My adventures with mermaid hair.

Let me tell you that I am shocked, shocked I say, that the only internet tutorials out there on how to dye your hair with markers seem to be created solely by preteens, teens, and drag queens (and that was on dyeing synthetic wig hair with sharpies which, while intriguing, was not applicable to yours truly).  Not a one was by or for Women of a Certain Age looking to shed all pretense of middle-aged respectability by dyeing their gray hair something other than "what I vaguely and optimistically recall being my original color".  Needless to say, that required documenting my own experimentation.

Ironically enough for someone who has never been on-trend in her life, let alone fashion forward, "mermaid hair" seems to be very much on-trend for summer 2015.  Since I've been contemplating doing this for almost a year now, I'll just pretend that I'm a trendsetter.  Unless you count the gray itself, I haven't had an "interesting" color of hair since my sophomore year in college, which resulted in the following conversation with my organic chemistry professor:

Prof: Purple?
Me: Better living through chemistry, dude.

Things the tweenies on YouTube did right:

1. Fresh markers (lots of pigment to work with; I used some random ones from my collection of random art supplies)
2. Vaseline on the forehead (I used some Nivea cream, but as I was sweating like stuck pig throughout this process, it did me very little good)

Things said tweenies did wrong:

1. Opening marker cases with teeth (Speaking as the contemporaries of the people who pay your dental bills, OH HONEY NO!  I did that shit when I was younger, and my teeth are chipped to hell now.  Just don't.)
2. Not using gloves (purple fingers look very silly)

I seem to recall a hairdresser once telling me that gray hair is very pigment thirsty, and that seemed to be the case with mine.  Despite sacrificing several markers in my pursuit of blue-green hair, the color ended up way lighter than I was hoping (though, admittedly, quite a lot darker than my gray, which immediately made me want to dye my eyebrows due to loss of contrast definition).

Also, doing this in the blistering July heat may be inadviseable, as it may cause sky-blue rivulets of sweat to go running down your face.  I think I may go back into the shower, wash my hair again, and see how much of the color stays.  That said, I like the effect.  I may go for something like Garnier Color Styler or these hair chalk things I've been seeing.

TIL: How to spin!

Back in late March, I spent a fantastic long weekend at the P3 (Plug & Play Pembrokeshire) retreat, learning all manner of interesting things about knitting design and so on. The Sunday morning of the retreat, there was surprise programming, in which the fantastic Amy Singer taught us about the wonders of silk hankies, courtesy of our fantastic sponsors at Blue Moon Fiber Arts. If you're wondering what on earth a handkerchief has to do with yarn, check out this fantastic article by Amy that will give you all the vital info. Being so inspired by this gorgeous material, I took it upon myself to order my first drop spindle so that I could turn these gorgeously colored, strangely cobwebby fibers (and I do mean cobwebby: very fine, rather sticky, vaguely what you would expect spinning cotton candy to feel like) into something resembling yarn.

 Having found various videos on YouTube on how to spin using a drop spindle, including this one which had the dual advantage of a) using a spindle identical to mine and b) being delivered in the most charming Scottish accent I've ever heard, I managed to spin all of my silk roving! It was rather a lot of effort for not a lot of yarn, but when I was done, I nevertheless felt about ten feet tall! At that point, I was left with a nagging feeling of "Um... now what do I do with it?" Ever since Knitty started featuring the KnittySpin-related columns, I've been skipping them since I didn't spin, but thankfully they were all there waiting for me! This article had a very nice summary of how to finish your yarn, which was exactly what I was looking for. Since I don't have a niddy-noddy and my swift is a bit fiddly, I just wound it around my left arm, and very deftly managed to tie stabilizing pieces largely one-handedly!

 Here it is soaking, to set the twist:
 
 Here it is, hanging up to dry:
 

 

 I love, love, love the candy-cane striping where the different colors come together in the overlaps. Given how much I love thick-and-thin yarns with dazzling variegated colorways, I'm extremely tempted to start playing around with dyeing my own stacks of silk hankies and spinning more yarn! I've been wanting to design a series of colorways based on the characters in the Merry Gentry books by Laurell K. Hamilton, and this would be a good excuse to do it.

Life Lessons at FC Nuremburg

I’d been facing the arrival of this day with a steadily increasing sense of dread, knowing what I’d agreed to subject myself to.  It would tricky enough were I to align myself with my adopted city of Munich, one of Nuremburg’s two archrivals.  It would be comparably difficult were I fan of the sport that I, but not most Europeans, grew up calling “football”.  It would probably even be problematic were I a fan of some other comparably popular competitive spectator sport, though I’d be hard pressed to come up with a single example that even approaches the popularity of soccer in Europe, especially in Germany where they call it “Fußball” (a word which still evokes for me a wrist-wrenching table game played with something like a cross between a ping-pong ball and a golf ball).  That I’d ever been a fan of any sort of team sport, be it American or European – indeed, I’ve never even understood the mindset of team sport participation, let alone sport fandom – promised to make the afternoon bizarre, at the very least.  Add into that my deep dislike of crowds, as well as the fact that the day’s match was against Nuremburg’s second greatest rival, the derby game against their twin city of Fürth, and it was rendered increasingly uncomfortable as we approached the security check. As with the few high school sporting events I’d been forced to attend, all the shouting and chanting filled me with a deep sense of discomfort, unease, and confusion.  I wasn’t certain whether the presence of Die Polizei in riot gear made me feel safer or more nervous.  At least the press of bodies eased up a bit once I’d been frisked and the contents of my purse inspected.

It’s hard not to think of another sort of potentially violent form of group-think, here in what was once the heart of the Third Reich.  The kilometer-long pilgrimage along the Dutzendteich lake would require wearing a blindfold, if one wanted to avoid any reminders of National Socialism.  Across the lake is the Volkskongress, the never-finished assembly hall which now houses a documentation center which preserves the history of that horrible time.  The half-razed Steintribune features in too many well-known film clips with tens of thousands of Nazis marching in front of the massive edifice.  The stone pylons around the Zeppelinfeld are surrounded by chainlink and razor wire, with an oddly familiar green sign stating “Emergency Exit: No Parking” auf Englisch, presumably mounted by my countrymen once they’d taken over the place in 1945.

At least it was an easy even to dress for: my wardrobe contains plenty of red and black, and none of the kelly green that would get me mistaken for a supporter of Fürth.  Nuremburg can’t seem to decide which shade of red is their color, oddly enough.  The uniforms are the sort of maroon color one could, at a stretch, call “Harvard Crimson”, one which says “Weinrot” on the nostalgic lace-up jersey we purchase for me to wear.  Equally represented, however, is a bright, true, primary-cherry red, the sort of candy-apple that perfectly graces a 1965 Ford Mustang convertible.  When I ask if this shade isn’t too close to the red of Munich’s red and white, that color is dismissed as “much more orangey” and “infrared”.  Neither do I get an answer to the question of why, if Nuremburg’s colors are red and black, the jerseys of both fans and athletes have white accents.  Apparently the nuances of athletic fashion are lost on me.  I enter the arena wearing a cherry-striped black scarf that clashes horribly with my burgundy shirt.

If my vague memories from deep in the mists of time are correct, this jersey is roughly the same color as those worn by my team during the single season I spent playing girls’ soccer in fifth grade.  I vaguely recall the mechanics of the game, though I find myself somewhat confused by the fact that the goalies don’t match their teams in this game.  American football played by far the largest role in my home, and the red to which I was encouraged to feel allegiance was the “Go Big Red” (my first complete sentence, according to family legend) of the Nebraska Cornhuskers.  Even though my parents’ alma mater was in the midst of its frequently victorious Tom Osbourne years during my childhood and adolescence, the appeal of spectator sports was lost on me even then.  My comprehension and success in participatory sports fared not much better.  My body, which could handle dancing and piano-playing with ease, steadfastly refused to acquire any of the gross motor coordination required to throw, catch, kick, dribble, or in any other way handle a ball.  If there is such a thing as orbophobia, fear of spherically-shaped sports equipment, I surely had it.  In short, I was hopeless.  While playing goalie, the ball got by me more often than not; I was equally useless as a fullback.

My anxiety grew as we took the bus from near the apartment of my friend’s brother, where we had parked the car, towards the Dutzendteich Bahnhof bus stop, where we would begin our inexorable march towards the stadium.  I started grasping for an out.  At one point, we passed by a forest; drawing on my years of attempting to be Danish, I suggested that we could go for a nice walk amongst the trees instead.  We passed the Tiergarten stop, and I piteously offered to go to the zoo for the duration of the game.  As we walked along the lake, my nervousness blossomed into the ridiculous.  “I could go play with the fishes... it’s not that cold!”  Signage advertised an “Erotik-Messe” in the building next to the stadium, which I will confess, despite its sleazy reputation, sounded vastly more appealing than spending my afternoon in the company of 50,000 screaming soccer fans.

Along with extant reminders of Germany’s racist atrocities are some rather uncomfortable reminders of atrocities committed by my homeland.  After seeing a few examples, I remark on the rather incongruous and unexpected experience of seeing the Confederate battle flag in Germany.  I am informed that there is a particular segment of FCN fans who have taken this symbol as their own.  (I later discover that this is widely spread around Europe, the soccer fans who use it are well aware of its racist overtones, and that they are usually sufficiently racist themselves that they don’t care.)  I find myself torn between the desire to beat my forehead against the nearest ugly Nazi concrete pylon, and the overwhelming urge to find one of these clueless douchenozzles and punch him in the nose.  In light of the fevered pitch of the day’s game, my hosts remind me that it would be ill-advised to start a fistfight.  Security was so tight I didn’t even dare to bring my knitting.

Most of the people in our section are sufficiently well-behaved that the panic attack I feared while in the security line never emerged.  One notable exception is the fellow across the aisle from me whom I have chosen to think of as “Mr. Shouty”.  He has one of the Southern Cross buttons on his jean jacket, and I imagine that he’d shout pretty loudly at me as well, were I to succumb to the compulsion to walk over, rip it off his clothing, and crush it beneath my foot.  Lower down and to my right is the Überfan section, which has not stopped singing, drumming, chanting, and waving flags since well before I sat down.  In a way, they make me think of practitioners of some ancient ecstatic religion, one where transportation away from the mundane is achieved via dance and vocalization.  I find myself wondering what the history is behind of the two shades of red, as the black and red stripes and crosses on their flags are uncomfortably close to the black and red of the Swastika.  It doesn’t require much imagination to envision them with slightly different flags, singing currently verboten songs, changing now unthinkable slogans, following their shouts of “Sieg!” with “Heil!”, and waving a banner with a picture not of Max Morlock (a legendary FCN player after whom the street outside is named, and after whom many fans want to name the stadium), but of Der Führer.

I’ve often wondered if there is something broken in my brain, some missing element that allows a human being to transform from an individual into one of hundreds or thousands, thinking and acting in unison.  Even my very left-wing and anti-authoritarian host, who later ends up in an argument with his brother about unthinking obedience to and compliance with the police, muses that he might have found it hard to resist the crowd-inflaming sentiments that were whipped up in this very place so many years ago.  While some might find it joyous, even glorious, to feel so unified in purpose with so many other people, whether for innocent purposes or not, I frankly find it frightening.  Where others might feel compelled to let go and get caught up in the moment, I tense up and retreat into my mind, always an observer, never a participant.  This much, however, is certain: nothing drives me to put pen to paper faster than being in a strange situation I don’t comprehend.  This essay was half begun mentally well before I dug my ever-present notebook out of my purse.  Perhaps it would be good for my writing if I made a habit of lurking in the corners of places I’d otherwise never venture, channeling my experiences into the written word as a means of processing all the unfamiliarity.  At the very least, it has been the only way I could cope with this, my first professional football match.  Nuremburg lost, 0-1; I gained something less compelling and definable than victory, but nevertheless useful.

A quick update before resuming regular posting

Suffice it to say, my business-in-infancy never made it to toddlerhood.  There are a number of reasons for this, but primary among them is the fact that I was trying to make a go of it all by myself, which plays to my weaknesses rather than my strengths.

I'm currently applying for jobs teaching English as a Foreign Language.  My mid-range plans waffle daily between going back for my PhD in linguistics, and opening a yarn shop.  At the very least, I'm going to convert this into my personal blog, and try to post more often about whatever topic catches my attention.

NYC Shopping Report, Part II

Otherwise known as "Macy's and Bloomies and Mood, oh my!" (I saw Wicked while there, so naturally I had to crack an Oz joke.)

So, when last I had updated, I was on my way to the Fashion District to visit start-up designer Monif C's shop to purchase one of her convertible infinity dresses.  I ended up buying her ruched Marilyn model in a gorgeous shade of purple, thus using all of my early birthday money from Christian.  (He told me not to spend it all in one place, but I think I did...)  The link above doesn't seem to have the purple model, which I believe was a leftover from a previous season, so here's my own somewhat less effective picture (I'll add some selfies in several different variations later on):

From there, I eventually headed to Mood Fabrics together with a friend from college who now lives in NYC.  There I acquired enough of a lovely pinkish wool blend knit to make a slightly more upscale hoodie, enough silk jersey in a sort of raspberries 'n' cream tie-dyed look to make a summer dress, and enough of a black and white Missoni knit to make myself a skirt!  I figure, hey, Missoni doesn't make clothes in my size, but since they sell their fabrics on the bolt, I may as well make my own!  However, they sell their fabrics for $40 a yard, which is why I'm making a skirt instead of a whole dress, which is the more traditional Missoni format.  (Hmm... though it occurs to me, if I could find a complementary print or a nice solid, I could make a dress similar in cut to the one featured in this fashion blog post.)

The next day, I went to Bloomingdale's, the big one on 59th and Lexington.  I have to say: if you're a plus-size woman in North America (or just planning to head to NYC), and you have money to spend, go here.  I will not go so far as to say it was my dream shopping experience, but it's as close to it as I can ever recall getting.  The plus-size section (still called "Woman's", which is pleasant but inaccurate) occupies about a quarter of the fifth floor, with half going to home furnishings and another quarter going to evening wear.  (Deviation from Dream #1: My dream shopping experience would be a place with the whole floor of a department store that size.)  It had virtually no lingerie (and the lingerie section on 4th had very little in my size), though I did get two tops from a shapewear brand called Yummie Tummie, one I hadn't heard of before (think Spanx for your upper half).  (Deviation from Dream #2: My dream shopping experience would have a quarter of that whole floor devoted to lingerie, both everyday and special occasion with a nice sprinkling of naughty girl, as well as sleepwear and exercise clothes.)

I get the distinct impression their sales staff is either entirely or partially on commission, given the way they (very politely!) glom onto you when you enter the department, offer to open a fitting room for you, and put their card in a holder by the fitting room.  I had the assistance of a lovely older Peruvian lady named Fanny, so if you go there, look for the short cap of bright red curls, or ask for her by name.  My only gripe, about the sales staff in general, not about Fanny in particular: only one of the sales associates in the department looked to be of an actual plus-size nature.  This is especially tragic and wasteful on the store's part, as I saw at least two or three down in the lingerie department.  (Deviation from Dream #3: My dream shopping experience would have a shop staffed exclusively by fabulous fat-shionistas.)

The Bloomingdale's Women section carried the following brands: Ralph Lauren Woman, Calvin Klein Woman, Jones New York Woman, Tahari Woman, MICHAEL Michael Kors, and Eileen Fisher (which features several garments with organic fibers!).  The Bloomingdale's online shop carries a few other brands as well.  (Deviation from Dream #4: My dream shopping experience would have TONS of different designers and styles represented in the shop, hence needing to be housed in a space at least as large as an entire floor of a Bloomie's-sized department store.)  I was pleased to see that so many of their lines were plus-size extensions of name-brand designers, as SO FEW designers do this.  From what I could see from my peeks onto the 3rd floor, at least some of the Woman collections featured the same garments as the mainstream size collections, just larger (I was about ready to have a fit at Michael Kors for his tops being all baggy and shapeless, until I realized that his regular collection looked that way, too).

Major complaint:  TOO MUCH F'ING POLYESTER!  There were SO many dresses and tops that were just gorgeous to look at, but as soon as I touched them or read the fiber tag, my heart sank.  Admittedly, there was one top that was so silk-like to the touch that it had me fooled until I read the tag, which speaks volumes about what really, really good polyester can be like; however, most designers don't use really, really good polyester.  Most designers use mediocre or crap-level polyester, and way too much of it.  (Deviation from Dream #5: Any designers trying to slip polyester into my dream store would be given a stern talking to, and strong encouragement of the "or else we won't sell your clothes here anymore" variety to discontinue their use of polyester.)

The one exception here was Ralph Lauren Woman.  Almost everything was in natural fibers, or natural blends with very small portions of synthetics.  For example: I got a wonderful pair of jeans, which were 98% cotton 2% elasthane!  They were $75, but I've paid more in Europe for jeans I liked less.  They seem to be a good, solid denim, and I have high hopes about how they'll wear (I frequently achieve inner-thigh blowout in less than a year).  They're a bit higher-waisted than is currently fashionable (which I prefer), but straight-legged rather than tapered, so as not to be the prototypical Mom Jeans.  (If I hadn't spent so blasted much already, I'd be tempted to order two more pairs from the Ralph Lauren website, have them shipped to my mom, and have her bring them with her when she visits in August, as they're currently on sale for $30 on the website!)

I also got the adorable Roma dress from Tahari Woman, which would look extra cute with a suitable petticoat underneath it to give the skirt additional flare:

And this gorgeous sheath dress from Jones New York Collection Plus:

Here's me trying it on in a 22, which was too big:

And here's the 18 (!) I actually bought it in, a bit wrinkled from being in my suitcase, I'm afraid:

I truly love service staff who go the extra mile and take pride in their work, which Fanny clearly does.  Even though it was obvious from my accent that I'm American, we had enough friendly conversation that she learned that I live out of country.  Since I could produce ID of foreign origin, she popped down to the Visitor's Center to get me the voucher for 10% off all purchases, and complimentary Bloomingdale's tote bag (not in the style of the classic Brown Bag, but very nice nevertheless).

Truly, by this point, I was tired of clothes shopping, and what little remaining shopping-oriented energy I had went into books.  On the last day of our stay, the morning before our flight, Christian and I popped by Macy's just for the sake of seeing it.  I have to say, I wasn't all that impressed.  Sure, it's big, and the plus-size section occupies about a third of its floor.  It carries most of the brands that Bloomingdale's carries.  But the additional brands it carried seemed to be the usual assortment of "meh", "ugly", and "grandmotherly" that makes me want to scream and tear my hair out when I shop for plus-sizes.  As far as I could glean from brief observation, the salespeople seemed dramatically less helpful, and the overall impression I had of the store was just nowhere near as pleasant as my impression of Bloomingdale's.  So, obviously, I didn't buy anything at Macy's, not even an ice cream from their Ben & Jerry's scoop shop, since Christian had been there a previous day, had said it was the slowest ice cream shop he'd ever been to, and we were in a hurry.

All in all, I have to count myself as pretty pleased with my New York shopping experience, disappointments notwithstanding.  I came back with some great clothes, some clothes cheap enough to make up for being not-so-great, and some fabric from which great clothes can and will be constructed.  Although it left me with fairly overwhelming sensory overload, I really loved NYC, and I can't wait to have the money and opportunity to visit again!  (Next time, more theater!)

NYC Shopping Report, Part I

My NYC plus-size shopping experience got slightly derailed even before it started. The midtown Lane Bryant was listed on Google Maps as "permanently closed", something I'd swear it wasn't last week when I made my maps. ReDress NYC, the only plus-size vintage shop I've ever heard of, closed its doors in November. The midtown branch of Avenue is having an everything must go sale prior to closing its doors. Perhaps there just aren't very many fat women in Manhattan...?
I had to go to Avenue regardless, as I was about to run out of underwear. I find shopping at a going out of business sale to be rather depressing. It makes me feel like a scavenger, picking over the body of someone not quite dead for valuables. Still, I got four pairs of panties, a set of summer jammies, two tops, and two pairs of jeans for $132, so I can't complain too hard.
Now I'm off to Monif C to buy an infinity dress, and to cruise the fashion district with a friend from college!

An inspirational talk by Neil Gaiman

I'm a huge Neil Gaiman fan, have been for almost 20 years.  I got to meet him once at a signing in Champaign-Urbana about ten years ago, and he was so kind as to sign every last volume of my Sandman graphic novels (I went through the line four times, the last time going back behind about two people).  He could have turned me away, but he chatted amiably with me, and was so incredibly kind and gracious to my friend Ava, who'd brought him a Chinese-dragon beanie baby.  (He asked if he could give her a hug!)  I consider both him and his wife, Amanda Palmer, to be the two luckiest people in the world for being married to each other, and I've never read anything he wrote that I didn't love.

This is Neil giving a commencement speech recently at The University of the Arts.



He makes some great points about making mistakes and breaking rules, but I've transcribed my two favorite passages here.

Remember, whatever discipline you're in, whether you're a musician or a photographer, a fine artist or a cartoonist, a writer, a dancer, a singer, a designer, whatever you do, you have one thing that's unique: you have the ability to make art.  And for me, and for so many of the people I've known, that's been a lifesaver.  The ultimate lifesaver.  It gets you through the good times, and it gets you through the other ones.  Sometimes life is hard.  Things go wrong.  In life, in love, in business and in friendship, and in health, and in all the other ways that life can go wrong.  And when life gets tough, this is what you should do: MAKE GOOD ART.


I'm serious!


Husband runs off with a politician? MAKE GOOD ART.
Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? MAKE GOOD ART.
IRS on your trail? MAKE GOOD ART.
Cat exploded? MAKE GOOD ART.
Someone on the internet thinks what you're doing is stupid or evil or it's all been done before?  MAKE GOOD ART.


Probably things will work out somehow, eventually time will take the sting away, and it doesn't even matter.  Do what only you can do best: MAKE GOOD ART.  Make it on the bad days; make it on the good days too.

Sometimes I feel like I'm still figuring out my medium, figuring out my voice, figuring out what in the hell I want to be when I grow up and what to do with my life.  I'm definitely in the stage where I make more bad or mediocre stuff than good stuff, and make mistakes by the dozen.  But I figure I can't go too wrong if I just keep on creating, whether it be words, or drawings, or fashion, or fiber.  I need to get out of the habit of waiting, or doubting, or self-editing too soon, and just CREATE.

Words going around in head?  Write them down.
Something I want to be able to draw?  Learn how to draw it and practice, practice, practice.
Something I want to have to wear?  Design it and make it.
Fiber speaking to me?  Get it on needles and see what it becomes.

Every day, rain or shine, happy or sad, energetic or tired, whether it becomes a piece of gold or a piece of shit, JUST CREATE.

And also, document it and get feedback.  Use my dusty DeviantArt account.  Blog, whether it's here or on my comparably dusty LiveJournal account, or in some other location entirely.  Put pieces up for sale, on etsy or Dawanda or at Farbspiel if they'll let me.  Create because I yearn to create, but share my creations with the wider world.

Neil also had some fantastic wisdom to share about making sure you can keep working:

You get work... however you get work.  But people keep working in a freelance world – and more and more of today's world is freelance – because their work is good, and because they're easy to get along with, and because they deliver the work on time.  And you don't even need all three! Two out of three is fine.  People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver on time.  People will forgive the lateness of your work if it's good and they like you.  And you don't have to be as good as everyone else if you're on time and it's always a pleasure to hear from you.

Hmmm... My stat levels aren't maxxed on any single one of these, but they're closest to full on "on time" (at least, I was usually pretty good at turning in term papers on time in uni unless I was having serious health issues) and "easy to get along with" (as long as I don't totally bowl people over with the force of my personality).  I'm high up there on "good" with non-fiction writing, but in all other pursuits, I don't feel like I'm there yet.  So while I work on "good", I'll do my damndest to be extremely prompt and likeable, I guess.

So, the take-home lesson of Neil's talk: MAKE GOOD ART.  I'll do my best.

Plus sized Tracht!

Color me a happy camper!  Ulla Popken has added a Tracht (Bavarian folk-costume) collection to their Autumn collection.  I could get plus-sized Lederhosen!  Too awesome!  Only downside: the current site is just a preview, and nothing ships until August.  Oh well, at least that's in time for Oktoberfest!

Link Round-Up: The German Fat-o-sphere

This blog post is high on content but low on context.  I mostly just want to round up all these links in one place so I can close a bunch of tabs in my browser!  And since it's pretty much relevant to my blog, rather than doing the simple thing like bookmarking these sites, I'm putting them here on my blog.  I'll get back to this entry later to add some of my thoughts on each site once I have a chance to go through them.

At the moment, however, my apartment is a mess, and I've realized a major lacuna in my wardrobe: accessories of an "I can't be arsed to deal with my hair today" nature.  Hence I have a whole lot of cloches, snoods, headwraps, beanies, and other sorts of gear on my "Remember and Compare" stack on Ravelry, and want to get started on making one ASAP, as today is also one of those "hair-be-out-of-mind-and-my-way" days.

Without further ado, fat-positivity and fat-shion blogs in Germany:

Übergrößen Ratbeger
"Plus-size Advisor"

Übergrößen Total: Hier bin ich die Norm
"Total Plus-size: Here I am the Norm"

Maxx & Molli
A cute play on Maxx as in "maximum" and Molli as in "mollig", which means "chubby".

Dollface is Candysweet
Blogs in both German and English!

Beauté Plantureuse
Because French always sounds cooler than German, unless you're into Industrial.

Pausbacke
Not much to tell yet, save for the cute ginger in the splash graphic.

Reizende Rundungen
German for "Lovely Curves".  She's got a really long list of recommended blogs in her sidebar, so I might be able to find some other German Fat-o-sphere bloggers through her.

More to come!

Paris Shopping Update

Between the fact that I was still fighting The Upper Respiratory Infection That Would Not End(TM), and the fact that we ended up having to take Frida along, I didn't end up getting to do as much clothes shopping as I would have liked.  What I did end up doing, however, was clothes shopping by necessity!  Paris was way, way warmer than I was led to believe based on the weather forecast, and the clothes I packed were way, way too heavy for walking around in the City of Lights.

I will say this much: Un Jour Ailleurs is utterly worth avoiding. The sizes only go up to 50FR (48 in the rest of Europe), so unless you're an in-betweenie, you won't find anything useful.  There's another clothing shop on the Rue de Rennes, within a few streets northeast of UJA on the same side, that made a similar claim to "Grandes Tailles", but only went up to 50FR as well.  Here's me, wanting to scream and throw things.  Clearly I need to do more research before I'm able to actually SHOP. *headdesk*

The one plus-size shop that I actually liked, namely Couleurs on 17 Rue de Rivoli (no website, apparently), had a pretty nice selection, and I ended up buying two sleeveless tops to tide me over for the rest of my trip.

This cute take on the classic sailor top, sans sleeves, with a cute and functional zipper set in on one shoulder:

And this abstracty floral with elastic ruching three places on the neckline:

Couleurs had a bunch of utterly cute dresses from designer Elena Miro (there's also an Elena Miro boutique in Paris), and if they hadn't been made of 100% polyester, I would have been sorely tempted by them.  

RANT WARNING:

If I haven't stated it here before, let me be absolutely clear:  I hate polyester with the passion of a thousand burning suns.  Plus-size designers should just straight up NEVER use it, because BIG WOMEN SWEAT, and polyester does not breathe.  The ONLY exception I make for polyester is when it's in the form of microfiber (and then it says "microfiber" on the label, not "polyester", even though microfiber is usually made from PE, polyamides like nylon, or some combination of the two).  Really, designers, please: if you're thinking of using polyester satin, use silk or cotton sateen.  If you're thinking of using polyester jersey, use modal, tencel, a viscose blend, or something really yummy with bamboo fiber.  Your schwitz-ing customers will thank you.

Unfortunately, I just didn't have the energy for more shopping, or a shopping-friendly travel companion, so I didn't scour Paris the way I'd hoped to.  Clearly I need to go again in the future!  Even if I'd had more energy, I might not have had more money.  On an entirely accidental but intriguing walk through the Quartier Juif, I stumbled onto a high-end handicraft fair.  I ooh-ed and ahh-ed like crazy, took lots of business cards, and then fell into conversation with a delicious young man who made Steampunk-themed jewelry.  Long story short, I spent half of my cash shopping budget on a surprise I'm giving to Lars for our 9th anniversary in May.

I also only got to hit one yarn shop, La Droguerie, but I happily spent all of the rest of my cash plus a bit of extra from Christian on a gorgeous bamboo-linen blend yarn.  I got a fair amount of white, and about 10 shades of blue to blue-green, which I'm knitting into a sleeveless top in a chevron lace pattern.  Should be gorgeous and very yummy for summer!

One thing that always amazes the introverts in my life is how easily I can just talk to random strangers.  Thanks to this ability, I ended up dishing extensively on plus-size fashion with a young Swiss woman who was staying at the same hotel.  Ironically enough, her mother runs a plus-size store in Lausanne!  Time for a road (or train) trip! She made it to Jean Marc Philippe, which I didn't, and got a couple of truly fantastic items.  She said her mom carries JMP, although not the whole line, and she's always loved his stuff.  I pointed her towards Marina Rinaldi, as she was unfamiliar with them; I hadn't bothered putting the MR shop on my map, as we have both an MR boutique and at least two other shops besides that carry that line here in Munich.  However, since my map is publicly shared, I'm adding it now, in case other FAT-shionistas are heading to Paris before I go back.

Signal Boost: ABC News Article

ABC News has an article about the trend of fast fashion finally hitting plus size, focusing on Fashion to Figure.  I really like the quote from plus-size model Anna Kleinsorge:

Almost 6 feet tall and nearly 200 pounds, Anna Kleinsorge is a plus-size model. She argues that having sexy clothing options doesn't enable someone to be obese -- quite the opposite.

"If I'm wearing sweat pants or a paper bag every day, I would grow to fill that paper bag -- whereas when I have something that looks awesome on me and makes me feel good, I'm out, I'm doing stuff, I'm with my friends and experiencing life," she said.

Well said, Anna!

Signal Boost: CNN Article

CNN is covering the fat-shion blog-o-sphere!  Shoo, go read!

Shopping, shopping, shopping...

I think I'd heard mumblings about asos once in a while in my monkeysphere, but assuming it was a US-only and mainstream-size-only website, I didn't check it out.  I could not have been more wrong!  Thanks to one of Plus Model Magazine's Fashion Friday posts, I saw an awesome dress on a woman in my size, and followed the click-through just out of curiosity.  Said dress no longer seems to be available, but wouldn't you know, asos also has a German site with free shipping and free returns inside Germany!  Color me thrilled!  Not only that, the clothes are totally cute, way more exciting than anything I've seen on my usual German go-to sites, Happy Size and Ulla Popken!  There were a number of pieces I loved, but which were unfortunately polyester, which I detest, but there are also a number of pieces which I immediately put into my shopping cart.  I will, however, be saving said shopping cart until after my Paris trip.

Happy Size and Ulla Popken, I might add, are my go-to sites because there's not much else to choose from in Germany (and sadly, the situation is better here than it was in Denmark!).  In all truth, though, I find the former to be mostly boring, and the latter ranging from mostly boring to occasionally godawful ugly (to say nothing of how their sizing charts lied to me, but that's a rant for another day).  Would that there were fantastic new designers like Domino Dollhouse popping up on the German scene (I also intend to throw together a cart for purchasing in about May or so, as I'll be stateside in June)!  I will keep my eyes peeled for them!

On Thursday, I will be travelling by fast train to Paris!  I have three custom Google maps prepared for the trip: one with plus-size stores; one with secondhand, thrift, vintage, and consignment stores; and one catch-all with yarn stores, fabric stores, and a confisserie that I simply must visit.  After printing them out, I even used color-matched markers to sketch in the Metro lines as best I could.  I also plan to go back and number the tags and the list, as Google Maps didn't seem to have an option for this (note to self: have the guys submit this idea to the Google Maps development team).  Naturally I won't be able to hit them all, but there are a number of places where several shops from each map are clustered: Rue de Rivoli, Boulevard Haussmann, and a few others.

Also, Christian's darling little sister Ulrike bought us a Moleskine City Notebook for Paris and filled it with must-sees and must-dos, recalled from the summers she lived there while working at EuroDisney.  I had no idea Moleskine actually made such a thing!  I'll definitely have to get one for the NYC trip!  And possibly one for Chicago, and one for Copenhagen, and one for Berlin, and and and...  ok, let's just stop there. Ooh, one for Munich!  I should fill in one of these for handing off to guests when we get out-of-country visitors.  Oops, didn't stop.  But really, these are too awesome!

On the workshop front: together with the guys and Lars's mentee Bartosz, we packed up my workshop space and brought most everything back, save for the IKEA furniture which will need disassembling, and a couple other pieces of furniture that didn't fit.  Most everything is now in my new garage space, save for the things I'm putting in my room, like my yarn, my knitting books, and my comfy chair.  The garage is definitely a short-term solution, not a long-term one; the floor is warped from housing a car, it smells musty in ways that make me a little worried about my fabric, and the lighting is terrible (thankfully it's about time to stop using my light therapy box for the year, so I have a portable bright light unit I can put down there.  And given how rarely the guys and I game at home, I think they can resign themselves to temporarily losing the gaming table to my work.

On the work front:  I need to make a splash graphic, and pick out a CSS template for Lars to apply, as well as help him design the data structure to house the survey responses, but it mightn't be too long before we're ready to go live with the body type survey!

How did I miss this??

Full-Figured Fashion Week is in New York in June, the week AFTER I'm going there.

Hmmm... can I rearrange my plane ticket?  I'd so love to go!

Opinionated FAT-shionista: This site makes me happy!

I'm starting a new category to list the sites and retailers I either love, hate, or feel decidedly "meh" about.  I simply had to start this planned type of entry today, as I've just found an American plus-size retailer I actually LOVE and which has several items which inspire feelings of "IT MUST BE MINE!"

The retailer is none other than Domino Dollhouse, created by plus-size fashion blogger Tracy Broxterman. Hey, blog to designer to store, sounds like a path I want to go on!

Check out some of these pieces of awesomeness that I so, so want:

The Lipsticky Skirt in Red:

The Royal Icing Coat:

The Domino Dahlia Pencil Dress:

The Dancing Dame Dress:

Considering how rare it is for a plus-size site to make me sit up and go ZOMG!, I will definitely have to budget some money for a Domino Dollhouse purchase in the near future!

Adventures of an Accidental Fat-shion Designer: My four-footed anti-assistant and other news

It would not be exaggerating to say that I've been a bad, bad blogger.  It's been over two months since my last post!  Two months!  Good grief, woman!  I can blame at least part of it on holiday craziness, as my last post was December 16.  But since then?  I can blame it on an adorable little four-footed critter named Frida.  Lemme 'splain.

See, I am A Dog Person(TM).  I love just about anything with four feet and fur, but dogs hold a special place in my heart like nothing else.  I had a wonderful dog from somewhere around age six until we had to put her to sleep when I was 18 due to congestive heart failure, after which I cried harder and longer than I ever have in my life, before or since.  Since then, there has been a dog-shaped hole in my heart which periodic encounters with other people's dogs could only make more poignant.  I've been meaning to get a dog for years now, but the time and circumstances never seemed right.

Early this year, all that changed when I adopted a rescued Bodeguero from Mallorca, who'd been given a new lease on life by a German dog rescue called Beschützer Instinkte ("protective instinct").  Apparently when Germans go to the Mediterranean or Eastern Europe on vacation, they abscond with homeless and mistreated dogs, to which I say "Go Germans!".  She had been brought back to Germany by a delightful young woman named Sarah who'd gotten her own dog there five years ago, and who's successfully fostered a couple dogs since then.  Sarah named her Frida for Frida Kahlo (Spanish, Mexican, close enough, right? :P), and then advertised her on Quoka.de, which seems to be the local equivalent of Craigslist.

Frida is a delightful dog, despite clearly having had a rough patch in life.  She's an absolute charmer, to the extent that she's won over the two avowed Cat People she lives with besides me (though at 5 kg / 11 lbs., I've known and owned several cats larger than she is!).  Christian adores playing and snuggling with her, and Lars is having a blast teaching her commands.  She's super-smart, amazingly snuggly, and having had food security issues in her past, very easy to motivate with treats.  Her only major downside, now that we've got the housebreaking issues mostly sorted out, is that she has a hardcore case of separation anxiety, and I am her Mommy-Security-Blanket-Person like WHOA.  Add that to the fact that big city noises and experiences like public transit are very new and scary for her, and I've been seriously housebound in the last month and a half.  Hence calling Frida my "anti-assistant".   Gratuitous cute pictures of me with dog can be found here.

She's gradually getting better, but it's slow going.  I passed off my ticket to go see Pirates of the Caribbean live at the Gasteig again tonight, since she's not ready to spend three hours without me even with a dog sitter.  I cancelled plans to go to Berlin with Christian this weekend since no way in hell she's ready to be separated from me for a weekend.  The only reason I'm not in a panic about our plans for Paris at the end of March is that Sarah has kindly agreed to dog-sit Frida then, and hopefully I'll get her to do so again in June when we go to New York.

Yup, you read that right: Paris and New York!  Oh my goodness gracious, people!  I've been through both cities just to travel via the airports (actually on the same trip, now that I think about it), but I've never actually been IN either city!  I'm totally stoked!  Where do I go plus-size shopping, folks?? Clue me in!

On the business front, things have been slow going even for reasons other than Frida.  Thanks to my having SAD (or "winter depression" as it's so aptly called in all the other Germanic languages), this is my lethargic, low-energy time of the year.  While it's SO much better here than it was in Denmark, it's still been like pulling teeth to make myself get stuff done.  Also, I will confess, I'm a bit of a video game addict.  While many of my friends have been playing Skyrim, which would be like heroin for me, I've been making do with my methadone version by playing the deluxe version of Oblivion, the previous title in the Elder Scrolls series.  And I really have to say, playing any video game while using the projector to create a two-meter "monitor screen" on the south wall of our living room KICKS EVER-LOVING ASS!  Ahem.  That said, I haven't been spending all of my time gaming, which makes Lars very proud of me.

There's also been a major hiccup on the workshop front.  Ingrid, the woman I rent from, had a small stroke or aneurysm in her brain shortly after I started renting from her, and it has left her with a jag in her visual field that's made it impossible to continue making jewelry, the poor love.  With a heavy heart, she's decided to close her studio and not renew her lease on her workshop, which means I'm out of a space as of March 31st.  In truth, though, it was too far away to be practical, so this is really a blessing in disguise.    I'm sincerely considering a space in Kultfabrik, which is close enough to be a single bus ride and roughly 7 minute walk away (or upwards of 15 minutes in deep snow with a recalcitrant dog, but I digress), and easy biking distance once the weather clears up.  The one major downside is that it's too big and expensive for my current needs, so I'll have to find a subletter for part of it, but that's not looking too impossible.

I've been working with my fantastic graphic designer on spiffy graphics for the web version of my body type survey, so hopefully the site can go live in a month or so.  I'm really looking forward to having data to look at.  Data is so much fun!  Sue and I are working on a customizable plus-size knee sock knitting pattern, and I've been having a blast collecting and looking at the data just for feet, ankles, calves, and knees, so I can't wait to start working with whole bodies!

I've also been working on making some plus-size croquis drawings to design over.  For those not familiar with the term, a croquis (or "crokey" as it's often written online by design students who've only heard it said and never seen it spelled) is a line drawing of a body that you can use as a two-dimensional mannequin to design garments on.  Plus size versions are virtually unknown.  Therefore, I've been gathering pictures of diverse fat bodies, from nude or nearly-nude models on Adipositivity, to actual plus-size models via Plus Model Magazine, to pictures of large-bodied female athletes.  Since I'm no great shakes at drawing people from reality, and even less so at drawing them from my imagination, I'm tracing images to make myself a bunch of different croquis drawings to work from.  They're turning out remarkably well, given that my hands shake!

All in all, I hope to be getting my butt in gear soon, and making 2012 the year that things really start happening with my business.  Sorry again for the long silence!

Adventures of an Accidental Fat-shion Designer: An employee of sorts!

I've been altogether too bad about updating my blog lately, but in my defense, life keeps interfering.

Fantastic bit of news, however: I now have an employee of sorts!  Sue is an Australian woman about 15 years older than me, who given when she grew up and where she went to school, had to take 5 years of sewing in school, including fitting and pattern drafting.  She has mad skills that have been in practice since she was quite young, as she was the oldest of seven kids, and her mom sewed and knit out of necessity.  She's been coming out to the workshop with me a couple days a week (when I haven't been sick), and has the great advantage of being willing to work for things like custom-made clothing and yarn out of my stash, at least until my business actually has customers.

Having someone to be responsible to and for is also helping me a lot with motivation to get out to the workshop and do stuff, plus there's a lot of things in garment construction where an experienced second pair of hands is just invaluable.  I'm positive Sue will be an unimaginably great asset to my business!

BookBlog: Time & Money

This is my first installment in a series on my blog which basically consists of book reports, though nowhere near as formal and organized as the ones you had to do in school.  Though I’ve always been widely read, my foray into entrepreneurship has had me delving into the business section at the bookstore for the first time in my life, and I’m learning many new things that I want to remember and share.

My first BookBlog is on Time & Money: How to Spend the Rest of Your Life, by Sonja Becker and Martin Sage.  You may recall this from a previous entry as the book I was supposed to sell as a part of my participation in the JCP.  While the book is deeply flawed, it is not totally without merit, and does pose some questions that are useful for focusing my goals, which I will answer here.

What are my values?

• Improving the lives of women, both those close to me and those in the wider world.
• Improving the lives of people I care about by helping them to become the best versions of themselves that they can be.
• Helping fat women of all shapes and sizes to look and feel great about themselves, outside and inside.
• To protect and improve the environment by striving to live and work sustainably.
• To take care of my physical, mental, and emotional health so I do not become a burden on those I love.
• To create a comfortable, welcoming home for myself and my loved ones, so that it nurtures and recharges us, and creates a positive feelings for the friends and family who visit us for shorter or longer periods.
• To strive to be the best version of myself that I can be through self-knowledge and self-improvement.

Obviously, not all of these are related to my business, but these are my values, as nearly as I can sum them up.  On a more purely business related note:

What is my mission?

• To help big, fat, and in-betweenie women to look and feel fabulous.
• To create a company that is consistent with my values, which will positively impact the lives of both my customers and my employees.

That’s really about all from T&M that I care to blog about.  There will be more BookBlogs forthcoming, however!

Adventures of an Accidental Fat-shion Designer: DSD Reunion

Last weekend I went up to Denmark for the student reunion party at the Scandinavian Design College which, as those of you not associated with DSD may recall, is where I spent three months in fall of 2010 in the Fashion & Textile program.  Had Lars not gotten the job with Google in Munich, I probably would have been there all year, but even just those three months were amazingly rich with learning and networking and making friends, even though I was about 15 years older on average than most of my classmates.

The reunion was a great deal of fun, though probably even more so for the younger folks (after all, I can't really drink much anymore, which puts a bit of a kibosh on any serious partying).  I spent a fun bit of time getting a cartooning lesson from my friend Christoffer, though he runs such circles around me that I may end up just hiring him later to make the cartoony characters I want for using in my business materials.  I also spent nice amount of time in creative collaboration with my friend Anna Vester, a fantastically talented young graphic designer whom I've hired to design my logo and related materials.  Not only did I discover that she actually feels personally invested in my project, since most of the women on her mom's side of the family fit in my target demographic, but she also brought some fantastic feedback and ideas to the whole branding and logo aspect of my business.

To whit, one major sea change: I've decided not to call my label "Queen in my Own Mind", though I'll keep my blog address as such for now (after all, until such point as I start doing work for clients, my business really is "in my own mind", and the whole idea of being "queen in my own mind" works nicely for the fashion-diva persona I'll need to cultivate if I want to make it big in this business, no pun intended).  After considering Anna Vester's feedback and ideas, and then brainstorming a bit, I've decided that my primary design brand will be called "Queen Margaret", and my re-designs will naturally be "Queen Margaret II".

I'm really happy with this change of track for a number of reasons, not least of which for sounding more serious and having more gravitas, but also since there are and have been some fantastic Queen Margarets through history, and Margaret is not only my name, but the name of my beloved favorite aunt, who was in turn named for my great-grandmother (and there may be more Margarets further back; I actually don't know).  It fits very nicely with my plan to have my logo look something like a royal monogram (AV is excited about all the possibilities that Q gives as a letter).  I can't wait to see what she comes up with!

BizBlog: Wailea Update

Today I emailed Wailea with links to my blog entries, as well as my list of demands (release from contract, refund for the non-completed portion of the program, re-purchasing of the books I still have, and the same terms extended to Lilly if she wants them). I got this reply from Sonja's husband, who runs her vanity press:


Subj: Fristlose Kündigung des Jahrescoachingprogramms

Sehr geehrte Frau Blake,

der Sokrates Verlag gibt Ihnen hiermit bekannt das Vertragsverhältnis Ihrer Teilnahme am Jahrescoachingprogramm nach § 6 unserer AGB's mit sofortiger Wirkung wegen geschäftsschädigendem Boykottaufruf zu kündigen.

Wir behalten uns ausdrücklich vor rechtliche Schritte gegen Sie einzuleiten im Wiederholungsfall und Sie wegen Schadenersatz zu verklagen. Ebenfalls erfüllen Ihre geschäftsschädigenden Aussagen und Androhungen den Straftatbestand der Verleumung.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen,

Volker Wendel

Geschäftsführer

I took down my second entry, since I hadn't run that one past a lawyer.  I got the primary thing I wanted, which was termination of my contract.  It remains to be seen whether I'll get any money back; really, I'm not holding my breath.