In which I am badly dressed...

Recently I joined a service called Stitch Fix. They purport to be a personal shopping and styling service for regular women. I joined because a friend of mine who is a web designer joined them, and she said she felt that their web site was well-designed and that their Style Profile method was really good. To be fair, she had not received anything from them, and I don't think I saw what she eventually got from them.

When I was filling out the profile, what really stuck out to me was how vague it was. I could look at a picture of a bunch of clothes like you might see someone post on Polyvore, and I could say I liked most of it, some of it, or none of it.

For example, this is the first panel on the Style Profile:

 I said I liked "some of it." What I mean by that is, "Nice jacket, nice boots. Cute red flats and spectator flats. I don't wear Oxford shirts because my breasts make me look like a schooner under full sail if the shirt is big enough to stay buttoned, so no thank you. The striped thing, is that a dress or a blouse, because my answer to that depends on which one it is? And what the living fuck is going on with that yellow skirt, and I don't like the idea of red jeans at all. The polka dotted thing probably looks like a maternity top on a body, so no."

 On the whole, I found the other panels even more puzzling. (Yes, I'm bad at Girl Science. Why would I be doing this if I were good at this crap?)

The Final Comments field was woefully inadequate space-wise to tell some poor stylist what they need to know about what I won't wear. I said some things about how hard it is to fit blouses for me (big enough in front is sloppy on the sides), and I said no pink and no capris. I tried to keep an open mind.

Conspicuously missing from the profile questions: Measurements. They asked for weight, height, and bra size, but not the basic measurements that show how things proportion on a person. I guess that would have made too much sense.They ask for sizes, but sizes are pretty meaningless these days. I mean, I have jeans that fit that are sizes 6-10. I try on size 8 dresses that are too tight but the size 10 is too loose or too long and the size 12 has armholes that you can see my entire body through. I never know what it's going to be, so I usually go to the dressing room with three sizes minimum.

There was also nowhere to upload a picture of myself in clothes I actually like, although there was a place to put a link to a Pinterest board, which I did. I have a style board on Pinterest, and it's full of rich colors and shapes that tend to drape well on me, as well as some things that are just weird coolness. It's on the small side because when I tried to find more stuff to put on it, I gave up. It's hard to find stuff I like by searching under "Fashion."

Armed with this information, such as it was, this is what the stylist picked out for me:

That's one blouse, two things that I think are sort of dresses, and a very, very, very long dress. There's also a pair of earrings.

Let's begin with the yellow and grey maxi dress, shall we? The notes on it said that it could be dressed up or down, and to wear it alone or with a cardigan.

 

It was hard to get a picture of the full awful glory of this thing. To start with, it's long. Really, really long. Like, it brushes the floor without shoes on, and it's not the kind of dress that I'm going to wear high heels with. I put on the profile that I am 5' 4" tall, so there isn't much excuse for this. The top is huge and draggy and would require a cami to hide my bra because it's not low-cut so much as just too damned big.

Without the belt, it looks like a sack. With the belt, it looks like I've joined some kind of monastic order that requires me to wear a belted sack.

Also, pastel yellow? With grey? I associate these colors with overcooked hard boiled eggs, but not with clothes.

This dress would look good on a large-framed blonde who is closing in on six feet tall. That wouldn't be me. In a tolerable color and in a size that actually fit me, I'd consider wearing this, but as is, it's going back in the bag.


Next up is the black and white dress. Before I put this thing on, I actually had some hopes for it. I own a similar item that I bought from Coldwater Creek this spring that looks really good on me.

This, however, I will pass on. It's baggy and really unflattering. In order to get it close enough around my waist to make it sort of fit, I end up with it bagging all over, and the lining was hanging out in the back.

I had high hopes for it because it was fully lined and if it fit I could put a black jacket over it for work, too. As it is? Back in the bag. 

Next, we go to the grey blouse. This also should have been something like a good idea. A nice shell like this can go under a suit and look both professional and feminine. The problem is, this thing is actually a tunic-type blouse despite the fact that it is transparent. It's also huge.

It's essentially a silvery-grey bag made out of really nice, slightly sparkly silk. Why on earth anyone would want to make a bag out of such nice fabric is anyone's guess. Even if I'd gone to the trouble to iron it before trying it on, it would not have changed the fact that my bra is clearly visible from the side. There is way too much of my body visible with this way-too-enormous blouse. I blame bad design. I'm sick and tired of the only blouses that fit me in front being sized for someone of twice my weight. Back in the bag with this, too.

And finally, we come to the Awful Tunic of Awfulness. Steve looked at this as I took it out of the box and said, "I had no idea that things like that were possible."

It's supposed to be a tunic. On me, it looks like a circus tent being used as a muumuu after someone has already used it as a painter's dropcloth. I can't even imagine what the designer was thinking putting the wide white collar thing on it, either.I look at the picture and my brain adds a pair of fuzzy slippers underneath it. It looks like something a trailer park granny would wear to Walmart after midnight because she is out of cat food. Definitely back in the bag.

The earrings, to be fair, are relatively inoffensive except that they're really, really heavy. I'm not going to pay $35 for something that's going to stretch out my ears.

And that's it. That's what I got from Personal Stylist kind of person. I'm going to give this one more shot, referring the stylist to both my Pinterest page and to this blog entry (so she at least knows what I freaking look like and why this stuff didn't work), but if the next shipment is this disappointing I'll be canceling the service. I can dress myself in ill-fitting clothes that don't flatter me all by myself for much less than the asking price was on this stuff. 

It's like a festival of finishing things!

On January 1, I had, in my pile of UFOs, five unfinished pairs of socks. These would be the Noro socks I was making for myself to see if I like Silk Garden sock yarn, the purple socks I started in New Orleans last spring, the purple dragons socks I'm working on for Lori, the green socks I'm making for Hilary, and a random pair of tie-dyed looking socks that I started for myself in a moment of weakness some time last summer.

So far, the Silk Garden socks are done and the second sock is started on the purple socks. Next up: Hilary's socks, because they'll be easy once I figure out when to start the decrease. Then, Lori's socks, which will require fixing the math error in the design that led to the foot becoming smaller and smaller and smaller until it wasn't a sock anymore. (Bad at math. Shoot me.) By the time those are done, I might have found the random socks again and recovered the sock needles that I'm missing that are packed with them.

After that, it's back on the shawl that contained the math error right before Christmas (yes, there is a pattern here). Who knows, I might even get to that poor sweater that's been languishing for something like three years.

Pictures of both the Noro socks and the purple socks once the purple ones are done.

What I'm doing with that new spinning wheel

To start with, I'm once again spinning in the Tour de Fleece. This year so far I've missed two days on account of social obligations and my kid leaving home to seek his fortune, but as of right now I've got two bobbins full of this, ready to ply tonight if I get off my rear and clear one of the other bobbins of leftover stuff so I have somewhere to ply to:


I'm really pleased with how it's going.

Even on the days I haven't spun I've made an effort to go look at the daily threads with everyone else's progress pictures. My reactions generally run the gamut between "that is so cool and I will never get there at this rate" to "did you mean to do that to a couple of ounces of innocent fiber?" At least I feel like I'm doing okay with what I'm doing, but at some point I'm going to need a wheel class because I know I'm not using everything on this to its full potential.

I'm also finding a lot of new (to me) online fiber shops. I either need to join a couple of fiber clubs and order about another pound of new fiber, or I need someone to hide my credit card before I join a couple of fiber clubs and order about another pound of new fiber.

More tomorrow!

I bought a spinning wheel.

I have obviously lost my mind. But isn't she pretty?



She's an Ashford Tradittional spinning wheel. And I love her very dearly. Unfortunately, I'm still persuading her to feel the same way about me, as evidenced by this mess:



That is some perfectly good alpaca fiber that I have turned into slightly overspun (except for the places that it's underspun) yarn barf. I've seen worse beginner efforts, but I'm terrified to put expensive fiber on this yet. I'll be playing around with the cheap stuff that I bought with my first drop spindle and immediately got bored with until I'm sure that what I'm making is yarn and not just yarn barf. And we are not going to talk about the big pile of yarn barf that resulted from my first effort at getting a bobbin started by myself. (It's gone. I made it go away. We will never speak of it again.)

But really, isn't she pretty? :)

What I did on my spinning vacation

I took a bit of a break from knitting this summer to participate in the Tour de Fleece. The idea, if you haven't heard of it, is to spin every day of the Tour de France. (And by this I mean spinning fiber with a drop spindle or a wheel, not the kind of spinning you do on a stationary bike. Although the bike would be better exercise, I guess.)

The Tour starts on July 4th. So, with a house full of people drinking beer and eating barbecue, I got going on two different fibers, an all-bamboo roving and a Butterfly Girl batt with an indescribable number of fibers and sparklies in. I initially found both of these fibers to be extremely difficult to work with. (This might have partially been the beer, to be honest, but my prior spinning has been mainly things like Blue Faced Leicester, which is incredibly easy to work with.)

But all I got the first day, whether because of beer or good company, was this:

This was a rather disappointing start. But I went on spinning every day, alternating between the two fibers as I reached my maximum level of irritation with them.
















At some point, the bamboo suddenly made sense to me, so I finished it:



That's four ounces of Navajo-plied bamboo, a new fiber to me, plied by a technique that I learned while plying it. I'm pretty pleased.

This left me with the sparkly stuff, which I finished the next week:



It's not the most even yarn I've ever spun, but considering that it dearly wanted to be Art Yarn while I had other ideas (I hate art yarn), I think I did pretty well. It's a two-ply, but I'm not going to hold it against it.

But this left me with nearly a week of Tour and I'd finished both of my goals. I picked up the Romney I'd bought at DFW Fiber Fest this spring and finished it. After the slippery stuff and the sparkly stuff, working with a fiber that practically spins itself was a real relief. Unfortunately, the three-ply I got out of it is just not the most appealing yarn. It's scratchy and it's kind of hairy, and not in a nice way. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. But here it is in the basket with the rest of my TdF spinning.



What I have now: three new yarns, a messed up plying spindle (the hairy brown yarn ate it), and no desire to pick up a spindle for at least a week.

So that was the longest and hottest part of my summer. I'm now back to knitting.

Also, can I make a teeny tiny little gripe here? I am so tired of logging on to Ravelry and seeing nothing but news about the Sock Summit. I would love to have gone, but the money and the time just weren't there, and the classes filled up so quickly that I might not have made it in if I had decided that I had the time and the money. I admit that it's mainly envy typing here, but I'll be glad when the damned thing is over and I can begin saving my pennies for next year instead of feeling all bummed because I can't make it this year. At this point, all the attention to it is just rubbing it in for those of us who can't go. /whine

ETA: Although there probably won't be one next year. ::sigh:: Really, I guess I'm just depressed because it seems like all the cools kids can talk about is a party that I can't be at.

Finished First Shawl

Yeah, long time no post. I think I'm trying to keep up with too many things. But I had to post here that I finally blocked the Luna Moth shawl.

It's pretty on the blocking board, although you will note that there is a really nasty unraveling thing going on about a third of the way up from the bottom point.



It looks really pretty on, though. There really is some kind of magic to blocking lace. This thing went from looking like a giant green vaguely hairy-looking scrotum to a real shawl. I've actually worn it a couple of times with a nice shawl pin, and I keep looking at it and going, "I made this?" I now understand why the Yarn Harlot talks about finishing a project and wanting to run out into the street with it and inflict the wonder of it on passers-by. This thing is amazing to me.

Busy, and Socks

I've been busy with all sorts of things the last couple of months trying to get stuff started with the practice, and I guess it's mostly working. I'm working with a client on all the details that crop up before a divorce can be finalized, I have a probate hearing in a week and a half, I'm working on wills for a couple of people, and in theory I have a trial in July on a civil matter. It's not like I have nothing to do. I probably have about the right amount going on considering my experience level. I'm just not making any real money yet, and sometimes that's keeping me up at night.

Meanwhile, because the grass is always greener, I wish I had more criminal defense work even though the last two criminal defense clients stiffed me. (See previous comment about lack of money keeping me up at night.)

I registered with the state bar's referral service, and so far I have had one referral from them, an individual who did not tell me the whole truth about why his probation was being revoked. He then proceeded to stand me up for three appointments in a row, and then ceased to call back after I explained to him that I was not going to be able to give him a payment plan and he'd have to come up with the fee up front. (Once again, see previous comment about money and previous defense clients.)

So I shouldn't complain. Instead I make socks. A week or so ago I finished a pair of self-striping blue socks out of one of last year's Aktion limited edition colors.

The yarn was a gift from either Minirth or Goldenbaer at the group Yule party last winter, as one of them had bought it and then decided they didn't like it much. I think everyone has figured out that I'm a sucker for self-striping yarn, so I ended up with it. I used the Yarn Harlot's basic sock recipe. The length is good but for some reason these have really baggy ankles.

I'm also half finished with Pomotamus. I guess what I have here is one and a half Pomatami. These are a blast to knit, but really? They're all ribbing. I love how they look and how they feel, but after a few rows the construction gets a little tedious. Still, they're so pretty I bought pretty little stitch markers especially for them.

Because they're really stretchy, what with being all ribbing, the first one fits great and the second one probably will too. If the thought of doing another pair of these didn't make me feel a little faint (the ribbing! no more! have mercy!) I'd probably make these my default socks made for other people because they're impressive, pretty, and likely to always fit without being baggy. Cookie A. is a genius, but I think she may be the slightly mad kind of genius.

Tonight I'm going to go knit at Minirth's. Really, I'm going to take my knitting and valiantly try to keep it out of the paws of the new litter of kittens over there. I might knit. I might also do some spinning, and if I think of it I'll take some pictures of that too.