The weekend in pictures

This weekend was full of building these and cleaning the apartment. But to kick off our weekend of adult organizational tasks, we went to an awesome outdoor concert.

Sometimes I wonder how many pictures of the space needle I really need in my online photo album:


At an awesome outdoor concert at the base of the Space Needle:


We saw The Head and the Heart, and they were AMAZING.

I really love Seattle Center.


awkward public posing!


Details:
Dress: asos curve, clearance
cardigan: alloy xxxl
leggings: duo maternity (so comfy! not pregnant!)
shoes: avenue old lady boat shoes
scarf: AA circle scarf

And my adorable husband:


We also spent yesterday stuffing swag bags for our upcoming weekend of fun. Who's excited? We're excited. And dorky.

Being visible as a fat body

Hey folks,

I know I keep it light (ha, punny) around here, but Natalie over at definatalie.com made a seriously awesome post today about why blogging and documenting her outfits as a fat lady is important. She puts it better than me, so I'll let you read her words:

"...I blog about my outfits (real and ridiculous) because I’m passionate about the visibility of fat bodies. I don’t care if people don’t like what I wear and I don’t care about trends – I blog because fat people are dehumanised and made invisible and if I’ve got a platform and an audience, I’m going to take advantage of it to normalise my body and bodies like mine.

Bodies like mine usually don’t get to dress up in designer clothes. Instead of “supporting local designers” or collecting pieces from super designers, most of us buy our clothes off the internet from the “high street” stores. The funny thing is, bodies like mine would absolutely consume designer fare if it were made in our size. But it’s not, so fat people remain in a position where they’re portrayed as unfashionable and unattractive, when being fashionable and attractive is rewarded! It’s so frustrating and circular, I’m baffled when people fail to see this cycle.

One of the most fabulous and powerful things to happen in the last decade, beside plus size shopping online, has been the fatshion blogging movement. It’s about time fatties were given back their heads and their humanity, along with a glimmer of inspiration and solidarity through community. And that’s why I take photos of my outfits and post bitter diatribes against the fashion industry!"

One of the main reasons I started blogging my outfits, at first over at the Fatshionista LJ, and now here, is because I want for fat bodies to be seen, not just as a headless fatty shot on the news about the OMGbesity epideminc, but as real and human and valid and beautiful and fantastic and yes, fashionable.

I think there's something radical about loving your body the way it is, rather than as the starting point to all kinds of self "improvements" (such as dieting, etc.). There's something radical about owning the way you look and the body you have as a good body, not a body that needs to change. Like Gertie wrote recently, we live in a good body. No matter what shape that body is.

That's all for now I guess :)

Announcing... the winners of the 50 followers giveaway!

Drumroll please?



I'm excited to announce the two winners! Each will receive $15 eShakti gift certificate!

Lexie
(who was comment #8)


and Christina
(who was comment #1)


Lexie - I don't have an email address or active blog for you. Can you please contact me at wearelargepeople at gmail?

Thanks everyone for reading my blog, even if you don't comment. It's so amazing to me that more than 50 people are interested in what I write and post here!

Also, please check out eShakti and also their facebook fan page if you are interested. They were super nice to provide these gift certificates at no cost to me!

**also, please excuse my grainy and dark pictures of the random number generator. I don't know how to do screencaps on my mac (sad, I know) so I took the pictures with my phone!

Reminder: last day to enter eShakti gift certificate giveaway!

Hello dears,

Today's the last day to enter my 50 followers giveaway.

To enter, please leave a comment on this post and say hi! Feel free to link to your blog, or a picture of you wearing your favorite outfit, or do neither of those things - but please comment and leave some way of me getting in touch with you!

Also, feel free to pass along this link to your friends/post it on your blog if you think your readers would also enjoy entering the giveaway!

You have until 11:59pm(PST) Wednesday, 8/25 to enter.  I will use a random number generator to pick 2 winners and will post the results on Thursday, 8/26.

What do I have for the lucky winners?  Each will get a $15 eShakti gift certificate**!

I know eShakti only ships to the US and Canada, and I hate to be so restrictive on my first ever giveaway :(.  I promise my next giveaway will be something that is more inclusive of everyone, no matter where your shipping address is!

**Full disclosure: eShakti provided these gift certificates to me to give away - I did not purchase them myself.  They expire on 9/30/2010.

OOTD: layers upon layers

I've only recently gotten into these layered, open-front, "waterfall", "hanky-hem", whatever you call it cardigans.


(with all the charm of our apartment building hallway)

I really dig this one that I picked up at Alloy a few months ago. It's very warm too, which was perfect for the autumn-come-early evening we were having Saturday.

One think I love about this look is that the points of the cardigan hit below the hem of the dress! I'm learning to embrace shorter hemlines this summer and to love the way my knees look.


Go knees, go.

Outfit details:
Cardigan: alloy (whose "extended sizes", as they call them, are super difficult to find. It's like they're ashamed or something. Anyways.)
Dress: fatshionista sales post
Belt: Target 2xl, recent
shoes: Avenue, recent (my old lady boat shoes)
scarf: AA circle scarf
purse: garage sale

Also, if you want to enter my giveaway, you have until 11:59pm(PST) on Wednesday, 8/25. Go forth and do so, if you'd like. It's for one of two $15 eShakti gift certificates!

DIYdeas: a too-big-up-top vintage dress of dowdiness

In today's episode, we go from this:


dowdy.

to this:

amazing!

This darling dress was an etsy find, but ended up being way too big everywhere except the skirt. It was made of a poly chiffon, so it was super difficult to work with - I swear it would fray if I even looked at it wrong... and I didn't really feel like I had the skill to alter this totally irreplaceable vintage dress. So it sat in my closet, neglected, for oh... 8 months?

A few weeks ago I finally bit the bullet and decided to get going on it. I used a seam ripper to take off the sleeves (and gigantic shoulder pads). Then, I took in the sides of the top (and learned how to do french seams in the process) and used white seam binding tape to finish the arm holes.


(poly chiffon = lots and lots of pins)

In reality, it took me about 6 hours of ripping/pinning/sewing/ripping out my stitches/sewing again to finish it, which was longer than I thought it would take! But I am super pleased with the results.



Outfit details:
Dress: etsy, remixed by moi
red peep toes: target size 11
necklace: gift from husband
belt: target 2xl, 2009
purse: garage sale, $3




ETA: better pics!






Also, if you haven't entered my awesome 50 followers giveaway and would like to - then you can do so here. You have until 11:59pm(PST) Wednesday, 8/25 to enter!

OOTD: Thrush.etsy.com dress

Hey folks,

I wanted to post this super cute outfit but first! If you haven't entered my awesome 50 followers giveaway and would like to - then do it now, here.

Now, on to the pretty. This may be my fave new outfit!

I ordered this lovely dress from Anne, the proprietess of thrush.etsy.com, and it came in last week!



whimsy filter!


aaaahhh, I love these shoes, I just wish they were more comfortable!


A closer, yet darker, close-up:


Outfit details, in a bulleted list format because I feel like that's all I've been doing this week at work:

Dress
- thrush

Elaborate system of under-dress items:
- a white men's xl ribbed tank top from american apparel
- a petticoat I got at a thrift store (because this dress is kind of see-through!)

Cream cable-knit-look knee socks:
- these are actually over-the-knee socks from american apparel
- srsly fatties, if you want knee socks that are guaranteed to fit you, try the over-the-knee variety from AA, they really do work well!
- But aren't that colorfast, so watch out)

Granny heeled oxfords:
- pikolinos
- size 11
- got them on super sale at a local shoe store!

OOTD: outside pictures ftw!

It's taken me awhile to truly realize this, but pictures taken outside, aka with natural light, really look effortlessly wonderful.

It doesn't hurt that I felt rockin' in this outfit from the other day:





Closeup:


Dress: Target size 2 (from this post)
Cardigan: Target xxl
Boots: my fave and only cowboy boots, lucchese
necklace: gift from husband for birthday!
glasses: zennioptical.com
biggish hair: courtesy of the diffuser and tons of hairspray, with a handful of bobby pins. I love it!

PS: Don't forget to enter my 50 followers giveaway!

50 followers giveaway!

Now that I've reached 50 followers, I want to do a giveaway!

Firstly, I just want to thank everyone who reads my blog, even if you don't follow or comment.  I appreciate you all so much!

Now, on to the giveaway!  To enter, please leave a comment and say hi! Feel free to link to your blog, or a picture of you wearing your favorite outfit, or do neither of those things - but please comment and leave some way of me getting in touch with you!


Also, feel free to pass along this link to your friends/post it on your blog if you think your readers would also enjoy entering the giveaway!

You have until 11:59pm(PST) Wednesday, 8/25 to enter.  I will use a random number generator to pick 2 winners and will post the results on Thursday, 8/26.

What do I have for the lucky winners?  Each will get a $15 eShakti gift certificate**!

I know eShakti only ships to the US and Canada, and I hate to be so restrictive on my first ever giveaway :(.  I promise my next giveaway will be something that is more inclusive of everyone, no matter where your shipping address is!

**Full disclosure: eShakti provided these gift certificates to me to give away - I did not purchase them myself.  They expire on 9/30/2010.

Scott pilgrim vs. the world

Sunday night the husband and I went, with much anticipation, to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. It did not disappoint! I really enjoyed it! Like, tons!

We went to see it at the Cinerama, after hearing how awesome this particular movie theater was on the Seattle Geekly podcast. It was really cool - like, with a real curtain, and comfy seats, and classy decor (and very nice staff that cleaned up after we tripped going up the lobby stairs and spilled an entire cherry coke. They also gave us a free replacement coke).



It's very hot in Seattle right now, so I wore this simple cotton jersey dress.

(only the best in rubbish-strewn alleys for you, dear readers)

Details:
Dress: Old Navy xxl tall, clearance, earlier this year
pin: etsy
leather patchwork purse: garage sale, $3!
litter in the alleyway by the movie theater: industrial-sized orville redenbaucher bag of popcorn kernels.

Amazingly fun and sunny weekend

This weekend was awesome! On Saturday, we went to my company picnic. Again, I didn't take a picture of my outfit. I'm sorry! I meant to. Then, I got sunburnt instead.



The sky was so blue!





Also, there was archery there:


All in the shadow of beautiful Mt. Si.


We love living here!

Birthday trip to Leavenworth

Last weekend the husband took me on a surprise weekend trip to Leavenworth! It's about a 3 hour drive from Seattle, and is a really fun, small, mountainy, Bavarianish, dog-friendly town. We had a great time, and I wore clothing, none of which I documented.

But aren't we cute? You'll forgive the lack of outfit photos for this, right?



Or if not for us, for this cute puppy?


It's so hard to get good pictures of her.

she just moves too much!

Here we go, finally!


Also, there was this cool door with yellow patterned glass:





We had a great time eating German food, drinking beer, sweating a little, and letting everyone pet our cute dog. I feel so fortunate that we got to take this little trip - and my husband is so amazing for surprising me with it! It's so hard for him to keep secrets and surprises from me - he just gets so excited and wants to tell me right away. So it definitely meant a lot that he was able to keep it a secret. We had a blast, and I have an amazing husband.

Seattle area fats clothing swap

Hello beautiful Seattle-area fatshionistas!

Back in January, we had a wonderful clothing swap, and I wanted to gauge interest about doing it again!

The dates I'm considering are 2pm - 5pm, Saturday 8/28, or Saturday 9/25.

Please post in this here spreadsheet if you are interested, and let me know which date would work best for you! I'll then try to book the Fremont library community room, like last time, since it worked so well!

Bring clothing, shoes, accessories and a snack/drink to share. We won't do a ticket system, everyone just be cool. However, to make sure that garments go home with someone that will wear and love them, let's all be sure to try on the garments rather than just taking them home.

I'm excited and have lots of great dresses to swap. I hope one of these dates works for most people and we get a good turnout like last time!

Thanks everyone!

>50 followers! Huzzah!

This is so exciting - I now have more than 50 followers (and more than 20 "followers" on the blogger dashboard). I think there may be some overlap, so I won't say I have 70 folks basking in the awesomeness (ha!) of this blog.

However.

I had planned a giveaway for when I hit 50 followers. It's happened a bit quicker than I envisioned, but be on the lookout for more details and a way to enter the giveaway!

Exclamation points!

Outfit of the 30th birthday

My-blog-reading friends, yesterday I turned 30. I dressed up and even did my hair! Like, with hairspray and other types of products! I put on makeup! These are things I really don't tend to do, but I figured what the hey, you only turn (the decidedly not young sounding anymore) 30 once!





Details:
Dress: Torrid, years ago. I just found it in my "giveaway/sell/modify" pile and fished it out. I'm so glad I did, I really like it. I think it may be an earlier version of Sonia's dress from the other day
Cardigan: target years back
shoes: Faryl Robin from 2008, size 11. The highest heels I own, probably 3"
purse: a b'day present (from me, to me) from unnamed leather bag shop in Leavenworth, WA.
locket: a b'day present (from husband)
glasses: zennioptical.com

Am I older than most of my readers? Perhaps. I still feel young though, even if one of my friends said that after 30, "you kind of no longer feel like the world is your oyster anymore".

OOTD: Asos sale dress

Asos so impresses me. They ship from the UK for less $ and in less time than most US plus sized retailers. I received my order from last week yesterday. Here's the dress that I ordered:



I love the vibrant blue, the gauzy, breezy 100% cotton - and I like how it is pretty much a tiered/swing style, so it can be shapeless or be belted for two totally different looks. I'm going to try it with a belt next time.

What I don't love, and I always forget this, is that I don't look great with spaghetti straps. I need a wider strap because I hate wearing a strapless bra. So I layered a tank underneath it so I could wear my regular bra :)



Outfit details:
Dress: asos size 22 - still on sale for only ~$7.50!
tank: old navy xxl, years back
cardigan: old navy 1x, 2009
"pearls": $1 table, fremont farmer's market
red peep toes: target, recent, size 11
Petticoat: invisible, but this dress was fairly sheer so I wanted to wear something under

The other two items will be featured soon, though the bow tie tee that I was so excited about is too tight around the hips and has no stretch at all, which is weird for a t-shirt!

DIYdeas: snazz up a casual dress

Recently I needed to attend a memorial service but had no suitably dressy black dress to wear. I was also in the middle of my July shopping restriction, so I couldn't just go buy one!

Back in June, I got this dress from Target because I love me some cotton jersey dresses, so I decided to use some stretchy lace trim (about 7" wide) to snazz up the bottom hem of the dress and make it fancy!

I don't have any pictures from wearing it fancily, but I paired it with some black t-strap wedges and a cream cardigan for the service.

Yesterday, I dressed it down with cowboy boots.




sorry for the glasses glare! I tried to fix it but it only made my face look scary.

I *heart* my boots!


Outfit details:
Dress: Target Mossimo size 2
Cardigan: Torrid, years back
Boots: Lucchese
necklace: gift from husband

I'm calling this a DIYdea because I didn't put together any kind of tutorial or even very good detail pics of it. It's just a general idea of one way to get crafty and make things work! I imagine "DIYdeas" will become a regular segment since I don't tend to do detail or before/after shots of my projects very often.

OOTD: going to Ikea again

I don't know what it is about an afternoon of shopping at Ikea that makes me want to wear awesome clothing, but I always end up trying something new. Today's new thing: a skirt as a shirt!





Details:
Skirt-as-shirt: American apparel from years ago
Jean cutoffs: from my avenue "divine denim" jeans that I cut off for this summer, size 20 (very stretchy!)
Cardigan: target, years ago, xxl
Flower pin: from jcrew bridesmaids dress
necklace: gift from husband on wedding day (it's a little copper book)

Also, I've been stretching back up my ears for the past few months, and am now at 00, which is what I had stretched up to back when I was in college. Funny that I am stretching my ears again after so many years, huh? I got these grey silicone eyelets yesterday and am really enjoying them.