Wheeeeeee!

Sweater: Better Breton by ME! wollmeise dk in admiral and natur
Jeans: Madewell Rail Straight jeans (possibly discontinued; replacement (?) style is Alley Straight
Shoes: Sperry Top-Sider Hayden Loafers in Sahara; similar styles (with tassel) and in patent from Bass
Nails: Butter London flawless basecoat which makes a pretty good matte nude...
Lips: Make Up For Ever Rouge Artist Natural in Aubergine N50

Today is kind of a big deal.

It's my first for-sale independently published pattern. And, to be Californian and British for a moment, I'm properly stoked. Since we already talked about this sweater a couple months ago, I'm not going to bore you with rehash. What I will say is that writing a pattern is both easier and harder than I anticipated. Easier in that numbers don't lie. Provided you start out with good notes and proper measurements, applying a to b is not that difficult. If your gauge is 24sts over 4" then to have something 32 inches wide requires 192 stitches. The End. But transposing that simple truth across ALL the measurements needed is a bit tedious and more than a bit nerve wracking (cause it's so easy to make a mistake and never realize it). Which is why (and because if I'm asking someone to pay me for something, I ought to make sure it's good), I enlisted the help of a tech editor, Joeli on ravelry, to point things out like the fact I had copied and pasted the totally incorrect and nonsensical final measurements from some (likely notepad) document onto my "final" doc.

It's also a bit difficult to trust the standards especially when you, yourself, aren't so standard. My personal neck to underarm measurement is shorter than average; my bust to waist differential is larger than average; I prefer a shorter sweater. How to reconcile those preferences with a garment that will be universally (or will aspire to be...) applicable is challenging. Do I make the adjustments to my version but write the "real" numbers into the pattern? I didn't. I made my version according to Hoyle - and I'll make my next one a little more to my norm. This not only made the process easier, but also allowed me to feel as though the sweater I was selling was also the one I was actually wearing.

So we'll see how this little experiment goes. I'll be at Rhinebeck this weekend as will ALL of the other extant Better Bretons. So if you'll be there too, look for us on Sunday and maybe, just maybe, buy yourself some yarn to make one of your own!

You Keep Saying You Got Something For Me

Sweater: Taqrian by Thayer Preece Parker; wollmeise dk in sternschnuppe; my notes and modifications on Happy
Skirt: J. Crew; similar color (and an incredibly amazing style) by Marni, really cute style at Kate Spade Saturday, and in my new favorite fabric neoprene at Piperlime
Boots: Manolo Blahnik, winter '00-01; this year's far less streamlined version, and the one I would buy were I in the market is from Christian Louboutin, but to be perfectly honest, I would probably wait and see what comes next - I prefer my existing boots (which still have many more years in them) to anything currently on sale
Jacket: Reiss midnight leather moto jacket; similar styles by Veda and on sale Marc New York
Lips: Dolce and Gabbana passion duo gloss fusion lipstick in Sensual
Nails: OPI for Sephora in Break A Legwarmer

I have decided that my eccentric fashion thing, that thing I'm known for (ok, maybe the second thing I'm known for since I think I might already be known for shoes, but that doesn't seem like a "thing" - lots of women like shoes, frankly it's a hahafunny thing that pisses me off, "oh you ladies, always out shoe shopping...") is going to be leather jackets. I'm going to try to score one on sale every year and have a collection of them because I really, really like them (provided I do not pay a lot of money for them). I never owned a real leather jacket until 2012 (I had a two terribly hideous thrift store finds in my HS/College years that were terrifying - and they were 1970s men's jackets because I was too fat for ladies' vintage). I honestly didn't want to buy something of value for a body I didn't value. It's why, by the way, I own all those shoes. When I was unhappy with my shape, I didn't want to spend money to dress it. My feet, on the other hand, weren't going to fluctuate with my weight, so they could have beautiful things. I used to swan about pretty much every day in $20 dollar clothing and $500 shoes. So I bought my first leather jacket from a Canadian company, Danier, which I can highly recommend for great bargains and great quality. I started with a center zip, fitted, burgundy jacket. AND LOVED IT! Oh my, it just makes a girl look so cool to toss on a leather jacket. So this past winter, I started looking at other styles, and I fixated on the classic moto. All the cool celebrities have one (I think Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent are the faves), and it makes a good girl appear tough. Soon the hunt I went. I knew what I wanted: the good old fashioned classic black moto with the chrome features. I wanted these things right until the moment I tried this one on at Bloomingdale's while I was shopping for something entirely different. It fit really well. And more than that, the style fit me really well. I'm not butch, no matter how much I might think I can play at it. My tough is a different kind of tough - I'd dare to call it steely, but it's definitely not an out there, let's take this outside, kind of tough. I kept thinking of Katie Segal in Sons of anarchy and how frickin' awesome she is and how I simply do not have that same look. The midnight blue, flat matte detailed, motorcycle jacket was just...me. The non-showy kind of tough. It went on sale, I hit buy, the rest is beautiful history. I love this jacket and I love it more than I would have loved its traditional cousin. It goes great with a dress and with jeans and is trying just hard enough without trying too hard. We're a good fit.

This sweater, on the other hand, is begging for you to pay attention to it. The color is amazing. I called the project Happy because knitting this sweater with this color yarn made me happy - and I knit it at a time when I was anything but happy. This was therapy knitting and it worked wonders. I really did derive some happy from sitting down to knit this. When I originally saw the pattern, I felt certain I would make it in a neutral, but then I discovered this color, which is a pretty perfect yellow and has a bonus, slightly difficult-to-pronounce German name, and realized that I could make the sweater in a decidedly non-neutral. Before I started knitting, I would never have considered wearing yellow; now I have a surprising number of yellow sweaters and an even more surprising number of yellow yarns yet to be bought. And I'm discovering that yellow is more neutral than I thought. There are few colors that won't go with yellow, and most of them (I'm looking at you, pink) aren't colors I would own a lot of bottoms in any way. I also thought it looked pretty good under my midnight moto, which is why they went together this morning.

A note on my hair: it needs to be cut. A lot. It's kind of a disaster. However, I discovered that my slightly Mod look benefited from the old "no these bangs aren't too long, I intentionally bobby pinned them back like this because STYLE" hairdo.