jake and i were on our way to dinner, and we knew that afterwards it would be too dark to take outfit pictures. i couldn’t think of where to take the pictures, though, so on an impulse, we turned into a residential neighborhood we’d never ventured into before. peeking down the blocks, i saw the hint of a park at the end of a road, so we headed there, which brought us to this rather charming little willow cloaked bridge, whose existence we’d been unaware of a mere 5 minutes prior!
i’ll leave you with my most recent favorite picture of jake:
gift hat – thrift tank – talbots hand me down skirt – old navy sandals
this skirt was my grandma’s. i have inherited a chunk of her wardrobe (you may have noticed if you’ve been reading my outfit descriptors), and let me tell you, the lady had good taste. i now possess a much higher percentage of talbots than i did before. although the actual amount of space i have for my wardrobe has been pushed to its limits. and now i’m rethinking what i own versus what i wear. what needs work or mending versus what i’m likely to actually do. these are tough topics of thought for someone as materialistically sentimental as i am. but i really dislike the pile that has no home on my bedroom floor.
on a completely different topic, do you need a summer book?
we were liars by e. lockhart
Cadence Sinclair Easton comes from an old-money family, headed by a patriarch who owns a private island off of Cape Cod. Each summer, the extended family gathers at the various houses on the island, and Cadence, her cousins Johnny and Mirren, and friend Gat (the four “Liars”), have been inseparable since age eight. During their fifteenth summer however, Cadence suffers a mysterious accident. She spends the next two years—and the course of the book—in a haze of amnesia, debilitating migraines, and painkillers, trying to piece together just what happened. from school library journal
that’s the synopsis i like best. if you are looking for a quick, engrossing read for the beach, may i recommend this? it is twisty and turny and pull-at-your-heartstrings-y. i read it twice in one day. when i finished, i had to go back to the beginning to revisit many of the scenes again. this is also one of those books where it is probably best if you go in knowing less rather than more. so thusly ends my extremely brief review.
confession: this hat is my cousins. but every time she wears it around me, i borrow it.
thrifted blouse, jeans – borrowed hat – target shoes
another confession: i am way behind on blogging.
i took a break from my hexagon blanket and finished most of a hat, worked on my ridiculous bubblegum pink socks:
but then i missed my hexagons, so now i’m back to working on that!
i’m currently at about 165 hexagons, out of a projected 230 total. but now at least it would be big enough to cover baby. it was a little disheartening when it felt like i’d put in a ton of work, and it was the size of a glorified hankerchief. which is what led to the break. and somehow, feeling so enthusiastic about this project again has me daydreaming about more things to cast on for!
like this stash busting version of boxy:
i’m not entirely sure how manos del uruguay serena, which is alpaca & cotton blend (510 yds), would work with the 100% wool of the sage-y green (900 yds) and the grey (246 yds). i’ll have to do a swatch. and lots of math to figure out the correct proportions of the stripes to correspond with the varying yardages… but not yet! more crochet hexagons for now!
can you tell that jake and i are both total suckers for light flares? we always go out of our way to line some up if the sun/angles are willing to accomodate us. but i mean… can you blame us? sun flares are sooo pretty!
target white tee, blazer- thrifted jeans – old navy sandals
you don’t get much more basic of an outfit than jeans and a white t-shirt. it almost feels like cheating, it’s so easy. but i still just love it.
being around this many beautiful flowers made me want to gather up a bunch and bring them home with me! but i have two plants at home i am desperately trying to keep alive. by which i mean i occasionally remember to water them. what do you mean you don’t have high hopes for their survival? i’m shocked! this nursery has a small fruit stand attached to it, and that’s what we were there for.
i feel like everytime we take outfit pictures, my hand veins are going super crazy. sheesh, calm down guys.
ah, oops! i didn’t get pictures of friday’s outfit, nor sunday or monday’s. but here’s saturday! i had a little internal debate about these jeans. they aren’t technically work appropriate, and with such a limited number of pieces for this remix, it did feel a bit wasteful to choose such casual jeans. but it was saturday, and all i wanted was my comfy casual jeans. i laugh in the face of logic! only time will tell if it will return the favor. i don’t foresee it being terribly dramatic either way, frankly.
rummaged tank top & jeans – gift from gram sun hat – old navy sandals
don’t worry about those lost outfits, i re-capture them for you!
carlyn scarf, dress – gram belt – target blazer, shoes
alright, outfit 4 of fifteen. i’m feeling pretty good about it! let’s see what i’ve accumulated so far
2 shirts- white t-shirt, striped long sleeve
2 layers- black cardigan, camel blazer
2 bottoms- floral skirt, navy skinnies
2 dresses- green dress, black dress
2 shoes- black sandals, striped slip-ons
10 total, 5 remaining.
thanks to jillie for the pictures!
go check out rebecca’s fourth outfit, not just to see how she’s doing in the remix (spoiler: really well) but she also gave me all the feels by talking about our internet relationship!
it’s something i think about not infrequently. people i have met via the internet, and the way that they have affected my life. it’s an amazing place, this internet of ours. ravelry totally changed my life, in terms of introducing me to people, like rebecca, julie, kessa, ness. and reading blogs inspired me to up my game in so many ways: knitting, outfits, my home. it’s given me major life envy for some people, but it’s been a huge reminder in how we are all just people, too. even the biggest, shiniest, prettiest bloggers have their own challenges, and when they post about that, i’m always reminded that we are all just people, trying to make the best lives for ourselves out of what we have to work with.
on the other side of my internet experience, there’s the platoon of power squadron. and reading people’s reactions to what we’ve spent the better part of a year making is so so gratifying to me. i can’t tell you how touching it is, how much it means to me that other people are inspired by it, or it’s become a part of their family experience, or they’ve found it personally useful in other ways.
okay, i’m all emotional over here… happy friday, y’all! kiss a baby’s cheek or hug your loved ones or tweet at someone who inspires you or something! carpe diem!
i am super not the person who goes outside sun bathing in an attempt to brown my skin. (sidenote: i just typed skein instead of skin. i like what this says about my priorities) but i am the person who gets mildly grumpy when the sun bouncing off of my palest of flesh completely blinds viewers and creates blown out areas on pictures. what is happening to my feet?
that having been said, i have been trying to apply sun screen a lot more frequently this year. i can see where my first wrinkles will be, and i’m okay with that. but there’s no reason to speed that process along, am i right?
carlyn striped sweater, j. crew pants – target shoes
most of this outfit came from my very favorite clothing source: carlyn’s closet!
i feel like a broken record sometimes, but one of my favorite things to do with a remix is choose an item in my closet that i love, but i’m intimidated by. this dress is that item. i love this style of dress, and i have since i was teensy tiny. My aunt spent some time in central america when i was a babber, and brought us back embroidered dresses like this, as evidenced here:
look at my cute mama! so cute!
and last year in LA, with a few hours between flying in and departing via train for san diego, we dropped off our luggage and walked to nearby olvera street for some delicious mexican food and a little shopping, which resulted in the purchase of this dress.
so this dress is great for summer, totally comfortable, and i got like four compliments on it. i also spilled everything i attempted to consume on it over the course of the day. #classiceliza
olvera st my (real) green dress – hand-me-down belt from gram – target shoes
* ah, and since we’re already on the subject of the barenaked ladies, i’ll just leave this right here:
i usually announce on the blog when a new episode of PoPS has gone live, and guess what? episode 8 is live! check it out!
also, i posted an outfit selfie on instagram last week, and rebecca and i decided it’s been way too long since our last remix! soooooo: it’s remix time! whoo!
even though i had the weekend to prepare, i ended up doing some PoPS stuff, biking to the library to get a book, cleaning a little, cooking a bit, and generally doing pretty much whatever i felt like. i thought about the remix a litttle bit, but i didn’t really make decisions or lay out selections or any of that. so i’m approaching this a little differently. i’m going to just wear different outfits until i’ve collected 15 items! and then i’ll remix those! ta-da!
for points of reference, though, selections broken down along these lines have worked really well for me in the past:
-4 shirts (long & short sleeved, usually at least one blouse)
-3 layering options (cardigan, sweater, blazer)
-3 bottoms (pants, shorts, skirts)
-3 pairs of shoes
-1 dress
target cardigan, t-shirt – talbot’s skirt from my gram – old navy sandals
4 items downs, 11 to go! 1 outfit down, 14 to go!
i never actually picked 15 items. i just kind of worked my way up to 12 and never expanded from there.
most valuable player- definitely goes to my thrifted cole haan loafers. i wore them for 12 out of the 15 outfits. next highest was my cream skirt, which i wore five times.
most versatile- goes to my j. crew dress, which i wore as a dress, a skirt twice, and a shirt once.
least valuable- (but only in the context of this remix) my floral blouse. i wore it twice. i did think about pairing it with my orange cords but i just never quite got around to it.
i was using this remix to test whether or not the polka dot blouse was gonna stay with me in the long run, and while i find it stylistically fantastic, i’m just not a fan of the fabric, and the way it gaps.
i really like the palette of this remix. a lot of these are my old stand-by’s, colorwise: blue, black, grey, brown, cream, but spiced up with occasional hints of peach, orange & yellow.
2, 4, and 13 are my favorite outfits, but i really liked this whole remix.
ifandany 