Details: Gap dress (Poshmark), Stuart Weitzman shoes (thrift), Coach bag (eBay)

Thoughts: I’ve been looking for this dress secondhand for a year – since my last clothing swap, in fact, when one of my friends wore and I fell in love with it. Poshmark finally came through! It was worth the wait because it’s a great summer dress. Light and airy and easy to wear. I’ve gotten several compliments on it. Naturally, the pattern is my jam. Honourable mention to this vintage Coach bag; I bought it 10 years ago back in the days when you could pick up 90s leather Coach bags for less than $50. I stopped wearing it and gave it to my mom after a while. Then, recently, I was at my parents’ house and ended up finding her bags (which I hadn’t gone through at the same time as her clothing) and it felt like a little present to rediscover this particular one.

Details: Toni T dickie, Vince top, Laura Ashley skirt (all thrifted), turquoise necklace (Poshmark)

Thoughts: I love how this dickie collar can change up the vibe of an outfit in an instant. It’s great for layering both in winter and in summer, including under sleeveless tops like this one. So easy and so versatile. This outfit came together because I’m a little bit obsessed with blue/olive combinations at the moment. Probably not high contrast enough for my Season, but it’s such a harmonious palette.

Details: F21 top (thrifted), Everlane pants (swap), Isabel Marant belt (thrifted), Ash sneakers (thrifted), Copper Canoe Woman earrings

Thoughts: I don’t usually thrift F21, but I saw this mesh crop top and was instantly transported to the late 90s. So I had to get it! A black bralette and high waisted pants means that it’s a lot less risque than a “mesh crop top” sounds. And it got a surprising amount of compliments from younger folks. It’s disconcerting when I’m accidentally cool, hahaha!

Details: Roolee dress, Chap jacket, BR belt (all thrifted), turquoise necklace (Poshmark)

Thoughts: Back to my black-and-white pattern mixing. I like throwing one of these outfits in every once in a while — almost like a palate cleanser. Turquoise is probably my favourite accent colour for B&W, with red being a close second.

Details: Marimekko x Uniqlo top, Jones NY jacket, Adriano Goldschmied jeans, Cotton Ginny belt (all thrifted), J. Crew shoes (retail)

Thoughts: Cooler temps means a rare(ish) chance to wear one of my summer coats. I will take that, thank you very much! Here, instead of doing an expected pairing for this southwestern pattern — usually a white or a solid coordinating colour top — I decided to try a little pattern mixing too. This Marimekko pattern is great because it can pull in different directions; it can read as quirky or it can read as geometric. Here, it’s the latter than works well with the pattern of the jacket.

Details: Old Navy tank, Shoshanna dress (both thrifted), Gap skirt (swap), Lena Bernard necklaces (Poshmark)

Thoughts: I’ve worn this dress as a duster with jeans later year, so I had to try it with a denim skirt too. I am still not 100% sold on the colours of the floral pattern; I don’t love wearing this shade of orange, tbh. Plus, I find the sleeves to be rather hot (they’re polyester, sadly) for summer. So, while I’ve held on to this dress/duster for the time being, it’s on my “edit watch list”.

Details: Raga dress, Lilka jacket, Marquis shoes (all thrifted), Lena Bernard necklace (Poshmark)

Thoughts: I found this dress recently at the thrifts and didn’t recognize the brand but thought to myself “it looks like Anthro”. And, sure enough, I googled the brand and it’s sold at Anthro. Which makes this a head-to-toe Anthro outfit. It’s been a while since I’ve done of those. Back in 2015/6, it happened a lot but I think the vibe now is different — less twee, more romantic/boho.

As with so many other things in life, I’ve noticed that there are seasons to my creative pursuits. During the spring and summer, I come out of hibernation and spend more time out of the house — gardening, thrifting, going to events. Inevitably, my art takes a backseat; both in terms of the time available to devote to it, but also my creative drive itself. Last winter, between about October and January, I worked on a LOT of hoops; I had an avalanche of ideas and my work pace was a solid trot. Since February, everything has slowed right down. Part of it has to do with the fact that a lot of the hoops I’m doing now are technically more complex than usual. But part of it is that I simply don’t have a lot of ideas floating around. It’s the embroiderer’s version of writer’s block.

I used to dread moments like that — feeling like I had run out of ideas, and what if I never got any good ideas ever again? I now know that “downtime” is part of the creative process too. I think of it as time used for recharging my creative batteries. I’ve been through this cycle enough times to know that, come fall, I will once again be brimming with ideas and fired up to bring them to life. At least, I’m pretty sure I will 😉

For now, I’ve been focusing on developing my landscape “thread painting” technique and feeling good about my progress. Here’s what I’ve been working on:

Part of my birch series, this is one of my favourites and currently in my personal collection. I love the orange pops here, and quite pleased with the texture. With each landscape hoop, I learn new “tricks” for creating texture and visual effects.

This was a big experiment for me — a different way to do the sky, and a never-before-tried technique for the clouds. It was a real challenge to get my vision to come to life. I feel like I got … about 80% there. I need to sit with this for a bit and see if ideas present themselves to me to help me improve for next time.

I loved making this style of “Klimt florals” a while ago, so I made a new design. This piece actually sold at a local art sale.

This was a relatively quick and easy project I decided to do as a “break” from my more complicated landscape hoops. The main challenge with large satin-stitch designs like this one is keeping good tension and evenness in the stitches. The main thing is ensuring each section of satin stitch isn’t too large and has a consistent stitch direction. The flowers here were the most difficult, because they required a bit of tweaking to keep that direction consistent.

Ok, I know I saw this a lot but this is hands-down one of my favourite hoops ever. I am so, so pleased with how everything turned out: the colours, the texture, the overall composition. I tried a new technique with the pine trees — a combination of felt and French knots — which turned out extremely well.

As you can see, I used the same technique here, albeit this time not in silhouette. This was a very time-consuming hoop because it’s almost completely thread-painting, but I am happy with it. I have wanted to do a coastal landscape for a while — I love embroidering bodies of water — and the colour palette here was different than things I’d worked on before.

Details: Suttles & Seawinds dress (Poshmark), Second Female cardigan, BR belt, Marquis shoes (all thrifted)

Thoughts: How well matched are this dress and this cardigan? It’s always pleasing to find a perfect colour match. This dress is almost perfect too; the fit of the bodice is impeccable. My only (small) quibble is that I wish it was longer. Of course I do! The longer, the better. So I added a vintage petticoat that has a lovely lace detail at the bottom; it adds a few extra inches and some visual interest to boot.

Details: American Eagle vest, Ralph Lauren blazer, Topshop pants, Ferragamo shoes (all thrifted)

Thoughts: A very dandy sort of outfit, don’t you think? I’m loving vests worn as tops at the moment — a little bit risque but not really. It’s not different than a tank top, when you think about it. In this case, the vest is cut a bit low so to minimize the boobage, I added a vintage scarf (which belonged to my grandma!) as a sort of shawl/neck tie alternative. I love the look of it.

Details: H&M top (Poshmark), Ralph Lauren skirt, BR belt (both thrifted), J. Crew shoes (retail)

Thoughts: Inspired by my recent seasonal analysis discoveries, I put together this outfit to showcase a high-contrast colour combo of dark teal and red. I love it!! Any shades in the teal/turquoise/aqua family look smashing paired with red.

Details: Marni top (Poshmark), Ralph Lauren skirt (thrifted), Rafael Alfandary necklace (eBay)

Thoughts: I can’t believe that I’ve never paired this top and skirt before! The colours are nicely complementary, and the busy-ness of the blouse print actually makes it easy to accommodate another pattern. I wanted to create a “crop top” effect so I tied the blouse at the waist, which completely changed its silhouette.

Details: C&C dress, Roughrider vest, Esprit belt (all thrifted), Old Navy shoes, Dooney bag (both Poshmark)

Thoughts: This is *not* my dream white dress, but it’s the closest I’ve been able to thrift so far. Its main downside is that it’s not as voluminous and twirly as I would like. But it is fairly long, and opaque, and has nice eyelet detailing. So I’m pretty happy with it. This outfit is one of my fave summer formulas — dress + vest + sandals. So easy, breezy, and fun.

Details: Lee x H&M top, Suttles & Seawinds vest, Esprit belt, H&M pants (all thrifted), Old Navy shoes (Poshmark), Prairie Trail Goods tote

Thoughts: Speaking of favourite outfit formulas, here is another one: crop top + vest + high waisted pats. These pants, specifically, are my go-to piece. I love the paperbag waist detail, and they are loose and comfortable to wear. The colour is a nice neutral that allows for endless remix possibilities. And the wide belt loops means that I can sub a good number of different belts, depending on the vibe and colour palette I’m using. Yay for versatile clothing!