Going Local

I won't lie. I wore this outfit yesterday, too.

I was a pretty laid back day at work, and I didn't exactly get dirty, so I figured it wasn't a huge deal to throw it on again, today. It's going to be a laid back Saturday, too. We've got a baby fighting her teeth and an exciting new cold (either inspired by our return to daycare this week or the time we spent last weekend on planes to and from Texas for my brother's wedding). We have lunch plans with friends down at Local Taco, I haven't slept since 3:30 AM...

I have laundry to do...

look, not all bloggers live enviable lives of flitting about aimlessly in large cities buying, I don't know, fresh-cut flowers and caviar or whatever it is they're doing these days.

You know, I don't think I've ever actually eaten caviar.

I'm a terrible Frasier fan.

Easy is as easy does today. Just another variation on The Uniform: cardigan, tee, jeans, shoes.

The cardigan is from Target, of course, as most of my cardigans are. It's the closest to the right kind of mustard-color I'm always looking for in the fall, but which seems impossible to find both lightweight and affordable. Boden had the perfect one last fall, but it was way too heavyweight for South Carolina.

Ah, the travails of being a sweater-lover in the South.

 The jeans are Lands End.

I want to love them.

I want them to be perfect.

They are not perfect.

This saddens me.

 The jeans go from basically being a size too tight just after a wash-and-dry to being almost a size too big after about an hour of wear. They were kind of pricey jeans, so I'm thinking about sending them back, but the color and weight of them is just perfect. They need hemmed, too; hence the cuffs. I don't know. I love Lands End, but I have not been impressed with their jeans just yet. Sigh.

Life is hard.

The bracelet is a recycled leather belt piece I bought from the Downtown Farmers Market last year from a girl running a booth there. This T-shirt is really where the 'Going Local' shows up (um, other than the taco place we're eating later.)

This shirt is for PineBox designs. Ellison Brooks runs it; he's a local Greenville woodworker who makes the coolest Batman and Batgirl cutting board ever (and also built the counter system at one of my favorite local places, the Swamp Rabbit cafe & Grocery). I commissioned one for my brother's wedding and Ellison's wife Stephanie was able to drop it off right at my workplace, which was amazing. The cutting board was this gorgeous dark-toned wood and I was absurdly proud of myself for getting it for Bryan.

I'm probably going to get Jason and I one later this year.

In any case, I picked up one of PineBox's T-shirts while I was at it. All of the proceeds off the T-shirts go to Pendleton Place, a local charity that helps neglected and abused children and teens. I highly suggest you pick one up for yourself - they're supersoft and I am wearing this T-shirt basically all the time right now.

You can see what Ellison and PineBox Designs are up to on etsy, facebook, or instagram. He's a fun follow - I enjoy seeing what he's up to and what he's working on! Plus he's part of a network of some of us northern/northwestern Greenville locals kind of supporting each other... and I am all on supporting local business whenever I can!

(This post in no way sponsored, by the way. I just happen to think Ellison Brooks is a pretty cool dude.)

Outfit Details:
Cardigan: target, long since sold out but you can find similar stuff around... or just wait for fall.
T-shirt: PineBox Designs, here
Jeans: Lands End, here
Shoes: Old Navy, old, but they have them this year too
Bracelet: Farmers Market, don't remember name of vendor
Breast Cancer Pin: My mom is about to start her first round of chemo, so I'm wearing this pin on everything right now. She was supposed to start chemo Thursday, but her veins decided they didn't like that chemo drug and bam! allergic reaction. Because that's my mama. I've decided via the power of anxiety that it's because i wasn't wearing the pin, so I am now.
Red Face, Bizarre Hair: Thanks to steroids I'm taking for The Sinus Infection That Will Not Die.

P.S. I think my next post is going to be a Tomboy Rants about what it means to try and buy jeans as a plus-size woman whose legs are NOT ELEPHANT TRUNKS PEOPLE WHY ARE ALL THE LEGS ON JEANS SO GIGANTIC ARGH. Ahem. That it all.

These Are Not Gray Pants

Ten years ago, you could not have paid me to step foot into Gap or Old Navy to actually shop for anything. I went in occasionally with my family or friends, but I just wasn't interested in what they had to offer - everything seemed to be branded with logos, and I am a staunch believer in not giving a company my money in order to be a walking billboard for them. If I'm going to advertise a company by blaring their logo across my clothing, they had best be paying me for the privilege.

Well, I still feel that way.

Somewhere along the way, though, my passionate hatred of Gap and Old Navy faded and was replaced by me finding the occasional things I really like about them.

It's a pretty recent development - this post here over on the personal blog was the first time I had worn a Gap shirt in a very, very long time. And I've been adding Old Navy jeans to my closet here and there for a while as well. Then, I had a baby, and discovered the BabyGap is one of the few places that sells a decent amount of non-pink clothing for girls.

Gap, and Old Navy both have a serious length problem - I can tell they're mostly selling to teenagers and skinny college girls, because they just crank out the cropped tops like an assembly line on cocaine. Shirts are never long enough, and if they are, they're poor quality material that shrinks after one wash. Old Navy's exception to this rule is in their tank tops and camis, which I find hilarious - why would you make a tank clearly meant to be worn under your other shirts longer than the shirts it's meant to be worn with?

I'm obviously not the business genius that those running Gap and Old Navy are.

In any case, the tops just aren't long enough, on average, which means that when I do shop there I primarily shop online, allowing me to troll the 'tall' section to see if they have anything I like in a length that won't have me flashing belly every time I have to grab something off a shelf.

This stripe-sleeved top did the trick.

I won't lie - I mostly ordered this shirt in order to get to Gap's $50 limit to get free shipping. I had ordered a couple of things for the baby, and I hate paying for shipping if I don't have to. At worse, I throw something I'm not sure about in the cart and then return it later, right?

I figured this would be one of those shirts. The high boatneck and flat color on the body could easily make me look like a mack truck coming and going. I gave it a shot anyway, just to see.

Turns out, I love it.

I love the slightly faded darker blue color and that the shirt ends up emphasizing that my waist is narrow when compared to my hips, instead of flattening me out like I thought it would. I love that ordering it in the tall means the sleeves go past my hands and the hem is below my hips.

My only issue is that the thin cotton, while soft, is not terribly forgiving on a stomach that is still showing the after-effects of baby-havin'.

Ah well.

I love it anyway.

These are not gray pants.

But Katie! I hear you saying. They are clearly charcoal gray!

Nope.

When I bought them? They were flat black. I bought this pair because I wanted (and still want) black jeans, and couldn't find any at the time that weren't skinnies that were nothing less than terribly uncomfortable. Old Navy had these pants on offer - not jeans, but comfortable and a dressy black appropriate for a business casual workplace like the museum I used to work at.

Then I washed them twice, and now they're charcoal gray.

I keep wearing them because I just like them that much, but would still like a pair of inexpensive black jeans, NOT skinny jeans, to wear with shirts like this. Do you guys have any advice on that? They need to go into the lower plus-sizes.

I can't say I didn't get my money's worth, though, since I bought them on sale three years ago and I'm still wearing them pretty consistently.

I just wish they had stayed black longer than two months.

This necklace is a Christmas gift from my mother-in-law, kind of in honor of having had Audra last year. I wear it all the time. It's pretty funny, because I tend to buy large, clunky, insanely colorful necklaces but I love simple things like that that you can wear with anything and everything.

I have this, and a pretty starfish necklace (seen in the earlier link to the Gap T-shirt post from the other blog), and those are my two simplest wear-with-anything pieces of jewelry.

Well.

Um.

Other than my, uh, wedding band.



Outfit Details
Striped boatneck tee - Gap, available here.
Black pants - Old Navy, similar here
Shoes - Skechers at JCPenney, similar here
Necklace - Christmas gift from my mother-in-law





P.S. Please forgive the wonky lighting/focus issues. It's super gray, rainy, and dreary here today and I really did the best I could with what 5:45 pm light could offer me.






P.P.S. Today on the personal blog? I tell you a little story about my drive to work on Monday, and it's at least a little bit funny if I do say so myself. Check it out!

Too Dang Cold

So I grew up in Illinois.

In Illinois, it gets cold in the winter. Very, very cold.

When we moved to South Carolina, I was disappointed in the lack of chilly winters, because it really narrowed down the amount of time I was able to wear sweaters. I like sweaters, you see. I like warm and fuzzy knitted things and it's hard to pull off wearing cable-knit in 65 degree Decembers. Don't get me wrong, I still try, but even I acknowledge that I look ridiculous.

I try to embrace ridiculousness in all aspects of my life, fashion included.

In any case, every year I moan and groan about not being able to wear my sweaters enough. This year, South Carolina decided it was tired of hearing that nonsense and if I was going to complain so much, it would just give me what I wanted and see how I felt about that, then.

Well, South Carolina, I am actually super, super happy.

Blissful is how I feel.

Other than the logistics of having to keep the baby warm, I love a very cold day in South Carolina. I love the frigid cold, where it makes more sense to curl up under blankets than to wander outside. Oh, sure, I'll complain when my fingers fall off (I don't wear gloves) but secretly? I'm thrilled.

I'm thrilled because of the sheer fact that these days don't last for long. This isn't Illinois, where it goes on and on and on. This isn't our last year in Illinois specifically, where we lived in a hovel of a duplex with heat that only worked in fits and spurts and I once sent my mother a photo of me, sitting inside my own house, wearing two T-shirts, two sweaters, my winter coat, a hat and two scarves, and thick pajama pants worn over my jeans. Also two pairs of socks and THEN fuzzy slippers..

Again, that was inside the house, with the (baseboard, on an exterior wall under a window) heater running full blast.

So that kind of ruined me on winter for a while, until we moved to this magical green land where really cold days only last for a week or less and then suddenly it's 50 again and I'm running around in a T-shirt getting dirty looks from native southerners who are still wearing parkas.

Still, I especially love these cold days because it means I get to pull out my warmest clothing - stuff I really don't get to wear as much as I would like. Like this waffle-knit hooded top from Duluth Trading Company, which I wore into the office yesterday.

It is just the warmest shirt - it's two layers sewn together really well, so even the sleeves are super warm. The neckline is almost too high, but not quite, and the hood lets you sort of sink back into warmth if you need it.

Duluth Trading Company does what they call "Longtail T's", which are made a few inches longer than the industry standard. This is heaven for long-torsoed people like me, for whom basically all shirts forever are just too short and once they've been through the wash, become indecently so. I already own a metric ton of their elbow-sleeve T-shirts (expect to see those pop up here, um, a lot) and decided a couple of months ago to use a little bit of Christmas money to try out this waffle-knit top, too.

Then I wore it for two days straight after it came in, washed it, and wore it another two days straight over a weekend.

This infinity scarf was a gift from my friend Lauren, and another thing I don't get to wear as often as I would like. It's deeply warm and consists of my two favorite colors and another one that is in my top 5.

Guess which colors are which, I dare you.

I have about a million scarves, so if the weather is cold you can expect to see lots of them as well. I really do love handmade scarves - I have a few that friends have given me and I wear them constantly when it's even remotely appropriate and sometimes, even when it isn't. I have been known to be overheated in the pursuit of showing off new friend-gift scarves.

The hat is from Urban Outfitters, and it is the only thing I've ever bought from there, from the only time I have ever gone in. In January, Jason and I did an overnight trip up to Asheville, which is only about an hour and a half from where we live, if that. One of our friends was able to give us a great hotel room overnight and my in-laws kept the baby, so it was just the two of us, one of the best hotel rooms in Asheville, and Christmas money.

And Chai Pani. Every single one of you who reads this needs to promise me, promise me, that they will eat there if they visit Asheville. You must eat there.

Unfortunately, I did not plan for how cold Asheville was in early January, and ended up with incredibly cold ears walking around as the sun went down. We ducked into Urban Outfitters, which I discovered quickly to be Hipster Heaven and not altogether a place I have much interest in ever visiting again.

What they did have though?

Fuzzy hats. Fuzzy hats are apparently very in with the early-20's hipster crowd now, and that worked for me. This is the warmest hat and I love it and I even tried it on in the store, which readers of my personal blog will know is not something I normally do.

It's long enough to pull down over my ears, and it was the first thing I reached for yesterday morning, before anything else.

And finally, you've already seen these shoes. Get ready to see them very, very often. I'm not much of a shoes-person, and tend to rely on the same five or six pairs all the time forever. Right now it's these brown Privo flats.

And, of course, SmartWool socks.

Um.

You'll see those in basically any outfit post where I'm wearing socks.

I have plans for a couple of regular features - Tomboy Brands/Loves, where I talk about the clothing brands I like most or maybe individual clothing items I like the most. Which would you prefer to see? Budgeting Bloggers will be my other regular feature, although I won't be starting to track that sort of thing until March, which will be when I start giving myself a wardrobe budget again. I'm also going to do the occasional post about Style Bloggers I follow or find interesting. Some of them will probably be bloggers you already know about, hopefully some will not.

If there are any features you're interested in maybe seeing, let me know. I'm just getting this off the ground so if you have any ideas you want to share, now is the time, while I'm still fiddling around with ideas.

Outfit Details:
Waffle-knit hooded top: Duluth Trading Company, here.
Jeans: Old Navy, similar here.
Socks: SmartWool, available here at Duluth Trading Company.
Shoes: Privo by Clarks, some Privo can be found here on Amazon (thanks to my friend Jo for letting me know!)
Scarf: Made by my friend Lauren.
Hat: Urban Outfitters, here.

Work From Home: Iced In

When I left work yesterday afternoon, the ice was already building up. By this morning it looked like my driveway was made of snow - until, of course, you  made the terrible mistake of actually trying to leave. The whole thing was one large sheet of ice, and our front steps alone were a perilous journey.

My boss at my new job had mentioned yesterday that we might need to work from home, and that's what ended up happening. Since I had designated today as a Blog Post Outfit Day, and I'm still desperately trying to ensure no one knows how often I wear pajama pants when in my house, I went ahead and pulled something together.

Here is what I love about L.L. Bean's cable-knit sweaters - they are the most comfortable thing in the entire sweater world. They're thick, heavier-knit with New England winters in mind. I only own this single one, but that's only because in a place where I only wear a sweater like this maybe two or four times per winter I would feel kind of ridiculous with any more than that.

It doesn't mean I won't buy more later, mind you; just that I will have to get over feeling ridiculous first.

Cable-knit sweaters aren't particularly flattering on people like me - with a larger chest and a longer torso, I hit two Fashion Sins right off the bat. The hem hits along one of the widest parts of me, and much of the heavy cable design is focused on one of the other, um, larger parts of me.

I totally don't care.

When home watching training videos, working on assignments, and generally discovering where everything goes from here, I'm going to prioritize warmth first. There is nothing warmer than an L.L. Bean Sweater.

Well, let me rephrase that.

There is nothing warmer than thick SmartWool socks... but the sweater comes in a close second.

Outfit Details:
Sweater: L.L. Bean Coveside sweater, available in a few other colors
Jeans: Old Navy, here
Socks: SmartWool Saturnsphere
Boots: L.L. Bean, here
Turquoise undertank: Walmart or something? I don't know.

Work Outfits: The Uniform

I decided to start things off with what is basically the best example of my usual work outfit; jeans, tee, cardigan. This is my final day at this workplace, so I wanted to be very comfortable (you don't want to be both counting down minutes and also have tight jeans digging into your stomach, right?) but I said in my introductory post that if I wore it on a post day, you were gonna see it, so I kiiiiinda didn't want to start off super lazy right off the bat.

Seems like the wrong mood to set, you know?

Let's keep the yoga pants for an actual weekend day.

...

I'd like to take a moment, if no one minds, and quietly do a celebration dance as I realize this is my last day to work on Saturday. In my entire career history, it has never been a given that I could have Saturday off and for the last three years, it was a given that I wouldn't; any Saturday I managed to finagle was a beg, borrow, or steal situation. So I need this moment to sort of beam good Joining the Weekend World vibes out into the universe.

...

There. That feels better.

Yes, there will be bad bathroom selfies until I get my actual camera set up on a tripod and find a good lighting spot. Look, it's winter! It's cold and dark when I get dressed in the morning and the sun is mostly down by the time I get home! I am seriously not the kind of person who is going to take outfit photos while freezing my fingers off.

The cardigan here is a staple of mine - Target's Boyfriend Cardigan. I've even posted almost this exact same outfit when I was doing style posts over on my personal blog. I have them in about four colors - white, red, this mustard color, and navy. The upside is that they're insanely cheap. The downside is that they're cheap for a reason - the fit and the seams are all wonky, creating lumps where none exist. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have lots of lumps, but they're... really not where the photo would lead you to believe. The buttons are sewn on funny as well, leading them to look like they're pulling even when they're fitting perfectly or, in some cases, a little loose. They fade in the wash spectacularly quickly. They're basically see-through, so when worn over a striped tee-shirt like the one above, you can see the stripes right through the yellow in person.

One of my goals for this coming fall is to upgrade my cardigan collection. I want the same basic colors - red, white, mustard yellow, brick red/pumpkin orange/copper, and navy, but I'd like them to be thicker, better quality, and warmer.

Any brands you turn to for cardigans that fit that bill?

I have black and gray cardigans in this style from Lands End that I wear a lot - Lands End will show up a lot here - but I'd like an option that has this same kind of length as the boyfriend cardigan, and the Lands End cardigans are quite a bit shorter.

(By the way, this is a rant I have coming up, about how everything for women assumes we have the torsoes of small children why is that)

Did I just say cardigan too much?

Has the word lost all meaning?

I wear these shoes all. the. time.

They're Privo brand, which I don't think exists really anymore, a subsidiary of Clarks.  I bought these suckers probably seven or eight years ago. We used to live in southern Illinois and two of our friends lived just over the border in Missouri. One of them ran a shoe store and he sold this Privo brand and I fell in absolute head-over-heels love.

I had black shoes very similar to these as well that I bought during that time, but I finally wore the inside of the sole out completely and had to throw them out. These brown shoes have held together admirably, but you can see the finish starting to wear off on the fronts.

So another goal for this year is to replace my go-to brown flats. I need a darker brown color, something I can wear every day.

One more goal for the next year or so is to invest in more striped shirts, basic workhorses like this one from Loft. I wear this shirt all the time, and it's incredibly easy to dress up or down. I don't like flat black-and-white stripes on myself very much, but softer grays like this always seem to be cute.

I should make a list of these goals so I can keep track of them, huh? Since I need to add - find jeans that fit my legs better to that list as well. I buy pretty cheap jeans, just because in the last year or so my weight has changed a lot depending on what I'm doing. I went on a walking-and-eating-right kick and lost about 20 pounds, then got pregnant and, um, that progress is all gone now. I'm hoping to get back into being healthier this year, which... might lead my jeans size to change once again. So I've been buying Old Navy primarily, whatever's cheap. But I'd like to get into a size I'm a. comfortable staying at, and b. able to buy jeans that are less stretched-like-woah after 20 minutes of wear. Something shouldn't go from comfortable to nearly-falling-down in less than an hour of sitting and standing, you know?

Oh, and the headband is... well, remember one of my rules from my introductory post is "The hair does what it wants". Well, sometimes I'm very stupid and sleep on it instead of taking a shower in the morning like I should. On those days, I wear a headband to keep it in check. If I don't... strange things happen. Strange things indeed.

Cardigan: Target, here. The yellow isn't available, but it tends to come back every fall in some form.
Striped Boatneck Tee: Loft, but currently only available in black/white and gray/purple. Gift from my husband's family.
Jeans: Old Navy, here.
Shoes: Privo by Clarks, similar 'dressy or casual' brown flat here.
Socks: SmartWool. Always.
Necklace: Bought from the gift shop I ran here. Similar here on etsy.
Green Infinity Scarf: Christmas gift from my husband's family.

So this is kind of the introduction after the introduction, so to speak. An idea of what I'm probably wearing if I'm at work that day. This is actually a little more subdued than I normally am - I'm someone who basically loves colors and I do in fact own rainbow striped shoes. So we'll see where things go. I'm going to put together a list of goals, and maybe working on this blog, and looking at myself so honestly, will lead me to work harder on figuring fit and style out in a way to better suit my frame. My jeans are too baggy in the legs, I need better cardigans, and, um, not to sleep on my hair like that.

Welp.

Here we go, kids. Let's figure my clothing out together!