In which I pretend to be a style blogger

Since this site has been sorely neglected for over two years now, I figure you won't mind if I update with random things.  It's never really had a theme anyway, it's just more of a journal.  (And I apologize for the blabbery style tonight -- we've been listening to Anne of Green Gables audiobook, and I'm in blabber mode, I guess.)

A little history:  Almost two years ago, in a bout of insanity, I entered a contest.  It was a contest to design and sew a dress with shirring.  Nothing too difficult or too fancy.  I didn't win or anything, but somehow got hooked on the process.  Before long, I remade that gown into a skirt and entered another contest, and more and more.  And my favorite. I even placed in one.  In retrospect, I probably got carried away.

About that time, I decided that designing and sewing clothes was so much fun that I should really start sewing some for myself.  Of course that included designing clothes for myself too.  Which got me started thinking about what in the world looked good on me, and how I could design clothes that flattered me, and such.

I don't remember ever thinking about fashion, what colors and styles suited me, and designing for my body before recently.  But I started up the learning curve.  I learned that my body type is an inverted triangle, even though I always thought I had narrow shoulders (turns out that I have a big bust - never thought that either - and it's mostly bust that makes me the inverted triangle).  I have a full tummy, no surprise there - I've had five kids.  I thought I was probably a "fall" as far as colors, but never could really figure that out.

About a year ago, I picked up came across this book at Barnes and Noble while browsing.  I perused it, and liked it.  Zyla makes the claim that colors which look best on a person are the exact ones found in their coloring.  Essentially, each person has eight best colors:

• The color of the ring around their eye, 
• the color of their blush (or their finger when pinched), 
• the color of their darkest vein in their wrist, 
• the color of their darkest hair, 
• the color of their lightest hair, 
• the darkest color in their eyes (not counting the ring), 
• the lightest color in their eyes, 
• and a skin-tone type color that blends their skin tones

Using these colors, and some personality traits, he gives you a season (I think he would probably place me as a "antique winter", if I remember the name of it right), and recommends even styles for you to wear.

Rebecca recently read his book, and reviewed it, then responded to questions here.  I really liked her review, and am giving more consideration to his idea that all your best colors are found in your natural coloring.

But, here's the problem.  Most of my colors are brown.  Now don't get me wrong, I like brown.  And I like the way that I look in brown.  But it doesn't feel very professional, for one, and well, I like more variety than just brown brown brown.

Here's a couple of pictures.  My hair is brown, but has henna in it, making it sort of orange-y, purple-y brownish.  After it fades, it looks almost natural, and I like the color that it would be if it were naturally the color that henna sort of makes it.  (Wow, how's that for a confusing sentance!).  What I'm saying is, I like auburn hair, and henna makes my hair almost auburn.  And it's cheap.  So sometimes I henna my hair.  It's henna'd right now, so it looks like this:

The flower in my hair is about the color of my veins -- somewhere near navy and indigo, but muted and softer than both.  The flower is made out of sheer curtains, and I like it.  Isn't it cute?  (They're so easy to make!).

And here's my eye.  It's surprisingly difficult to get a good picture of an eye.  The colors in my eye range from orangy-brown to rich chocolate brown, and the ring around it is charcoal.

If it weren't bedtime, I'd post a table of my colors. Perhaps tomorrow.

My questions for the blogosphere, who is not nearly as obsessed with my colors as I am, I know, are first: do I look like a winter? I'm having a hard time being a winter - it seems so harsh - yet when I read that section of the book, I was really convinced of it. And my colors are pretty much all dark. Hmm....

And secondly, I really like to wear green. I'm hoping to find a green that will go will with my colors, and if I post my colors (in html), perhaps it'll be easy to see what greens go with them, or perhaps you can make suggestions.

So that's it for tonight.

I have things I've made, by the way, to post. I just gotta get some pictures taken. And I want to tell you about my new working out thing. It's nice, and I'm getting stronger. I can even do push ups now.