able to stand and to move is a gift.  Although it may not be evident, I see a portrait of a woman who is confident and comfortable in her own skin.  And although it is really not about clothes, and it isn't, except that we all need to wear clothes and the clothes we wear should suit our lives and our choices, I see a woman who is comfortable with the choices she has made.

Playing with Color and Pattern

The dining table is covered in china.  Old and new, a mixture of styles, periods, qualities, the accumulated bits and pieces tell a story and create a history.  When I loaded these things into the car I was not sure what I would do with the pieces.  As I opened the boxes and placed pieces on the table, mixing them with pieces I already owned, I was surprised at the many ways all these disparate bits fit together and made new connections.

 

Rather than create a panoramic shot, I intentionally made a collage because I am intrigued by the sometimes surprising ways things mix together.  I am also intrigued by questions of taste and style and the way our style is a reflection of the accumulated influences of our lives and the people we have become.  Hence, you also get the headless photo of me as well as the china.  But more about that later.

 

Style in dress shows the self we wish to present to the world.  Increasingly I think our homes also could reflect ourselves, although in a more intimate and private way.  Also our homes may be shared, reflecting influences of those we love, and the meeting of these influences and choices is also a more personal interaction.  As for me, I am realizing that my love of pretty dishes is where I let my more romantic inclinations run freely.  Tables are for sharing with others. But I also think the act of setting a table, of putting out china and glassware, of making it pretty, rather than merely functional, is a very romantic thing.  I like the romance of the meal, not just the nutrition offered by the food.

 

But this idea of romance and style, the personal and the public, and the way our environments and our choices in those environments reflect aspects of ourselves, remains a relatively new chain of thought.  I have formed no cogent conclusions. And yet I see a portrait forming.  And although I recognize it as a portrait of myself, I also recognize that the image that is emerging does not coincide with the words I would have previously used to describe myself.  Am I so bad at self awareness?  Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not.  It may be a question of acceptance, of accepting this softer side, of allowing vulnerabilities to show.  

 

Or I may just be full of  baloney.

 

On this table there are dishes belonging to my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my mother.  There are dishes that George and I chose together, dishes George bought for me as gifts, things I chose myself. There are dishes with direct ties to memory, and others that really mean nothing to me, that have no significance other than the fact that they were on my table. My mother wanted to downsize.  I still like to play with pretty things and set pretty tables.  I chose the pieces I would take so it is not surprising that they should work together.  Many of the pieces are not strong, dramatic, full of contrast.  I am not a person who loves high contrast.  I am not a person who loves white plates, although I did indeed go through a brief period where I thought I did.  It wasn't that I wanted white plates, what I wanted was clarity, and that is another story.

I like the way the pieces work together, sharing similar colors and shades, without bold pops of color, without high contrast and drama.  I don't like full sets of china, all the pieces belonging together, but I do like things that work together.  This is also how I like to dress. I like color and I like to coordinate, but I don't want to be either too matchy-matchy or to wear too much contrast. Hence the headless outfit. My feet won out over my head because I love the way the soft colors of the outdoor carpet harmonize with the colors of the concrete, adding subtle gradations of texture and color, just as I also love the way my grandfather's planters and the flowers blend with the bricks and the door and the reflections of greenery in the window to make a harmonious whole.  It struck me today that the things I love and even who I am and the choices I make all arise out of my own personal history and decisions, but that the origins of these things have roots in the histories and the choices of the people who influenced my early life even without my conscious awareness of their influence. 

 

Welcome to my front door.  Welcome to my house, my table, my blog, my world. It is not a perfect world, no world is, and there are all kinds of disjointed and inconsistent bits and bobs milling about and a few rough edges here and there. But then rough-edges-are-us, we humans.

 

The photo can be enlarged with a mouse-click.  The small inset photo above my shoulder shows my colors in indoor lighting, where they are softer.  Outside the outfit is a little bright, and I feel a little more exposed by its brightness, but hey, those rough edges are always popping out despite our best intentions. 

 

Duck Egg Blue

Have you ever made a mistake, usually a simple mindless one, felt flustered, and then later realized that in that mistake was some kernel of hidden truth?  

 

That happened to me a little over a week ago.  I was commenting on a post over at Lisa's blog when I made a typing error and posted that I wore "ducky shades" when I meant to say "dusty shades".  Lisa caught it and I immediately said it had been a typing error.  But for days after that my mind was entranced with the idea of "ducky shades".    I couldn't shake it, and some part of me wanted to say that I do, indeed like those very colors -- ducky shades -- if only I knew what they were.  Then it hit me.  I was thinking of duck eggs, and in some sense "duck egg shades" could kind of run into "ducky shades", or at least it could with a stretch of the imagination, or perhaps a month of mental-fog-inducing pain medications.

 

I don't know if you have ever encountered duck eggs. I remember the bowls of duck eggs a local farmer would sell when I lived in the Hudson Valley and would go to the Rhinebeck Farmer's Market, of the beautiful blue-greens and soft-grayed greens, sometimes with a bit of yellow in the green, but all the shades blended together; some bright, but not shockingly bright, softly bright, perhaps a little muted, or a little grayed.  Some eggs were white too, but not the relatively bright white of a chicken egg, a softer white, a white I could wear. Mostly I remember the blues and greens, the colors you see here, below, in this photo of duck eggs:

 

 

I don't wear true pastels well.  And although true blues are acceptable on me, the greener blues are better, and the periwinkles.  I've always had trouble describing my blues. The deeper ones are along the lines of the deep periwinkles and the blue-teals, but the lighter blue-greens have always stumped me. How would I describe them?  And it suddenly occurred to me that duck egg blue is in fact one of my blues.  As I thought about duck eggs and their lovely range of colors, I realized that I could in fact wear all those colors.  Granted some of them are too light for me, but all of the subltle variations of duck egg colors are all colors that would work with the colors that I think of as my colors, both the color wheel colors that work with my physical color palette, and the colors that I personally think of as "mine" the ones that I tend to be drawn to as part of how I see myself.  And yes even that somewhat yellower grayed green that you see in the back of the above photo, those would blend with my eyes, which are green, but a grayed, yellowed green, that is sometimes more intese than others, and occasionally have been mistaken for hazel, but they are not.    

 

Perhaps it is true.  Perhaps my colors are "ducky colors" and perhaps I should seek them out more. 

 

 

But I actually don't wear those colors very much.  Why not?  The truth is that I have trouble finding them.  Perhaps I shop in the wrong stores.  Perhaps they are just rarely fashionable.  In looking around the web I have found myriad paint colors called duck egg blue.  I've found a board on pinterest devoted to the color, but it mostly shows furniture and decoration, which is in keeping with the many paint samples I've also found. But I've found little in terms of clothing, a few soft aqua pieces, some of which might border on duck egg blue. I would say soft aqua is actually a different color although it is a color I've been known to wear.  I've found a clothing store in Australia called Duck Egg Blue, although they don't seem to carry any more duck egg blue clothing than anyone else.  I sometimes find that green, the second paint color from the left, and I find the far right color the most often, but the middle color would be the one I want to find, the blue I would live in if I could.  I had a suit that color once and I wore it until it was literally threadbare.

 

In fact, if I want to wear these colors, I seem to have the most success with yarns.  It is true that I could knit more sweaters, and am happy to do so.  But this limits duck egg blue to a role as more of an accent than a primary color, which is fine, as there are plenty other blues, and grays, and purples and the rose colors, that are also my colors. But it does make me wonder.  I can easily find something for my house in those duck-egg colors but why can't I find clothes as easily? Or am I truly looking in the wrong places?  If you know where I should look, please advise.

 

 

The photo of the duck eggs was not taken by me, but you can probably tell that is not from the Rhinebeck Farmer's Market by the Chinese characters.  Fiona Reilly of the wonderful blog, Life on Nanchang Lu, graciously let me use her photograph.  The truth is I didn't discover her blog until I was looking for photos of duck eggs on Google, and was unsuccessful in many ways, which don't need to be explored further at this point.  But I did find this photo which captured the range of beautiful colors that I remembered.  Through this photo, I discovered Fiona's blog, and I have since looked through her archives, have been enchanted, and have subsequently started following her posts. I do wish you would take a look as  well. 

 

The color of paint samples is a screen shot from the top of a google search. The individual paint sample colors come from these sources, from left to right:  art-paints.com, marilynandmelrose.co.uk, firedearth.com, decorsupplies.co.uk, and handyhippo.co.uk

Steady as she goes

I have been occupying myself with various small tasks, most of which are routine and mundane, but somehow take twice as long as they did when I was up and about more.  One of those projects has been to start slowly sorting through my closet, examining both the things I brought with me from New York but haven't worn and the things I have been wearing but which may or may not fit now: physically, mentally, emotionally, in short questioning how the things in that closet relate to the person I am now, recognizing that clothing and style is completely frivolous, and yet also completely necessary for a species that cannot exist with protective cover.  It is a very slow process in the best of times, more so when one can only stand in 3 minute increments.  There have admittedly been some incoming items as well, things needed to fill basic gaps, plus a few extras.  The problem with being flat on your back with nothing to do is that the internet is filled with temptations, and it is hard to limit one's looking to only the necessities.  Luckily I am not generally given to perusing the shopping sites, and after a short spree, that habit has been contained.

For example, I knew I needed new black sandals; my everyday pair is three years old and unfortunately shows considerable wear and abuse, and that is not even considering the fact that the sole is broken down to the point that my back hurts every time I walk in them for more than 10 feet.  The intention had been to replace them last year, but the shoes I wanted, a particular style of Mephistos, were already sold out in my far too popular size by the time I started looking in June.  So I started early, at least for me, considering it was still too cold to actually wear sandals in early April, and I got a pair of shoes I love and can wear comfortably. 

 

But of course, having time and a computer in my hand, I did not resist the urge to peruse Zappos' other offerings.  After-all online shopping is easier than going to a store, although also more prone to disappointment, and shoes are the easiest things to try on when you are mostly flat on your back.  So I succumbed to the siren call of this particular pair of Tsubos. 

 They have several advantages, the first being that they are flat, and it has been so long since I've worn a pair of heels that I wonder if I will ever return to wearing them.  The boxes of heels in the back of my closet will probably be the last thing I sort through as I finish this process of transitioning from my old life and rediscovering who I am now.

 

They are also gray, which is much more wearable than black, at least in terms of my wardrobe.  The actual gray of the sandals is much as it is shown here, although the turquoise is a bit more muted and not as shiny as it appears in this photo, taken from the Zappos website.  Generally, muted is good and shiny not so good when it comes to my wardrobe, although a few too bright and too shiny things have managed to slip in.  I don't generally worry as long as all of the clothes in my closet play well together and nothing  starts to take on the role of a diva, refusing to work with anything else.

 

I am also rather partial the thick white soles which gives them a bit of a sporty edge which is fashionable now, and adds a bit of visual weight, perhaps even a bit of nerdishness to them, although perhaps that is just my interpretation. In my mind at least, nerdy-sporty is something of a good thing. especially when I can feel nerdy-sporty and perhaps even fashionable, while my feet are comfortable as well.  If they aren't nerdy-sporty, or even fashionable, there is no reason to tell me, fashion is all a state of mind anyway, and my mind is is made up.  Anyway they go with a lot of things in my wardrobe and seem to feel just right with the things I want to wear now.

 

Unfortunately that nerdy-sporty magic does not work with everything.  The other day I tried wearing them with a light gray pair of jeans from Chicos that I got about 4 years ago.  I think they were from the Platinum Denim line. I seem to recall that although they were called a "slim jean", they were never all that slim on my legs.  The fit were more like a straight-leg, perhaps on the slim side, and certainly slimmer than the current crop of slim boyfriend jeans.  I thought they looked good with heels and a loose sweater or layering, and they may well have. But that is not the look I am going for right now, and even if they did look good 4 years ago, they are definitely loose in the legs in a not so flattering way now, and also too loose through the waist, although they oddly fit pretty well through the hips.

 

It occurs to me that I could think of myself as having slim legs.  To  bad they're not slim enough to fit into a lot of pairs of boots, but that is another issue.  They are at least slimmer than other parts of me, and that is good. The idea of thinking of myself as slim-legged is appealing.  Four years ago I probably thought of myself as "fat-assed" which is much more self-destructive frame of reference. It may in fact be true, as my mother always told me I inherited the "Fehrenbach bubble butt", but (look a double but - nerdishiness is everywhere!) true or not, I am not extremely out of proportion, and my body functions as it should, for the most part, with the exception of this current hopefully brief interlude. The truth is that with age the bubble has deflated somewhat, and I never was and never will be dainty so what is the point of putting oneself down?  I come from a long line of sturdy, bubble-butted Germans, and without them I would not be who I am  or where I am today. My hips and my legs have served me well in my life so far, and I see no reason to give them a hard time, hoping as I do, that they will see me through many more miles.

 

As for the Chicos jeans, I feel no such obligation.  Their time has come.  They may in fact look good with my gray ankle boots, which unfortunately have heels, so at this point even their fate remains uncertain.  But even if my heel-wearing days are not at an end, it seems likely that the gray jeans are destined to become a one-outfit diva:  a garment of clothing that is so demanding that nothing ever lives up to its requirements, destined only to be worn out once in a blue moon when the weather and the right conditions all align in perfect harmony.  Therefore there is no room for them in my life.  I do belive that, should I feel the need for gray jeans, and the thought is tempting, that there exists** in the world a pair of jeans that will both flatter and play well with the other occupants of my closet.

 

And this it seems is the problem with holding on to things "just in case". Just in case never seem to actually happen.  This is especially true when the items in question are clothes and the just in case is loosing weight or gaining weight or whatever.  Styles change, times changes, how we feel about our place in the world and how we want to dress changes, or at least it should change just as we as individuals should keep growing and changing throughout our lives.  

 

Now, I wasn't actually intending to save those jeans for "someday".  The year before I moved to Tennessee was a rough year and my weight went down and up and down again that year, just as my stress levels went up and down and up again as well.  I managed to sort through furniture and books and decades of accumulated stuff in our old house.  But I couldn't sort through my closet because I was tired and overwhelmed and didn't know what my new life would bring.   So I just brought everything with me, hoping it would sort itself out.  Then the roller-coaster started up again and I threw everything into the master bedroom closet only to end up moving to the guest room and then upstairs before I ever had time to get settled anywhere. And the closet sat, pretty much ignored, until now. 

 

In three years a lot has changed.  In three years a lot should change.  We humans aren't static.  I'd long ago decided that there was no point in saving things up for "special".  Everyday is special.  Use what you have. Love what you use.  Treasure every moment.  And don't let yourself get dragged down by ugly pants.

 

 

**  or shall exist for if they do not exist now, I shall make them.

 

photos from Zappos.com

 

A Little Friday Shoe Shopping

Here it is Friday already.  Not only that Friday is half gone.  That is the problem when your days all blend together, in some ways they slip through your fingers too quickly and before you know it they are gone and you have nothing to show.

 

Not that having something to show for your time is probably all it is cracked up to be.  I suspect it is good to slow down; it is good for me to slow down, although I can also admit that my life at the moment is a little slower than I might have liked.  But perhaps it takes time for lessons to truly sink into my thick skull. 

 

The point is I can't say I have much to report this week.  I've read one book, I'm 3/4 through with Churchill, I've done a tiny bit of knitting.  I look at the mail far more closely and thoroughly than I did before; when you are on muscle relaxers and neurlogic medications there are times when looking at pretty pictures is more than enough to keep you content.  Of course there is always the internet as well, but that is more dangerous, internet shopping-wise anyway,  

 

I did however need a pair of flat back shoes.  I've been putting it off for months, but now seemed like as good a time as any.  

What do you think?  Sorry about the not so glamorous cell-phone shot.  

 

I'm inclining toward the pointy shoes on the left.  They are both pretty, they are both comfortable.  But I already have Varas, he version with the small heel, so I don't particularly need the same shoe in its flat, Varina, rendition.   The pointy shoes make me feel a little more sleek, a little sharper, perhaps a little wicked.  That's not such a bad thing. 

 

 

 

 

Never Say Never

It seems some lessons are never learned.  

 

Some weeks ago I got a bee up my bonnet about raglan sleeves. Said I hated them and would never wear them.  I should know better.  Since that time it seems that everything that catches my eye has a raglan sleeve.  Not only that I actually want to figure out how to fit them correctly.  Perhaps my reactionary peevishness was just a reflection of some internal shift.  Generally I am a firm believer in the adage "never say never", and I should know by now that every time I get myself all worked up about something I don't want to accept, it actually means I'm right on the cusp of letting go of some long held bias.

 

Frances, over at Materfamilias Writes, called me on it.  She asked if I liked raglan sleeves in a sweater, and so doing she made me think (egads!).  I do have a raglan sleeve sweater that I love.   It is this one:

 

Linden, knit in 2009. If you want to be reminded of the details you can find them here.  This sweater is a bit warm for Knoxville, but it saw quite a bit of use this winter and I do believe it has a future as a winter jacket on warmer winter days.  Here is a picture of me wearing it at that time.  The fit isn't perfect, but I love it anyway.  Hopefully my next raglan sweater will be even better.

 

Yes, there will be a next raglan sweater.  I have started a collection of them over on my ravelry page and have plans to knit something up for this summer.  In the meantime, don't hold your breath. I've still got to work my way through several small projects.