An outfit post that mostly was not

Last week we went out to dinner with our friend Jen, who was in town before heading back to Wales. (Emma had gone back a few days earlier…. you may recall me mentioning Jen and Emma both meeting us in Dublin.) I asked if Mel would take some outfit photos for me, however it was just the absolute wrong time of day and everywhere we went around the yard, the lighting just would not cooperate.

After briefly looking at them on the camera I scrapped the whole idea, and just had Mel snap a photo of me by the train for Instagram. It was actually cute–Jen peered over Mel’s shoulder playing art director, so we didn’t have any “sorry I ruined your photo” moments with fellow passengers, and they even managed to get the train behind me as it was taking off.

When I still thought I’d be able to pull together a nice outfit post, I took a couple of photos of my jewelry. I sometimes plan my outfit around my accessories, or vice versa. More often than not I’ll zero in on one or two colors in my clothes and try to plan around that.

In this case, obviously I ran with the bright green in my Knit for Victory bolero. Which I may add, I wear all the freaking time, over any other short-sleeved knit I own. Clearly I need to knit another one or two in different colors! I actually wore it this night as a cover up–I have to do a little repair on one of the sleeves of my peasant blouse which is no longer nearly as elastic as the other one.

I put together a stack of Bakelite focusing on greens first, then added a 1940s-style chain necklace featuring little yellow flowers and green leaves, and some evergreen millefiori (or very similar) glass earrings with pops of lighter green, turquoise, yellow and red.

As it happens, over the weekend I was looking at the photos on the camera for another post I’m putting together (my not-latest-completed but latest-photographed dress) and discovered two of the photos from the failed outfit shoot actually came out decent.

And so you get a tiny bit of a closer peek of what I wore! Which also includes a new belt that I recently purchased from Orion Leather Co. on Etsy and have already worn with just about everything. The perfect brown leather belt has been on my list for just about, well, forever. Belts are not an accessory I get really excited about; I love the variety I see on others, but when it comes to me, I end up just wanting a few good basics that can go with the majority of my wardrobe. And now I’ve finally filled in a big spot!

And for the only other photo, you can see the patio area next to our garage. If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time you should be well familiar with seeing me stand in front of the clematis around the other side of the garage. But this side is on the corner by our alley and has a patio area under our only tree, and I don’t take photos over there that often. It’s a little hodge podge… cement patio squares, some rocks, a bit of astroturf near the tree (really?!). We suspect the previous owners used it before they built the deck and then kind of left it to be ignored.

Someday, we want to revamp it. But in the meantime, we knew it was time to at least start making this a nice little place to sit and glide like the old farts we actually are. So we finally setup our retro glider from Retro Metal Chairs, which we’d purchased an embarrassingly long time ago but after setting up every piece of patio furniture on the deck I just couldn’t stomach doing another piece (for like, um, 2 years). We then bought a couple of matching end tables (only one had arrived at the time this photo was taken), planted a few shady annuals in pots in a spot by the back fence that used to hold crappy buckets of the previous owner’s leftover tiles, placed our large outside tiki by the plants, and on Saturday we strung some white lights down the trunk of the tree. Now we’re ready to enjoy this shady spot!

So, there you have it. A lot of talking in an outfit post that mostly was not! Lately I may be in the mood to sew and wear dresses a lot, but this is still one of my standby types of outfits. A vintage blouse, repro jeans, some knitwear when the weather dictates it, and bold accessories and shoes. If I can throw in a bit of novelty-print or kitsch, all the better. Easy and casual vintage, just the way I like it!

outfit details

hand knit bolero – made by me
vintage peasant blouse – misc.
jeans – Freddies of Pinewoods classics
shoes – Swedish Hasbeens heart sandals
belt – Orion Leather Co.
Bakelite bangles – misc.
necklace – Idaho Reds
earrings – misc.
silk scarf – misc.
purse – Cath Kidston, purchased in Dublin