This is something a little different for me, but I’m piggy-backing onto 2 awesomely inspiring fellow bloggers. First up is Ti over at SewingByTi who had a seriously brilliant idea to match up sewing bloggers and readers by body type, so you can find inspiration that specifically works for you. I love the idea, and thought this would be a fun opportunity for a little exposure (pun intended). So here are my details- are we a match?

Other idiosyncrasies: I am petite all over, but most especially through my midsection. I typically remove 1 – 1 1/2″ from my bodices right at or below the waistline. When I make pants I remove 1/2 = 1″ from the rise, and 1-2″ each from the thigh, knee, and calf. When making fitted pants, I need to size down from mid-thigh to high calf (or size up through the hips and calves). I am still working on resolving the major difference between my sewing cup and my bra cup – I’m going to try perfecting my favorite t-shirt pattern by sizing up in the back, and down in the front, but doing a FBA and making sure I match up the armscyes. We’ll see if that makes a difference

Overall, I call myself a petite hourglass-y pear. Which means my waist is reasonably defined (even with the short torso) and my boobs are big, but my hips are bigger. My hip measurements are more side-to-side than front-to-back which means I don’t usually have to make swayback or sassy booty adjustments. When I gain weight, it distributes pretty evenly, though maybe a bit more through my mid-section than anywhere else. If all goes according to plan I can post updated pictures in a couple of months when I am back to my normal non-crazy stressed weight. Here I am (yes, I’ve always known I look MUCH better in profile than from the front)

Tank is RTW but the leggings are the 5oo4 Ninjas in a fleece-lined performance nylon from So Sew English

My second piggy-back is from Seamwork and Becca over at FreeNotion, and it’s an exercise in finding your color palette. I’m not going to reinvent the wheel by explaining how I put it together (seriously, check out the links), but I love the final result for me. This picture isn’t necessarily ideal for this exercise because the light is a little too contrast-y, but I tried taking some new ones and my eyes weren’t hitting the right tones. This is, in fact, the only picture of me that I’ve ever seen that accurately captures the gold and blue in my eyes.  In most pictures my eyes get washed out to a crazy zombie blue. So I went with a mid-tone for my skin that I feel good about, and everything else is spot on.

These are my base colors: hair, eyes, skin, lips, and silver hair at my roots. I wish I was joking about that last one but at least it’s a great neutral…. From there we get here (base palette colors outlined in corners):

I apologize to my OCD readers for the wonky color boxes.

Other than the overwhelming presence of all the pinks (ugh), this is mostly a confirmation of what I already knew. My complexion really doesn’t take strong contrasts. Even my neutrals tend to run soft (like, you know, the grey in my dress I’m wearing) rather than bold. As I work through purging a significant portion of my fabric stash, this will definitely help me refine what I decide to keep. And hopefully help me make better long-range shopping choices in the future.