And the Winner of the Carissa Rose Shirt is ...

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Belle de Ville - as picked  at random by Niamh.   Belle, email me and I'll pass your details on so you can choose your shirt.


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Last Chance To Enter to Win a Carissa Rose Shirt

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.Today is the last day to enter to win the great Carissa Rose Shirt.

Winner announced tomorrow!


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How Did I End Up Frumpy?

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This is a lament that I hear from women of a certain age who feel they've lost their style mojo and they're not sure when and where they lost it.

It tends to creep up on us, as we get older we tend to have less time to go to shops and try on clothes.  Also, our body shape tends to morph a bit, particularly if we've had children or gone through menopause.

Often when we put on a bit of weight, either through pregnancy or just life, we look for clothes that are a bit looser, we may look for an elastic waist band, and then we get used to this larger, looser style of clothing. We may also feel like we need to hide our body and start choosing more voluminous garments and wear them together, instead of one at a time.

This all adds to the frump factor.

Then, as we've got kids and we are time poor and now hate shopping or feel useless at is as we no longer know what shops to frequent, our clothing becomes older and out of fashion, which also leads to frumpiness.

And how many mother's don't seem to find any money for themselves, but can always find money to put their kids in the latest trainers or give them a whole new wardrobe every year?  Mother's often feel like they are the least important person in a family, the last one in line for everything.

A friend of mine discovered after she had a 'nervous breakdown' as she described it, if she, the mother is broken, the whole family stopped working.  Taking some time out for herself, looking after her needs and making herself a priority rather than the last on the list, looking after appearance helped her recover and become a better mother.

Re-discovering yourself is important, we are not static beings and understanding our personality today is an important first step in looking after ourselves and knowing how best to fight the frump.

My kids love that I look after my appearance and that am vibrant and young in my appearance, they have said to me that they'd prefer I keep dying my hair rather than let if go grey, cos grey hair is only for grandparents.   In fact both of them love to help me get dressed (though I have to have the final say), they enjoy choosing my clothing and accessories and helping me look 'pretty' (my kids words).

So how did you end up frumpy and how do you fight it?


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How to Remove Scuff Marks from Patent Leather

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Patent leather can't be polished up in the same way with shoe polish that regular leather works with, so how do you remove scuff marks?

Soap and water can get some marks off.  One thing you could try is to put some some non-acetone nail polish remove on a cotton pad and wipe over the scuff mark to remove it.

Have you any tried and true ways of removing marks from patent leather?


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How to Choose a Flattering Cardigan

If you're like me and like to wear a cardi when it's a little nippy, how to choose one to flatter your figure?

Choosing Cardigans by imogenl featuring Rocha.John Rocha

Clockwise from top left - the stripy cardigan is great for I shapes, the wide stripes will add curves as will the pocket detail which will add width to your hips.

The white cardian with black waist detail will give you the illusion of a lovely waist, the striped cuff details will make your hips look curvier.

The grey with feather neckline cardigan is great for 8, X and A shapes who can all highlight their small waists with a belt, the feathers draw attention up toward you face.

The peach cardigan with ruched sleeves is best for A and 8 shapes who have narrower shoulders and want to balance their hips whilst still drawing attention their small waists.

The black cardigan with the asymmetrical hem is fantastic for A and X shapes who want to deflect from their hips.

The red and grey cardigans in the middle are great for those with less of a waisted shape, O, Hs and Vs. The long open line creates flattering verticals that elongate a shorter torso.

The long peach cardigan is great for Xs,8s and As, the tie at the waist highlights your waist, the longer length camouflages your bottom.

As and 8s with narrower shoulders will look great in the white cardigan with shoulder detail.

The green and grey cardigans are great for smaller busted women as the high necklines will flatter.

The blue/grey cardigan with asymmetric wide collar works for Hs and As, as does the red cardigan with ruffle detail.

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How Do You Like to Be Complimented?

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Yesterday I was talking to a friend who I've known since I was 16 and she commented that back then she was jealous of my super cool trendy hairdo I had back then (it was an asymmetrical style very 1984), and it's funny that I never saw myself as either cool or trendy back then.  When I was 16 I would have loved to be called cool or trendy, these days if someone complimented me telling me I look trendy I'd be horrified and wouldn't feel it was a great compliment for me at my age, as trendy feels too 'try hard' for a women in her 40s.

I love to be told I look great, gorgeous, and of course, fabulous.  But I don't enjoy it when someone tells me I look like I've lost weight (I haven't and it always makes me wonder how fat am I in the image in their head?).

If I was told I looked chic,  I would also think chic is not a word I'd used to describe myself and it feels too high maintenance for me.  Through my work I've met women who would like to be described as feminine, and others who would be horrified at the thought.

What compliments do you enjoy receiving and which ones make you feel uncomfortable?


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Weekend Reading: Expert Chat Sewing Pattern Review

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I've been asked to do an 'expert chat' on the Sewing Pattern Review forums, it's your chance to ask me questions, it's on my time (Melbourne Australia) this Monday 26 July at 10am and for US readers ( July 25th, 8 PM Eastern Time (5 Pacific, 6 Mountain, 7 Central) and if you're elsewhere in the world, you can figure out when that is in your time.  I believe that they also keep the transcript of  the chat on the website too if it's at an inconvenient time for you to join us live.

Here’s the link to go to the chat room

http://sewing.patternreview.com/chatroom

If you are not a member of patternreview(free membership is fine) they will need to create an account first.

http://sewing.patternreview.com/join

Once you're a member, to log into the chat the password is: image

Don't forget to enter the competition for the Carrisa Rose Shirt (of  your choice) entries close in 1 week!


Have you ever wondered about a style blogger's personal style journey?  Sal from Already Pretty shares hers here.


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Colour My World - Introduction to the Psychology of Colour

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How we react to colours comes from a variety of sources, the natural world, our culture and even semantics.  Nature is hugely influential on how we percieve and interpret colours.  One of the easiest ways to understand colour psychology is to think about how and when we view specific colours in nature.

For example, when the weather is good we expect to see a blue (calming, serene, trustworthy) sky, green (calming, peaceful, reassuring) foliage, brown (down-to-earth, dependable) earth, yellow (bright, happy, fun) sun, white (peaceful) fluffy clouds.   When the clouds are dark grey or black we call them 'intimidating' and 'threatening', when we see red blood we think of potential danger and emergency and are physiologically stimulated by it (our blood pressure is rises).

Why do we love pictures of tropical scenery so much?  They're mainly full of mid blues and greens which calm and relax us.

We also interpret colours culturally, for example brides wear white wedding dresses in Western cultures and thus the colour has come to symbolise purity and freshness.   Green is the colour of a political party 'The Greens' in Australia and represents a left wing political view, it's also the colour of the environmental movement and we talk about 'being green' meaning caring about the environment.

Green is also used semantically to represent envy (green with envy), having the blues is another way of saying that you're depressed, as is a visit by the black dog.

Each time we see a colour we are using our natural perceptions plus our cultural and semantic understandings to interpret it and give it meaning.

Are there any colours that are perceived in a particular way in your culture?


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Colour My World - How We See Colour - Colour Blindness

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Colour is so important to us. One of the reasons humans have evolved into such a successful species is our ability to distinguish lots of different colours.   Many animals cannot see red tones, so in a jungle, a tiger doesn't look orange to it's prey, it looks browny-green, thus easily blending into the landscape, but to humans, we see the colour and can more quickly act to avoid being lunch.

Inside our eyes we have around 120 million rods and 6-7 million cones.  The rods are sensitive to light and dark, seeing colours in the black, white,grey spectrum , the cones to colour, which pick up either red, blue or green colours.

1 in 10 men have some colour deficit and 1 in 200 women have the same problems picking up the differences in colour.

How someone sees colour who has full colour vision

There are different sorts of colour blindness

Protanopia - the complete absence of the ability to pick up red

Deuteraonopia - the green retinal photoreceptors are absent, moderately affecting red-green hue discrimination. .

Tritanopia is a very rare color vision disturbance in which there are only two cone pigments present and a total absence of blue retinal receptors

If you want to see more examples of what people see (really important if you're designing something) this is a useful link.

Pics courtesy: Wikipedia


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Travel Tip no.2 - Ear Plugs

One item I never leave home without when travelling is a pair of ear plugs.   When I'm on an airplane the ear plugs cut down on the engine noise  which makes for a much more relaxing trip, they also cut down on the crying  child in the row behind you (yep I've been that mother on a 14 hour plane trip whose baby won't go to sleep - sorry!).

Also, when staying in hotels, you'll often find that people walking and talking outside of your door may wake you up, unfamiliar noises that emanate from the street outside also may interfere with your sleep.  A pair of ear plugs will help to  eliminate these problems.

I prefer the ones with the cord, so if one falls out you can easily find it again.


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