Weekend Wrap-Up: Greetje Dress Debut, the Autumn Jacket, Part 1, and a Wee Shop

Happy weekend, my friends! I hope yours has been full of sunshine and spring, even if it's metaphorical. We've had a quiet one, just L and I for brunch on Saturday, followed by some stretches of down-time while I worked on my next Art Project, the Autumn Jacket. I also squeezed a teeny-tiny shop in there! 

My first outfit of the spring/summer season is this lovely dress that friend and fellow blogger Greetje gifted and sent to me, all the way from the Netherlands! 

I decided to style it the same as she did (here, link 'cause I love), since it is still on the chilly side (oh, spring, you mercurial scamp!). 

• Dress - Boden, pass-along from Greetje; received here
• Boots - Clarks; last worn here in March with pleats and zigzags
• Poncho (below) - Welsh, vintage 60s, thrifted; first seen here in February

I did caramel boots and a brown belt with turquoise "stones" on it. I also safety-pinned the neckline a bit higher, as it was rather cleavage-tastic. 

Hands in pockets, which basically makes my arms disappear. 

The secret to a ginormous voluminous dress like this is to make big dramatic movements. 

Arms akimbo! Leg out to the side! 

Swoosh that skirt! You can see a bit of the navy blue cotton lining there. I wore nylons, plus a vintage slip under it to help keep the cotton from clinging to my hosiery.

I am looking forward to wearing this in the office when I can swoosh it around for my coworkers. 

Masked up. I added more brown/tan with my purse. 

But did pink accents to pop the pink in the paisley pattern (heh, I do love alliteration). 

Incognito. I got a few stares in the grocery store after brunch. 

I also popped into Goo Goo Goggles and took in my turquoise-framed glasses as the finish on the lenses is flaking right off. I should have new lenses ready in a couple of weeks, yay! 

I liked how this green/blue poncho picked up the colours in the dress' pattern. 

I'm looking forward to wearing the dress on a hot summer day and not having to wear any sunblock! 

Accoutrements: 

Hooray for my McQueen scarf now matching almost everything in my spring/summer wardrobe. I'll be down to pennies per wear before I know it! 

• Purse - Ted Lapidus, vintage 90s, vintage fair
• Gloves - consignment
• Scarf - Alexander McQueen, consignment
• Mask - by Mom

The stuff: 

We're still in boot weather here, and these were awesome. 

Turquoise bling: 

I'm happy to have most of this back in my spring collection. 

• Belt - Brave Belts, thrifted
• Silver cuff - vintage, thrifted, Powell River
• Filigree cuff - St. Paul's Cathedral gift shop, London
• Turquoise/silver pendant - Karen's
• Turquoise/silver ring - Mexico, Karen's
• Turquoise ring - Glee
• Earrings - Charmaine's 

I went kitty-hunting this morning, as Vizzini wasn't prowling around and mooching in the kitchen as he usually is. 

Shhhhh....sleeping kitty! 

I had to pet him! To be fair, he woke me up at 4:48am wanting to be fed. 

"Oh, that seems fair, does it?"

Fine! I will leave you alone...for now. 

"Deal. Now go away."

All right, I will! I worked on the Autumn Jacket all afternoon on Saturday and Sunday, as I have been feeling inspired on it and I finished the upper back section. 

Autumn Jacket Art Project - Part 1, The Upper Back

I bought this leather jacket at the Velvet Crease back here in November 2020 on one of my shopping expeditions. It wasn't a particularly successful shopping day, and this is one of a few things that I found. Sometimes, when I'm not having luck, I give in and buy something that is just...okay. 

I didn't really love this jacket, but I recognized it as being unusual (I like how the front curves around at the bottom), and good quality. It's by Cigno, an Austrian company, although it was made in India.

The leather is very soft - the entire jacket, except for stretchy fabric inserts along the underside of the arms (which you can see above), is leather. I also liked the slight wrap across the front, which zips up. It was $68.00.

Before we get to the completed upper back, I thought I'd do a mini-Flashback on both of the ways I wore it before I realized I'd made a shopping error and put it in the giveaway pile. 

This is from November 2020. I layered it over a sweater and wool pants.

Back view, same outfit. Eh, it's fine. 

I didn't wear it again until October 2021, when I layered it over a velvet dress as a coat. 

Again...meh. It's fine. 

When I realized I couldn't do Kaitlyn's jacket (here) with my planned spider-web theme, I remembered this jacket in the giveaway pile and the two things clicked. Aha! I have a jacket I can do that design on! 

However, as I wasn't a huge fan of the original jacket, I pondered what to do with it. I don't really want to sell my art creations (I'm not big on monetizing anything that I enjoy doing) - I would rather give them away to people who will appreciate them! 

I thought of Autumn Zenith. author of the blog Witchcrafted Life (link here, 'cause I love). She is a fellow BCer (western Canada), loves autumn (duh, it's her name!), Hallowe'en, and nature, so I reached out to her to see if she was interested in receiving the jacket as a gift from me (knowing I'd be doing a spider-web theme) and if so, what she would like "written" on the back of the jacket. 

After some back-and-forth with measurements and discussion about design elements, we settled on "Eternally Autumn." I grew up with E.B. White's story, "Charlotte's Web," (link here) and loved the idea of "writing" something in a spider web. There's a lovely article here, with a couple of illustrations from the book, as an example.

I started - as I always do - by assembling my materials. I did some tests on the inner seams of the leather, and my Staedtler black permanent markers made the grade again (in S and M, for thicker lines). I'd originally intended on only doing black on the dark grey, but when I tested my alcohol-based Tombow markers on the seam, I realized they would show up on the grey. Hurray! Autumn will get autumn colours on her jacket! 

I had my clip-art printouts of spiders and webs ready for reference, and made some notes on where to put what, made myself a cup of tea, and settled under the blanket on the deck to work. 

As before, I sketched out my basic design - the centre dot of the web, the main lines coming out, plus the lettering - with an "erasable" dark grey felt-tip marker (it wipes off with a damp paper towel). 

Sorry, I know you can't see much there. 

Vizzini kept me company, while I added the first permanent lines. 

Once I had the lettering even and looking appropriately spider-y, I wiped off the guide markings. 

It must look like a spider wrote it! 

Vizzini looks skeptical. This is always the hardest part for me, when I doubt myself the most, and when I have the greatest fear that I'm going to mess it up (I always hear RuPaul..."And DON'T f**k it up!").

I plunged ahead, inking in the letters darker, going back and forth on them (like Charlotte did in the book!), and anchoring them to the web threads. I even added a wee spider - see her? 

While I like how this looks here, it's really hard to see. The jacket itself has a shiny-ish finish, and that's a lot of black. 

So I decided to do an autumn "halo" around the letters - this is when I tested my markers - and if I'm going to add colour there, I may as well add it to the rest of the jacket! Autumn was open to other fall motifs, so I knew that the addition of leaves would make her happy. 

I found a bunch of clip art of autumn leaves, and then looked for some generic tattoos to get ideas for colouring and lines. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself! First, the halos around the lettering. 

I chose a red, bright orange, mustard yellow (it has an acid green tone in it), and plain yellow. 

I wrapped the jacket around a cushion and worked away, starting with the A to see how it looked. 

I liked it, but I don't like switching my pens that frequently, so I moved to "assembly line" colouring. You can see I've started doing the red outlines on the U, T and U above. 

Here's a close-up of the finished A. Oh, I missed noting that I went over all of the webbing, and did rounded joins at each intersection. This made the web look bolder and sticky, more connected to the design. 

I blended the orange into the red, then the mustard into the orange, then the yellow into the mustard. 

All the red outline done. 

This will make it much easier to read when she's wearing it. 

I worked on it for about three hours on Saturday afternoon, then another three hours on Sunday. 

All of the outlines are done (it took forever!), and I like the look of it. Again, sorry about the shine. 

Another shot. 

I stopped the design at the waist - you can see in the rear shot above (from when I wore it originally), that the bottom of the back needs to enhance and continue the theme. 

Vizzini kept me company. 

"I'm helping."

Since Autumn and I are both Canadian, I thought the maple leaves would work best. I did a test leaf on paper (lower right) to figure out the "bones" of the leaf design. 

Centre dot, five radiating lines, then the silhouette. I can do this! 

I used the centre dots to arrange where to the leaves would go. The plan is for them to look like they are hanging from the top web, and have interconnecting webs between them. The spiders are keeping the leaves from falling (so it's eternally autumn, get it?). 

I free-handed a bunch of leaves around the waistline, out to the sides of the jacket - I haven't solidified the front/arm designs yet, but it'll be more of the same, I expect.

A close-up. I thickened up the outline, and did thick loops at the tips to give the leaves a curled-up, ready to fall vibe. 

As with any design, the elements should have some overlap to create dimension. 

Thickening for shadow where one leaf is on top of the other. 

And adding smaller veins and thickening up the central lines. Phew! My arms and shoulder needed a rest, but I'm happy with how this is coming along. 

Oh, and before I forget, L and I popped down to the WIN Boutique quickly on Sunday morning to see if they had any CD racks or useful furniture. There was a dearth of stock in their home-goods shop, but I did have a quick look-see in the boutique to see if there was anything good. 

I didn't do an outfit for our brief foray - we were there and back in 30 minutes - but I did find a few things. 

These earrings were nice - I like the hammered gold round dot at the top, the diamante-encrusted rings, and the rubbery-finished burgundy balls. 

Those will be useful - good colours. They are not too heavy either. 

The backs are unusual: little drums with rubber inside. 

And they are stamped - these are by Kenneth Cole. All jewelry at WIN is $7.95 - these would have been around $25 new. 

I am always on the lookout for nice "soft tops" that I can wash and layer. 

This is a lovely rich cobalt blue. I like the neck ruffle. 

It's by J. Crew and was $12.95.

I peeked for the date tag - yup, there it is! This is from Summer 2017 (it's 5 years old).

It came in pink, yellow and this colour - it's 100% polyester - and retailed for $59.50. 

L watched as I quickly pawed through the dresses, feeling for good fabric. Someone's removed the slip from this dress, but the fabric feels like either silk or a very good quality polyester. 

I also liked the fabric pattern. The dress is sheer and very swooshy, and had a self-belt (looped around the neck here). 

There are no tags on it at all, but it has metal buttons on the top, cuffs and chestal pockets (the pockets are lined with a slippery fabric, which is probably what the slip was made from). 

For only $11.95, it was worth a shot. It didn't fit very well when I got home (no fitting rooms at WIN), but I might try to style it once before I put in the giveaway pile. 

And now, I will leave you with a couple of cute cat pictures. 

"What? You're leaving again?"

No, bud, I'm going to chill out and relax before another busy week. 

"And I will sleep on you."

That is very likely! 

I hope you've all had a lovely weekend! Thank you so much for visiting!