Body Odd

I posted before about my annoyance with sweaters this season. It's nearly impossible to find a well made sweater that doesn't have elbow length or dolman sleeves this year. I ran into that problem again this past weekend, when I once more made a fruitless trip to look for winter clothes. The temperature has dropped like a stone here, and it's colder than usual for this time of year. We're usually not this chilly until mid November.

In addition to sweater shopping, I decided to look for slacks to wear to work, and a pair of nice leather gloves. Leather gloves are something I mean to get for myself every year, and then don't due to price or not finding a style I like, or not being able to find a pair that's not trimmed with rabbit fur. I can wear leather, but the feel of fur gives me the creeps. It's just too real feeling. It reminds me of my little hamsters and how soft their fur was. I don't want to feel like I've got their pelts around my wrists.

But my efforts to buy either of those things were met with frustration. See, I have an Odd Body. My waist is two sizes smaller than my rear, and my hips are a size in between. So slacks are a constant struggle for me. I own two pairs. That's it. I've owned two pairs for three years, because every year I go shopping for slacks, and every year I come away from the stores empty handed. If it fits one place on my body, it doesn't fit the rest of me. I could go up a size or two and then have them tailored to fit, but tailoring is so darned expensive that I find myself resisting the idea of it. This is the year I will probably give in and have it done.

When I was a teenager, and then into my early 20s, I was lacking in the hip and rear department. Clothing hung like a tent on me. I was frustrated when I outgrew the Juniors department and found that everything in Misses made me look like a kid playing dress-up. Once I got over age 25, got a desk job, and ran out of time to do all the active things I used to, I sprouted curves. But only on my lower half. Now I'm frustrated that all the things that hung like tents on me now squeeze me like a drunken relative at Christmas.

As far as gloves go, my hands are another issue. I have long, skinny fingers and wide palms. My wrists are scrawny things that make my hands look larger than they really are. Small gloves don't fit. Medium gloves almost fit. Large gloves? Too bunchy around my wrists and fingers. They fit the length of my fingers, but that's it.

So what exactly are my options? Knit gloves that stretch, but get soggy if I have to scrape my windshield or touch anything wet. Fingerless gloves that leave my fingers exposed, which is bad due to my joint problems since it makes my hands stiffen up and ache.

I guess my only option this year is to do what I did last year. Gloveless and wearing nothing but dresses with tights and boots. Which is a good look, but not one I want to do every single day at work. I need to find that magical place where they sell things for a woman with a size 2 waist and a size 6 ass. Hopefully this place will also carry sweaters with sleeves and leather gloves that fit my odd hands.

Until then, I will continue to search, and likely walk away frustrated about a body I shouldn't have to feel bad about. That is the only time I ever feel bad about myself, is when I've tried on a dozen things that don't fit and eventually give it up as a lost cause.

The long and short of it

In anticipation of the cooler weather headed our way, I have been sweater shopping a few times already this month. Last year I waited until it got cold enough to need sweaters, and was unable to find anything even remotely nice in my size. I went through last winter with a few cheaply made pitiful sweaters that ended up bagging at the elbows and unraveling before the season was out. I should have probably splurged on some nice hand made ones, but alas, I simply wasn't thinking.

So this year I was determined that I would NOT be stuck with a few pathetic little scraps of yarn cobbled into sweater form. It would appear that this year, there's a terrible yarn shortage. Why would I think that? Because none of the sweaters have proper sleeves. Oh, I like the dolman sleeve. It's cute, if it's not overly huge. But I don't want every sweater in my wardrobe to be something I could take off in on a windy day. If the sweaters didn't have dolman sleeves, they lacked sleeves at all. Forget finding a cardigan. The only buttons to be seen were purely decorative ones on sleeves or shoulders. Nothing functional.

It's early in the season yet, so perhaps as the colder weather creeps closer they will suddenly discover sweaters with plain old long sleeves, that aren't huge and floppy, or elbow length, or embellished with buttons. A girl can dream, right?