On Friday, I'd originally planned a Bruce Springsteen inspired outfit. But it was colder than I'd expected, and I don't have any white wool sweaters, so I decided to just save that outfit for another time. I was in a very girly mood as I got dressed, so I chose pink jeans (or jeans style trousers? the fabric doesn't quite feel like denim but they've got the five pocket & zipper fly styling), a light silvery grey blouse, and my seafoam green cashmere cardi to top things off. It wasn't until I looked at the pics on my computer that I realised I looked a bit like a box of macaroons!

This blouse is a new-ish purchase, thrifted after I joined here and mentioned in my introduction that I saw no need to go thrifting until next year. My sister was looking for a rehearsal dinner dress and asked me to meet her at Goodwill to help her search...she didn't end up finding it but I found this blouse (I'd been looking for a woven light grey blouse for ages), a mauve velvet blouse with lace yoke and pleated ribbon trim (and this was right after I'd realised my mauve tee belonged in my rag bag!), a navy blue 100% silk (even the lining) flapper-esque blouse, a pair of linen/cotton blend shorts in the most perfect medium chambray-ish denim, and a pair of Eileen Fisher funny wool trousers that reminded me of Japanese sewing books. Reader, I caved. For $14 plus tax (the bottoms were both the colour of the week, so $2 off the normal $3 price meant $1 each; the tops were $4 each) I brought them all home with me. I can't even say I regret it, since they blend into my wardrobe so well, and in the case of the grey blouse, mauve blouse, and shorts, were even on my mental list of helpful future wardrobe items. But I can say that I've learned the only way to be sure I'm not going to buy more clothes is to stay out of the thrift stores, and I haven't visited one since.

I actually have lots more to say about closet sizes, shopping/consumption habits, and how even just a month of being in the forum/doing WIWs has changed my viewpoints, but I'm getting far away from the WIW purpose of this post! The blouse makes me smile, because the ruffles are shaped like some strange sea creature you'd find lurking under a rock on the bottom of the ocean, or towards the very edge of a tank in an aquarium, almost out of view. What with all the colour and texture and ruffles, I didn't really feel the need for a lot of jewelry: just my silver snake ring and silver Mexico bracelet on the other wrist. The socks are actually a medium grey, funny that the camera saw them as so much darker! I suppose this outfit is a bit lighter and fluffier than my usual look, but I enjoyed it. I forgot to photograph my outerwear, but it was nothing you haven't seen before! Oh these jeans/trousers fit quite nicely in the legs and hips (they look wrinkley/a bit big here because pics were taken at the end of a long day), but were insanely large in the waist. I couldn't resist getting them anyway, because they have a lovely high rise that almost hits my belly button (so difficult for me to find, especially when thrifting) and are made of a fabric that feels quite nice (almost linen like but not sure what it actually is), but I must've had to take in at least 4 inches of waistband. I suspect I'm going to have to add a couple new seams around the hips to eliminate any little gathers, but for now I just make sure my top covers up that bit. If I weren't lazy and felt comfortable using my sewing machine, I'd remove the waist band, take it in, and reattach doing a proper job, but for me now it's just me and my hand sewing, and with my arthritis I try to choose the path of least resistance!

All comments & suggestions welcome! I'm not sure this as flattering a palette to me as my usual outfits, but perhaps I'm just used to having more neutrals/mid tones grounding things. Also, in light of Angie's blog post, these colours might be a bit seasonally confused, but everything kept me warm!