Fantasy Friday: Colors

We are almost out the door!  All the trash and recycling is out, the packet of school work that came home was lovingly examined and then regretfully recycled (after some pictures were taken, of course), the kids have been dropped off for their last day of school/daycare.  My office here actually looks clean and tidy!  We're trying to use up all of our Nectar points - not sure if we'll just use them on our remaining Sainsbury purchases, or if we'll go for that Pizza Express deal.  Dinner for tonight involves the last set of leftovers.


So - not a huge amount of fabric shopping!  I did get tempted by some beautiful reversible jackets at a local shop that sells handmade embroidered cotton garments from India.  They are beautiful, but I had my daughter in tow and she reminded me that we had no more room and told me not to "go crazy".  She's six.  She's the one who is crazy.  Nyah.  I comforted myself by purchasing a little hand mirror from the Cath Kidson shop to keep in my bag as a memory of our time here.

There has been an interesting thread on the Stitchers Guild page about finding colors, so I did spend a little down time on that.  I'm pretty neutral between cool and warm, perhaps a little more on the warm side.  I always vaguely thought I was an "autumn", but then was confused as I seemed to be finding a lot of good-for-me outfits in clearer navy and green than I'd thought worked for autumns (i.e., not grayed, olive ones, but kelly and grass greens).  See? I stand by my green assessment. 

It turns out that since I last checked on such things (somewhere in the nineties) they've introduced all sorts of "muted, soft" and other terms.  At some point I gave up, but did construct a chart of sorts to guide me in my fabric and clothing purchases.  The goal here was to just see if there was some color range I was "missing".

And there is.  I'm not wearing much of that column on the right at all, and I don't think I've ever worn the oranges!  I'm not wearing many light versions of any color except white, and I found on this trip that the bright white polyester blouse I'd made looked terrible on me.  Not a huge surprise there - I should be going for off-whites, or at least somewhat transparent whites.  My beloved navy is still in there, as is brick red.  I'm not going to start buying my suites in brown.  I get that it goes well with my coloring, but I find too much brown depressing on me unless it's in a luxurious, soft fabric like a corduroy or squooshy sweater.  I'm intrigued by the idea of a forest green suit - you don't really ever see that except for sometimes on redheads, and you certainly don't seem them in the stores!  But perhaps I'd just look like I worked at the park service.  I'm definitely sticking with the mustards - they make me happy.  I have a great mustard ponte I bought while here that is waiting for me in my office at home.  It'll be a work sheath, probably in my TNT Simplicity pattern.

I was also not surprised to see that light lemon yellow is not in there - I have a dress I made out of that color (accidental purchase, actually) and it makes me look half dead.

In terms of fantasy, the new fabric.com offerings this week included a set of eyelets, which I'm always drawn to this time of year.  Not going to happen, though.  They also had some paisley printed techno scuba, which is a bit more tempting.  This color would work, but I am afraid that the shine might make it look too nonprofessional.