Spring Wardrobe | Shopping

Hey y'all! A few Saturdays ago I set off on a shopping trip with my sister Willa to find some fabric for those skirts that I put on my list to make when I evaluated my wardrobe. The closest Jo-Ann's is an hour and 20 minutes from my house, so this wasn't a quick errand. ;) 

Here's what was left on my skirt list after my ThredUp purchases:

Short denim skirt that fits nicely (my Destination skirt is wearing out)

Long denim skirt with belt loops

Bright maxi skirt (new twill leaf skirt?)

New linen skirt

1 casual shorter skirts

I'll be honest here: I was in Jo-Ann's 3 hours. I was having the hardest time making any decisions! Plus, the selection was much more limited than I expected. Our store is very special-occasion and home-decor fabric heavy and has a poor apparel fabrics selection. But, I made it work. :) 

I found some lovely bright pink twill suiting type fabric (little stretch) in the clearance section, so I picked that up for my "bright maxi skirt". 

This was just about all of my store's linen selection. I was hoping for some more muted tones, but they just didn't have any. I wanted maybe something with a print or a color with deep undertones so dirt wouldn't show as much, but there just wasn't anything like that.

The linen on the left was on sale for $10 a yard and the purple and green linens were on sale for $5 a yard. I was torn between making a cheaper, brighter skirt that I may be harder to match with (purple or green are not common in my wardrobe) or splurging on two yards of the gorgeous natural linen with navy blue embroidery. I asked Willa her opinion and she gave me a "that repulses my very soul" face when she saw the purple and green, soooo I splurged on what will be about a $25 skirt. I'm hoping to get a lot of use out of it, though. 

 Here are the three fabrics I ended up with: Linen for church skirt, double sided knit for a tunic, and pink twill for a maxi skirt.

We also went to Hobby Lobby hoping they might have some denim since that was the only fabric I was lacking, but alas, their fabric selection was even dinkier.

I briefly considered making myself a gingham shirt but thought better of it. ;)

 While we were in Franklin, we stopped by Our Thrift Store to look for some of the shirts on my list, which you will remember were:

2 nice white shirts 

4 church/ fellowship worthy tops (green, mustard, and light purple/pink preferably)

2 casual tops that fit properly 

A gingham button-up

Green or pink tunic to go with my plaid capris

Printed cardigan

 Willa and I each grabbed an armload of things to try on. She came away with 5 or 6 cute tops! I tried on a lot of things, but asking myself "Would I actually wear this more than once?" brought my final choices to just a few items.

We had to swing by Walmart on the way home for some items for the family and stopped by their clothing section. I used to shop there for most of my clothes but now I hardly ever need to go in there, so I shop elsewhere. I was pleasantly surprised to see lots of maxi skirts and cute, relatively modest dresses for sale! They were about $15-$20, so if they weren't out of my size I probably would have gotten one or two.

This is my final haul for the day: Two tunics, two casual shirts, one nice-casual shirt, and a pair of blue skinny jeans.
The shirt on the left there is from Walmart and I've already gotten a lot of use out of it. I wore it to the post-office the the other day. The chambray tunic isn't quite long enough, so I plan on adding crocheted lace to the bottom. As far as why I bought those pants... just one of those things that I can't quite explain, except that I love challenge pieces and I've wanted a pair of BRIGHT jeans and these were only about $5. :D

Monday // 71* // Errand running in my new tunic from Walmart. Fabulous pose curtesy of McDonalds espresso machine finally being fixed.

A photo posted by Olivia Howard (@freshmodesty) on Mar 30, 2015 at 2:53pm PDT

It was an almost-successful day of shopping. ;) It can be really difficult to reconcile our ideals in our head with what's actually available/within our reach, but it's a skill that can be learned and carries over into every area of our lives. I still have quite a few gaps and "needs" in my wardrobe, so I'll keep y'all updated as I work on it!