crappy pictures, but...

 Sorry for the horrifically bad pictures, but I'm alone (husband at poker, child at a friend's), and my tripod is not around, you I've had to take pictures of myself, on a grey, drizzly evening, of grey and black clothing.
Apologies up front.

So I wanted a grey flannel pencil skirt. Classic, wear with anything kind of skirt. Great with heeled boots, flat boots, or shoes.
So here it is.

 I call these my "death by boots" boots. They are very pointy, very high heeled, come up to the knee with silk ribbon lacing at the top. My husband has another name for them, a-hem. we won't discuss what that is.

Sorry to say the picture that shows the best part of this skirt didn't come out. It's stretch! It's a heavy ponte knit I got at Fabricland on the weekend. Heavier than most of them, and there's a touch of Lycra in it. It's got a flannel-y fleck to it, and it's beautiful. All I did was take an existing knit skirt I own and draft a pattern - basically a long rectangle, with a bit of waist shaping. Sewed the side seams, hemmed it, added a casing of elastic. Done in under an hour.
And I even had enough fabric left over to do it again, only shorter:

 So comfortable, so easy and goes with everything. Hard to beat. Fabricland is having their member's sale this weekend, and I might just have to go back for more - the table of ponte knit was pretty full with tons of colours. Hard to go wrong with a classic style.

Then there's this top. I saw it on a blog somewhere. Here! I saw it here! (I knew I had seen it somewhere recently...) Hers shows the concept much better, because I took this picture on the aforementioned grey evening, and it's a black top. But it's basically a crinkly black silky knit - two rectangles, and it skims over my hips in a tunic length. Worn with a simple skirt or slim fit pants, I think I have my holiday party top. (We always have one dinner around this time of year when I need to clean myself up.)

(another shot of the killer boots). They are good for times when I will be spending a lot of time sitting - not good for big walking or standing days. Especially this time of year when I'm still wearing the flip flops whenever possible.

I made this top first in a throwaway cotton print I had lying around, just to see if the style would suit me. The first time, I made it with the sleeves right down to the wrist, but that made the "wing" part too prominent, too poufy and strong. So on this black one, the sleeves come to the elbow, and it adds just the right amount of swing when I wear it. Who knew I'd get so much pleasure out of hemming and sewing two rectangles together?