Monday, September 21, 2015

White After Labor Day and Folding Clothes

Another Top Bites the Dust--Monday, 9/21/15

Today's outfit is inspired by two takes on aqua + red + white.

First, red pants, an aqua sweater, and a white top underneath.

From apocketfulofpolkadots.com

Second, a red top and an aqua/white patterned skirt.

From dresscorilynn.com

My mix of red/aqua/white had a punch of leopard, of course.


Aqua pencil skirt (JCP), $5.00/wear
Red mixed-media short-sleeved blouse (Nordstrom), $6.43/wear
White knit blazer (Nordstrom), $7.08/wear
Red and aqua statement necklace (Target), $1.85/wear
Leopard flats (Nordstrom), $4.16/wear

Outfit total: $24.52 (not too bad for an outfit of all bought-new items, 3 from Nordstrom)

I initially put this outfit together with a plain red t-shirt, but I thought that it was too short (and at the same time, too wide around the hips, which is something virtually outside my experience--my guess is that it had gotten stretched wide and short in the wash).  Then I realized that if it's too short to wear with a skirt, it's too short to wear at all.  But I wasn't sure whether I had another short-sleeved red top, until I looked at my handy Excel file and was reminded of this blouse--superior in every way.  (It's woven blouse fabric on the front, a soft knit on the back.)  So this blouse went into the outfit and the weirdly shaped t-shirt went into the Goodwill pile.


It's only a couple days until the onset of autumn.  Does this make my white knit blazer a sartorial question mark?  This formidable lady rabbit says, Pshaw, white is lovely for year-round wear.  (I'm not going to argue with that!)


In other news...In this post, a woman re-folds everything in her dresser to make it easier to see/locate things (and finds $100--why doesn't think happen to me? Oh, I don't lose my money? OK).  How do you fold things in your drawers?  I do most things the typical "flat stacks so you only see what's on top" but the biggest category of things in my drawers are exercise clothes, PJs, hiking stuff, winter undergarments--the sort of things where I'm not feeling all that particular about finding a single special item.  But for the other category, cardigans, I fold them in half and then roll them up (like I do when I'm packing things into a suitcase) so I can see everything I have, and it makes a huge difference.  If I put other normal clothes (e.g., t-shirts) in my dresser, I would seriously consider an alternative folding method for them, too, but I do much, much better when things are NOT in the dresser to begin with (and I am lucky to have the large closet and the Great Shelf o' Sweaters that let me get away with that).

Do you have any special way that you fold your clothes or otherwise organize them?

6 comments:

rvman said...

I'm doing well to advance beyond the 'stuff it all in a drawer and kick it closed' method of stashing clothes in drawers. At least I stuff it in specific drawers and even have some drawers sectioned. But no, nothing special.

jen said...

I generally try to fold and stack my clothes, but must admit sometimes I revert to the stuff it in a drawer method too :) I have few enough things that remembering what I have isn't usually the problem... remembering whether it's clean, maybe!

Sally said...

Robert, yeah, your drawer organization is not special (though having specific drawers for things and sections within drawers takes you out of the absolute n00b class) but I think your closet clothes rotation for work is ingenious.

Jen, I can only imagine that life-with-baby is going to be even more chaotic on the what-is-clean? front! I'll do my best to contribute "baby clothes with rabbit designs" to the effort, of course ;)

Tam said...

The only things I fold are undies (which, if I do the laundry, I usually grab up all by one end and lay down in the drawer, so they're not folded, but also not wadded up), socks (made into balls), and I guess weird stuff like shorts (which I don't really wear) and a few t-shirts I only wear with pajamas. Everything else gets hung up or dangled from the hooks/pegs I have mounted inside my closet door.

Ever since I happened to move into an apartment with pegs in the closet, I've considered them indispensable. Anything I wear all the time (bras, jeans, pajamas) goes immediately to pegs when it comes out of the wash.

I said "if I do the laundry" above because lately I take my laundry to a place where they do it. Then my underwear come back folded into tiny squares and most of the shirts come back folded too. But I immediately shake out and hang up all but the most casual ones (e.g., the men's t-shirts from Walmart that I bought before my surgery).

Sally said...

The peg concept is interesting. I have pegs for my bras to hang on, but that's it. Of course you spent a lot of time absorbing the Mosch hang-everything-on-the-walls techniques so I shouldn't be surprised that you have more advanced hanging skills.

Having your laundry done for you is awesome. I hadn't really been aware of that as a thing before you started having it done.

Tam said...

It's pretty much the best thing ever. Two canvas laundry bags of stuff (pretty full) usually costs around $25. Of course, it means I can't be entirely picky about e-x-a-c-t-l-y how my laundry gets done, but I just try to remind myself that zillions of successful people (especially pretty much all men ever) throughout history have not cared or even known a single damned thing about how their laundry was done.

I wear jeans quite a lot so those definitely go on pegs, and of course pajamas, as I said. And my one skirt (it's knit and pretty casual so it doesn't need any 'nicer' treatment although my pegs are very gentle).