how I dress for my strong shoulders

Me-Made-May is right around the corner, and as I mentioned in my last post on MMM, this excersise is more of a personal style challenge for me than anything. This has got me thinking about how I put together outfits, and what I’ve discovered and learned from that.

So, here’s the deal: my shoulders are prominent. They’re wider than my hips (for those who use those things to categorize), and they are angular. They are one of my most pronounced features, but quite honestly, sometimes I don’t want them to be quite so much. That’s when I do one of the following things:

• Duck and run for cover

Cheat. Blur the lines of where your shoulders actually ends. I tell you, this is my most used trick. Usually, tops and shirts and jackets should have their sleeve seam hit right at the tip of your shoulder, but if I followed that, the fit would be too big elsewhere. This means the seam is further in on my shoulder, but that’s ok! It actually hides my wide shoulders through an optical illusion (or the power of social norms – take your pick!). A yoked dress or cap-sleeve shirt are other examples for big-shoulder hiding.

• Vertical lines 

Vertical lines take attention away from horizontal lines – at least that is my reasoning and experience! I love wearing cardigans for this reason, and deep v-necks as well.

• Balancing out the hips

By creating volume at the hips, the shoulders don’t look as wide in comparison. There is a reason I love my Marie-skirts! Another way to do this is to wear a layer (like the outfit with the cardigan in this post) ending at the widest point of your hips to emphasize them, or to wear brightly colored shorts.

• Flaunt it!
 

They’re there, make them the focal point! By the way, the type of sleeve that this top has will work to hide the real width of your shoulders as well, oddly enough.

Now finally, part of me struggles a bit with this – there is a constant battle between the part of me that wants to feel like I look nice, and the part of me that feels I should be accepting of what my body looks like, and not try to “hide” any parts of it. I don’t know if I’ve come to any conclusions, but I’d love to hear other people’s comments. Is it possible to hide things in a “good” way?

Me-Made-May 2012

It’s getting close to May, and in the sewing/blogging world, that also means Me-Made-May!

I, Birgitte of indigorchid, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’12. I endeavour to wear at least one self-made or refashioned garment or accessory each day I get dressed and go out and about for the duration of May 2012.

Last time around, I said I would probably not participate in another challenge such as Self-Stiched-September or as I am now doing, Me-Made-May. So what has changed? One thing I ended up really enjoying about SSS was how it helped me hone in on something close to “my style” – something I felt comfortable in and excited by. It’s been a rollercoaster of a year since moving from Chicago back to Norway, and I like the thought of MMM reviving my sense of style that seems to have gone a little by the wayside.

My self-designated favorites from SSS’10

However! I don’t want (or need) for this challenge to make me frustrated or unhappy. Last time, things started to feel a little forced and less enjoyable by the end of the month, so in line with Zoe’s call to really challenge ourselves in a way that makes sense to us, these are the parameters I’m setting up for myself:

Lessons learned from last time:

• Only real outfits, worn out and about! I don’t see a point in getting dressed up only to take a photo, if I really spent the day in my pjs reading the newspaper and doing laundry. I need this to reflect the daily life I am leading right now, so no outfit = no picture. And no guilt.
• Which also means I won’t be challenging myself to wear all the self-made things I have, like I did last time. Through doing SSS I actually discovered some clothes I didn’t really care for any more, and it’s totally fine if that happens again. I just won’t make myself wear the potentially offending clothes this time.
• I’ll be doing weekly MMM updates. I did every four days last time, and that was too often for me.

What’s the same:

• The challenge for me lies not in incorporating a self-made or refashioned garment, but to incorporate it in my style, but my one rule will still be at least one self-made or refashioned garment or accessory every day.

I made a pie-chart last time to look at what I had worn during SSS’10. I’m already scheming for this years pie-chart!

This year’s challenges:

• My work has a dress code, which feels limiting. In all honesty, it’s nothing worse than “dress neutral and neat and nice, and no shoes”, but it caps how creative I can get with what I wear to work, which is where I go most days. And the no shoes? It’s a bridalshop, meaning we have to keep the floors super-clean, so shoes become part of my outfit only on my way to and from work.
• Between doing a major culling when we left Chicago last summer and the subsequent road-trip/transatlantic-move/unemployment/settling-in-trickery, I’ve had no energy/interest/money for making or buying clothes. Which means, I’m a quite underwhelmed with the state of my wardrobe at the moment, and I’m a little unsure how I will find outfits I’m happy with! But… that’s the point, right? That there is a challenge!

So there it is, let May start! Actually, let it start in a week or so – I have a pile of unfinished stuff that could use some finishing. I’m looking at you Beignet skirt and Minoru jacket. And Marie skirt. And… oh, let’s just leave it at “pile of”, ok?

happy easter

Easter in my windowsill: painted eggs on branches, with cranes and mountains in the background.

Happy easter everyone! We have almost a week off for easter here in Norway, so I’ve been spending it with lots of good food, beer, and wine; mountain hikes; knitting and sewing; fires in the woodstove; reading; and of course – painting some eggs.

The painting of the eggs was kind of a mitigated success:  we didn’t have a very good technique for blowing those eggs so it felt like it took forever, and I even managed to break one before we got started! But eventually we could decorate our brown eggs (we get our eggs at the health food store, and I didn’t even think about the brown-ness of the eggs!) with some watercolors and some markers, and hang them in our little vase full of twigs. And John has got a new fancy phone from his new fancy job, so of course we’re playing around with that as well. Taking pictures of our beautifully decorated eggs!

Wishing everyone a wonderful Easter weekend!

making costumes & missing crafting mojo

There has been a lot of life happening lately, and life needs attention (and paperwork apparently!). My crafting interest is nowhere to be found right now, and since I really don’t want crafting – or blogging – to feel like a chore in any way, I’ll just be waiting until it shows up again. I’m thinking some tea, chocolate, and lots of “Downton Abbey” is the normal cure for this, right?

Now – I have been crafting a little. I just haven’t worked on any of the “real” or big projects, like my Minoru jacket, which got half cut out before it got abandoned for now. Single-sitting projects are more like it at the moment; some underwear from old t-shirts (I have a free pattern is you want to make some too!), and a pillow-cover. It’s certainly not a big important project, but I like it all the same.

I pieced together the cover with left-over pieces from this lovely, dense herringbone wool we used for the Amanda show – see all the lines on the right side in the picture above? I stuck a zipper in there since this is for a regular pillow doing duty in the livingroom whenever we don’t have sleepover guests. That was a last minute addition as I realized I would be needing to get the pillow back out of the pillowcase!

This is our little reading nook, with a bed turned-into-sofa by folding the top mattress in half and covering it in fabric, putting up some shelves/backboards, and filling up with pillows. I’m working on the pillows part.

That’s it. I made a pillowcase, and it made me glad.

Also, I’ll be making some costumes for the student theater group here in Bergen! Right now I haven’t actually made any yet, but they are designed, and here are the fabrics. Should be fun!

corners of my home, pt 3

We interrupt regular craft-centric posting to share this mess with you:

After seven months of being packed up, sitting first in a warehouse, then on a train, a boat, another few months being inexplicably stuck in Hamburg doing what I do not know, and then some boats and trains and trucks later… all our stuff finally made it to us! We tore everything open, and now we have piles of books and clothes and pictures and things everywhere while we find a good place for them all. I beyond delighted.

That’s my pile of crafting books in the foreground, and I’m thrilled to pieces to have my stash and patterns and tools reunited again. Let the crafting begin!