In Which I Wear Red

Look! An item of clothing that’s not black, gray, or purple!

I freaking LOVE this dress. It’s the ruffle sleeve cotton dress from eShakti, and I love everything about it. The color? Perfect. The fit? Perfect. The length? Perfect. I love it so much that the first thing I did after I tried it on was order another one just like it in black. One of these days, I’ll write a post about how much I love eShakti and why. In the meantime, just know that I really, really love eShakti.

It’s a pretty red red, so to calm it down for work, I reverted to type and wore it with a dark gray cardigan.

Cardigan is from Old Navy, tights are from Target, and shoes are the ever-present Born Mary Janes. The necklace is a pendant I found on clearance at Michaels.

It’s one of three that came in a set. The other two say “AT 26, FAST LIFE AND DISSIPATION” and “AT 40, AN OUTCAST”. For more details, check out this blog post at Penny Dreadful Vintage.

I decided to keep with the grayish theme for my eye makeup.

Eyeshadow is Heist by Urban Decay. It’s a matte mauvey-taupe, but it looks more like a straight taupe on me. It’s very versatile and I love it. Eyeliner is Stray Dog, also by Urban Decay and available exclusively in the 15th anniversary 24/7 eyeliner set. It’s a shimmery, grayish/silvery taupe. I mentioned in an earlier post that it’s almost a duochrome, and the above photo shows this aspect of it pretty well; it’s definitely taupey-brown when seen from an angle, but head on, the shimmery grayish-silver aspect dominates. Very interesting, and very pretty. Incidentally, Urban Decay’s eyeliners are called “24/7” for a reason–these photos were taken about 9 1/2 hours after I applied my makeup. Not bad, eh?

And finally … silly pictures. Watch out, I’m SMILING in some of them!

Aaaaaand a WTF picture.

I did NOT do this on purpose. I opened up this photo in Photoshop and then went to eat dinner, and when I came back and woke my laptop up … I found this. Not only is it negative, but I am apparently throwing up gang signs. Represent!

Dork In Boots

Happily, it stopped raining today for exactly the amount of time it took for me to drive home from work and then have Mister Principessa take a few pictures of my outfit.

Admittedly, the outfit isn’t all that spectacular. Dress you’ve seen before, scarf you’ve seen before, generic Old Navy t-shirt, uninspired Gap cardigan. What I really wanted to show you is these:

They’re the Carrie riding boots from Torrid. They were an early Christmas present from my mom, and they arrived just in time for me to wear them through one of the craziest, longest-lingering rainstorms southern California has seen in years. They’re warm and comfy, and I like them a lot. The zipper and buckle give them just a bit of an edge, but not enough to make them inappropriate for work–at least not for my fairly casual office.

(A side note on fit, in case you’re looking at buying these: I wear a size 8 1/2 shoe, so I waffled for a while between the size 8 and the size 9. My calves are somewhere between 17 and 18 inches, and the Torrid website says that these boots, at a size 9, should fit a 17.8″ calf. So I opted for the 9. They’re slightly big on me, both in the foot and in the leg, which leaves just enough room for me to slap a pair of thick handknit socks under them.)

So yeah, it’s raining like mad in southern CA at the moment. The first crazy storm has moved out, and the second one (which might bring thunderstorms and–joy of joys–hail) is in the process of moving in. The tree out front dripped on me as I stood posing for photos.

Also, I don’t know what’s going on here, but it looks funny.

Dress And A Haircut

Twooooooo … biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiits!

I’m taking today and tomorrow off work, so I decided to take advantage of my long weekend and get a damn haircut. Here is a rare look at me with A) my bangs not clipped back and B) my hair blown out straight.

The only time I ever wear it this way is when my stylist does it. I just can’t be bothered to blow it dry; in my opinion, that defeats the whole purpose of having it short. But I do like how it looks.

In other exciting news, I wore my new ruffle-front wrap dress from eShakti today. And to work yesterday, for that matter. I LOVE this dress. It’s super-flattering, and it fits like it was made just for me. I will be ordering more dresses from them. OK, OK, I already have. What?

Check out the shadow of Mister Principessa’s head.

And check out my dress blowing around in the breeze. Apparently that breeze is foreshadowing SEVERE! WEATHER! to come.

Hey, I live in LA County, OK? This is about as severe as it gets.

Silent And Gray

More gray than silent, really. At any rate: a gray skirt for a gray day.

After our unseasonably warm weekend, it cooled right the hell down today, and although it was supposed to be sunny, it never cleared up. It was overcast and chilly all day. It’s supposed to rain off and on for the foreseeable future, starting on Friday.

Forgive the bizarre lopsided boob action in this next one. I was incredibly non-photogenic today, for whatever reason.

Outfit details:

• Green t-shirt from Old Navy, size M
• Gray skirt from eShakti (not currently available on their site, it seems), size 16
• Black tights from Target, size ???
• Born Mary Janes
• Necklace from The Etsy Seller Who Shall Not Be Named

My favorite thing about this skirt?

That’s right. Deep, fully functional pockets. I fit a package of peanut butter crackers in there today with room to spare.

Eff Oh! Eff Oh!

Finally, it’s a finished object (FO)! As opposed to an unfinished object, or UFO. Get it?

Geeky knitting humor aside, here she is!

What we have here is a longer, narrower version of the Upstairs Shawl. The lace pattern takes up 11 stitches (plus three at either end for the small garter stitch border) and is worked over 32 rows. Rather than casting on 105 stitches and doing nine repeats of the lace pattern, I cast on 83 stitches and did seven repeats. And instead of working the 32 pattern rows 10 times, I did them more like 20 times.

I like this type of lace pattern for scarves because it’s the same right side up and upside down. Compare it to, say, the tiger eye pattern in these socks, which has a definite “this side up” aspect to it.

For this scarf, I used two skeins of Knit Picks Shadow lace yarn in Vineyard Heather–love this yarn, and love the color–and 3 mm bamboo needles (US size 4). Here I am photo-stylisting it onto the swing in the courtyard behind our apartment. You’ll notice that I am still apparently unable to move on from black, gray, and purple clothes.

And here it is on. (Floor-length corduroy skirt is from Shukr, in case anyone’s wondering. And I have a tank top under the cardigan–those aren’t bra straps.)

Additionally, let me just say HOORAY FOR HATS. They’re making the growing out of my pixie cut ever so much more bearable.

Miscellaneous Items!

ITEM THE FIRST! We are making that pork thing again tomorrow, but this time, we’re using a pork tenderloin and not doing the apple part. Also, this time I didn’t use a recipe, I just mashed the marinade together using ingredients that I believe are approximately the same as the ones we used last time. It’s in the fridge marinating as we speak. Fingers crossed; will report back.

ITEM THE SECOND! The Christmas knitting is done. Praise Jeebus! Expect pictures in late December. In the meantime, I plan to finish up the projects that were sidelined in favor of the Christmas knitting. Remember those guys? Yep, still working on them, except that the ruffle scarf and socks have been finished and there’s a new pair of socks in the works. I want to finish them STAT because I have already selected my next scarf project (it’s technically a shawl, but it’s pretty freaking small for a shawl if you ask me) and my next shawl project. And, predictably, I want to start them NOOOOOOWWWWW! I have no concept of patience. It’s a fact. I may have started a pair of legwarmers in the meantime.

ITEM THE THIRD! I am apparently going through some kind of phase that involves wearing a lot of black, gray, and purple.

I keep ordering things from eShakti. This purple skirt is my newest acquisition. I ordered this dress in black today, so be on the lookout for it in a future post. One note about eShakti: things appear on and disappear from their site like mad. If you see something you like, you should probably pounce on it, or be prepared for it to disappear and then reappear at an unspecified later date, or to disappear in the color you wanted.

• Purple skirt from eShakti, size 16
• Gray long-sleeved t-shirt from Old Navy, size M
• Black cardigan from Old Navy, size L*
• Black tights that apparently photograph gray from Target
• The eternal Born Mary Janes

*I kind of hate this cardigan. It pilled immediately, it’s slightly too big but not enough to justify returning it, and it picks up lint to such a degree that it looks like I slept in it even when it’s freshly washed. It might become an “at-home-only” sweater.

ITEM THE FOURTH! It has been unusually chilly in Long Beach for this time of year. Furthermore, our floor heater doesn’t work (long story), and it turns out that the bathroom is the coldest room of our already-chilly apartment. So, I’ve been spending as little time in there as possible, which means I have not been spending any time playing with makeup. Additionally, my fingernails are a hideous, peeling, crackly, ridgy mess at the moment, so no nail polish either. Woe is me.

Get Your Long Skirts Here!

A couple of you have expressed interest in Shukr skirts–I’m looking in the direction of one spinster-in-training and one guest blogger–and I have to say, I can’t recommend them highly enough. They fit me extremely well, which is no small feat given the proportional weirdness I’ve got going on. Most of them are a very flattering A-line shape, and they’re well made out of high-quality materials.

More important (to me), Shukr is the only retailer I’ve found that reliably sells skirts that are both stylish and floor-length. They’re meant to be “modest,” which is a concept that I’m not going to touch with a 10-foot pole; I don’t care about that aspect of them at all, I just like really long skirts.

I wore one of my Shukr skirts to the Japanese market this morning, so I thought I’d show it to ya!

Mister Principessa, being an obnoxious boy, was taking photos and not telling me, so half of them came out looking like some variation of this:

Nice.

I LOVE this skirt. The patterns at the bottom are embroidered on, and there are sequins sewn in to the vertical lines of stitching. It’s incredibly comfortable and very cool in the summer. It looks like this particular style is sold out, but there are plenty more where it came from. I’ve had my eye on this one for quite some time. This one too. Also, this one.

Anyway! In case you care, my top is from Old Navy as usual, and I’m wearing the same necklace from Etsy as in yesterday’s post. Incidentally, I’m intentionally NOT mentioning the seller’s name because my shopping experience was not very good, and I wouldn’t recommend that seller to anyone, least of all my charming readers.

Stay tuned for more about that trip to the Japanese market–specifically, the food we bought there. Gonna be all Japanese food all the time this coming week, yum!

Outfit Of The Yesterday

New And Improved! Now With More Ridiculous Camera-Whoring!

You will notice that I wear a lot of skirts. I wear them pretty much exclusively, and it’s another case of “I wear X because it fits my weird body better than Y.” I have very hourglassy proportions: about a 12-inch difference between my boobs and waist, and then about a 15-inch difference (!!!) between my waist and hips. Also, I am EXTREMELY short-waisted. My body is all, “BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS BOOBS waist HIPS HIPS HIPS HIPS HIPS HIPS GIANT ASS!!!” I’m sure those of you in a similar predicament can see where I’m going with this: it’s pretty much impossible to find pants that fit. So, skirts it is! Good thing I like them.

This particular one is from Target. I’ve had it for years, and it’s held up amazingly well considering that it cost like $30. T-shirt and tank top are from Old Navy (surprised?), necklace is from Etsy. And of course, I’m wearing my Born birthday shoes.

I HAVE A WIDE STANCE, OK?

And just so this isn’t all silly pictures of me, here is the tree in front of my building. It’s looking particularly stunning lately, I think. Click to embiggen.

And here’s a look at the building itself. It is awesome.

And look! Studio for rent! Anybody in SoCal need a new place to live?

Fully Clothed And Partially Socked

Is there a word for “with socks on”? You know, like clothed, shod … socked? Bestockinged?

Part two of my outfit of the day series! Once again, this ensemble is not too freaking exciting, but it’s a fairly typical workday outfit for me. I wear a lot of REALLY long skirts and t-shirts (nice ones! Not like the giant Sisters of Mercy t-shirts I wore in high school). I’d love to have some nice button-down shirts for work, but cursory research indicates that there is no such thing as a woven shirt that fits both my boobs and my waist. If it fits around the chestal region, it sags at the waist, and if it fits at the waist, there’s no way in hell I’m getting the top buttons done up. So t-shirts it is. (The skirt doesn’t seem quite so long when I’m walking around, I promise.)

Mister Principessa and I are still fiddling with my camera, so these photos are a little experimental. In the one above, he stood way back and zoomed in on me. In the next one, he stood closer and didn’t zoom at all.

Help! Help! I’m sinking into the ground!

T-shirt and tank top are from Old Navy. The skirt is from Shukr, a site I HIGHLY recommend if you’re into floor-length skirts like I am. It’s actually an Islamic clothing site, so you can find hijabs and things there too. Their clothing is very high quality, and their skirts fit me really well (aside from the length issue–but then, everything is long on me).

I’m not wearing shoes in this picture, but you couldn’t see them even if I were, now, could you? I am going to go ahead and admit here that I wore flip-flops with this outfit. Hey, it’s southern California, we’re a casual office, and it was 92 goddamn degrees today.

That takes care of the clothes. On to the socks! You’ll be ever so excited to hear that I’ve been knitting like a fiend lately. Unfortunately, I can’t show you any of the many projects I’ve finished because they’re all going to be Christmas presents for people who read this blog on a semi-regular basis.  So you can expect a BIG knitting post around 26 December. In the meantime, here’s a single partly finished sock to tide you over!

Flash

No flash

The yarn is Dream in Color Smooshy with Cashmere in Rock the Olive. Oooooh, this yarn is nice. So soft. In fact, I think it might be a little too soft for socks. This is a personal preference; I like my socks to be fairly sturdy, and this yarn is a bit on the shiny, slippery side for me. I have another skein of it, which I think might end up as a scarf instead of socks.

Oh, and I did cast on that pair of Twinkleberry socks in the Black Bunny yarn, but they have since been frogged. The yarn was just wrong for the pattern; it needs to be knit using smaller needles than I usually use for socks, which is all fine and good but means I’d need to increase the stitch count to make the socks a wearable size. So, back to the drawing board!

Inaugural Outfit Of The Day Post

All right, people … I’M BACK.

New camera received–thanks Mom and Dad! It’s a Canon PowerShot SD 3500 IS, if that sort of thing means anything to you. It doesn’t to me. But it has a very big screen (which, it turns out, is actually a touch screen [I’m such an editor nerd that I just spent several minutes trying to figure out if “touch screen” is one word or two … I’m going with two until Chicago tells me different]), it switches to macro mode AUTOMATICALLY, and it’s definitely a big upgrade from my old camera. Scooooooore!

I will show you the first couple of photos taken with Mister Canon later in this post, but first, I need to completely change the subject. You see, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about a couple of things: one, my personal style, and two, body image in general and mine in particular. Be warned: This is a long and somewhat rambly entry.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m pretty fat positive. As I don’t think I’ve mentioned before, I’ve recently taken up jogging. I used to jog all the time, and when I don’t, I miss it. I miss it to the point that I dream about it (sad and alarming, I realize).

So what does fat positivity have to do with jogging? I’ll spare you the extensive history of my body image drama, but the tl;dr version of the story is that I’ve been through more than one depressing, compulsive, and ultimately futile phase of exercise and weight loss in the past. As a result, for many years, it was very hard for me to separate “exercise” from “weight loss” in my mind. These days, I’m a lot better about that. Right now, for example, I’m on week four of my new jogging routine and haven’t lost a pound. In the past, this would have been more than enough to derail me, because what’s the point of exercising if it’s not going to make me lose weight? These days, I’m more concerned with how my body feels than how it looks, so it’s easier for me to remember that I do it because I LOVE JOGGING. I love the morning air and the thump of my feet on the pavement and the way it makes me feel amazing all day and sleep like the dead all night. I know all of this on a conscious level.

But getting it through to my subconscious has been a BITCH. Some naggy and obnoxious little portion of my brain is constantly piping up in an irritating, high-pitched voice: “Jogging! Oh great! Maybe you’ll lose weight now! Eat less! Jog more! No pain no gain! Fight through it! Never get anywhere at this rate!” Et cetera.

And if you’ve ever dealt with diety exercisey body image drama like I have, you know that this line of thought is a one-way ticket to Crazyville. For me, it tends to result in this: Oh yeah? You think I need to lose weight? Well, EFF YOU, TINY VOICE!!! I don’t have to do what you say! I don’t need to exercise if I don’t want to! Even though I really enjoy doing it and feel amazingly good on days that I do! So there! Showed you!

Except that the “you” I’m showing is, in fact, me. Self-defeating much?

So, in an effort to get through to my subconscious that I do, in fact, love my body exactly the way it is–which my conscious mind knows–I’m embarking on Body Acceptance Quest 2010. I’m re-reading Shapely Prose from back to front. I’m re-reading all my fat acceptance books. I’m devouring the Fatshionista! Livejournal community, the fuckyeahfatpositive Tumblr (be advised that that one’s not always work safe) and Marianne Kirby and Leslie Kinzel’s FatCast. And I’m making more of an effort to dress in line with my personal style, in a way that makes me feel beautiful.

All of this extensive background rambling to say: In the style of Fatshionista!, I thought I might start posting the occasional outfit of the day. My theory is that this might help me become more consciously (and eventually, subconsciously) aware and accepting of my body. So here goes nuttin’!

Forgive my face here … end of day + ravenous hunger + no makeup = TAKE THE GODDAMN PICTURE ALREADY

Also forgive the leopard-print cat sack, multiple pairs of roller skates, and detritus from hastily unwrapped camera on couch.

In case anyone is interested, I’m wearing …

T-shirt and tank top from Old Navy
Skirt from Alight
Tights from Target
Born shoes from Zappos–birthday present to myself
Necklace handmade by me (you might remember it from here)

And because I said I need more silly pictures here …

HAWTNESS.

Not too exciting of an outfit today, but my hope is that this is just the first of many outfit-related posts. Who knows–documenting my outfits might even encourage me to get more creative and daring with what I wear.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to play with my Sephora Friends & Family Sale spoils, most of which were manufactured by the good people at Urban Decay. Pictures tomorrow!