Too Big, Too Small: Kayla & Lori's Ultimate Closet Challenge Continues

(Want an introduction to Kayla & Lori's Ultimate Closet Challenge? Read it here.)

#UCC Day 12: Burnout

I'm having an almost impossible time writing less than one-million words about this skirt. There is just so very much to say about it, my struggle with skirts in general, my relationship with my legs, the legitimacy of the colors gray and black, bringing home clothes that are the wrong size, etc, etc. I'm like Proust over here. 

But I'm deleting all that and will just say these few thing: 

• I was genuinely excited to be reunited with this skirt. I forgot it existed. I'm sorry, skirt. I will never burry you under the other skirts ever again. 
• It was originally a couple sizes too big, but I took it in. Ta-dah!
• There's zero way to tell from the photo, but it and the shirt are both burnout prints.
• It's from a thrift store. The shirt (it has pockets!) is a hand-me-down, the sandals consignment, and the necklace, which is from Japan and has two tiny bunnies snuggling each other on it, was a gift. 
• I'm kind of in love with this outfit and want to wear it every day. I'm seeing it with leggings and boots for the cold times, AMIRITE?

#UCC Days 13 & 14: Red Is The New Orange

The bullet points are working for me today. LET'S PROCEED WITH THE BULLET POINTS! 

• Oranger is my friends' band. I love them so so much. They were the sound of the turn of the century! They are now defunct but it's my understanding they'll do a reunion show if you ask them really really nicely. 
• I have one other Oranger tshirt, and it's a baby-t. For the love of all things good in the universe, may the baby-t trend never ever EVER come back around. Baby-ts were a bad idea then and they're a worse idea now. Nonetheless, I'm not getting rid of that other shirt. I'm too sentimental. 
• I'm not getting rid of this shirt, either. Sure, it's too small in the shoulders and maybe everywhere else, but they're an awesome band and the shirt's red and says Oranger in psychedelic letters, so KEEPER!
• The reason this shirt is too small is all the mediums were gone and my friend gave it to me anyway so what was I going to do, say no? C'mon now. 
• The shorts are thrift store, the shoes–organic vegan Tom's, because of course I have organic vegan Tom's–were bought new but they sure as hell aren't new now. You can't see it but they're thrashed. 
• Not only did I wear this shirt off and on for two days, I also slept in it, because I was camping over the weekend and that's what you do when you're camping. I should have taken this photo out in the woods I now realize, but I wasn't thinking about fashion at the time, I was thinking about trees. 

#UCC Day 15: Speaking Of Too Small Shirts...

I had full knowledge this shirt was too small when I bought it but I bought it anyway because I liked it so much. I tell myself I'll stop doing this stupid wrong size clothes thing, and then I keep doing it. But put together with the right layers, it works. Right? Or maybe the giantness of my glasses distracts from the tininess of the shirt. Whatever, anyway, I'm ready to part with this one despite still liking it because duh, it's too damn small. I got it at a buy-sell-trade shop, the jeans are hand-me-down, the tank-top and shoes were bought new. 

The bird and branch on the shirt are embroidered, by the way. Once again it's impossible to see the magnificent detailing of my fine, wrong-sized garments. 

Speaking Of Impossible To See Details...

I've had this blog here on blogger for many years now, but since I've been doing I'm Wearing Your Clothes, the horribly poor photo quality has really come to aggravate me. I spend minutes–minutes!–setting up my shots and editing my photos, and then I upload them and they all look horrible. 

Today, finally, I found the setting to make them less horrible. And I'm very glad. For a while there, I thought I might have to move to Tumblr. I hope you notice the difference–I have–but if you have any other tips for really making photos on blogger look nice, please let me know. 

#UCC: Laugh Now, Cry Later

Now that I'm back from my bicoastal ramblings and reunited with my beloved closet, I've jumped right into Kayla and Lori's Ultimate Closet Challenge, aka the #UCC, already a week and some days in progress. As Kayla and Lori explain

For every day of September, [we] have challenged each other to wear at least one thing we haven't worn (old shoes, new jewelry, retired yoga pants, crazy hat etc...) in a while.
Why?
A) To remind us that we can never complain that we don't have a stitch to wear
B) To look at our items in a new way and recognize why we don't need more
and
C) to weed out what we actually don't use or need anymore - and then to DONATE accordingly. If we have wonderful items we're not using, we're giving them to a charity like Dress for Success Worldwide - West. 

Surprise! I'm way into this. And I can combine it with I'm Wearing Your Clothes. Bonus! 

So here's Day 10 of the #UCC, or My First Day Back To Not Living Out Of A Suitcase

The shirt I have maybe worn once since finding it in a give-away pile across the street from my house. I want to want this shirt. It has subtle metallic sparkles in it! And it's long and slim and fits my torso nicely. And yet, I just can't get into it, maybe because I don't have anything good to wear under it; I don't know if I'm doing it any favors wearing it with the bought-new, bright yellow tank top here. So despite liking the shirt--and liking this outfit overall--it's going away. Bye, shirt. 

The turquoise pants--once again, my phone's camera made them look way bluer and less green than they really are--are from a clothing exchange. The bracelets were bought new, are fair trade, and are made of sustainably harvested wood and alpaca wool, so you know I sleep real good at night. The shoes are kind of a funny story. I had impulsively picked up a cheap pair of knock-off Tom's at Target because they were metallic silver. Metallic silver, people. Irresistible. Except unlike real Tom's which are stupefyingly comfortable, the knock-offs hurt my feet so much, I had to buy other shoes to make it through the day. My feet would have been bloody stumps by the time I got home if I hadn't. True story. Anyway, these stripy flats are the emergency replacement shoes. 

#UCC Day 11, or I Got Out Of Bed, What More Do You Want From Me

I started feeling a bit under the weather yesterday afternoon. It was my first full day back after three weeks of travel including rides in five different airplanes. I had breathed so, so many other people's air. I took some Airborne and a nap and blah blah fast forward to this morning. I woke up before dawn still feeling lousy. I took some ibuprofen and washed it down with more Airborne, but it wasn't until the sound of the blender almost made me cry I finally acknowledged I was having a migraine, too. I popped an imitrex, went back to bed, and didn't get up till late afternoon. 

All this is a very long and whiny way of saying, I didn't want to get dressed today and obviously I should get a medal for doing so. I have a trick though, a coping mechanism, because despite loving clothes so much, I actually feel this way pretty often. And the trick is, wearing a knit dress and leggings feels the same as wearing pajamas but folks think it looks way nicer and put-together. Suckers! 

I got this Trina Turk dress at a buy-sell-trade place. Did I mention it's a Trina Turk? I love Trina Turk. Her clothes are pretty expensive, so I was stoked to score this on the cheap, but I haven't worn it in a while. Crazy thing was, I put the dress on this afternoon and suddenly it struck me: it's way too big for me. Was it always that way? I don't think so. It is a size 0 after all. It's made of a very stretchy modal jersey, so maybe it's just stretched out? Regardless, I put a belt on to try to make it look less slouchy, but also just getting out of bed was a chore so who the hell cares. I'm dressed, dammit.

I still haven't decided if I'll keep the dress. It is very comfy--it is basically just a big tshirt--and have I mentioned it's a Trina Turk? Still, I don't want to look like an idiot wearing a dress the wrong size. I don't know, help me out here: should it stay or should it go? 

The belt is also from a buy-sell-trade shop, the leggings were bought new, as were the gold sandals which I got for a Halloween costume and then fell in love with. 

The Wedding Guest Dress

Tonight's edition of I'm Wearing Your Clothes is dedicated to my friend Emily for two reasons. First, she loves these posts, which thrills me to no end and for which I am so grateful. Second, I snapped this pic shortly after her wedding; this is the outfit I wore to it. 

As it happens, I also wore it to two other weddings, including one a mere 24 hours before hers. That night, I'd turned to a friend and said, "I already wore this to one wedding this summer and tomorrow I'm going to wear it to another."

"Don't worry," he said, "no one's going to notice." 

"They will when I blab about it all over the internet." 

The dress is from a clothing exchange. As is typical for my phone's camera, the turquoise bits in the abstract floral patern appear blue. Please use your imagination. The sandals are from a consignment shop, and if you're following along closely you'll notice these are my go-to sandals right now. They're shockingly light weight and comfortable, and the heel gives the impression I'm dressed up but ha ha jokes on you, I can't even feel the heel. The necklace is handmade by me. What's that? You'd like to see a close up? Well ok!