Wear a Vera (especially if it's thrifted)

 The funniest thrifting thing happened last week.

We dropped in to the Salvation Army thrift store, which isn't one of our regular stops but we were in the neighbourhood. I found this teal Miik Vera dress, which is still sold on their website (it's on sale right now too).

If you're not from Canada, don't follow sustainable brands, or otherwise don't recognize Miik, just say that I was impressed, surprised, and pleased, although puzzled as to why anyone would donate it. Maybe they didn't like the colour, maybe it didn't fit.

The funny part is that my other Miik dress (a purple Aileen style) came from that same Salvation Army store, two years ago.

The Vera dress is bamboo rayon (a standard fabric for Miik), but in a lighter weight than the Aileen dress. That could be both good and bad:  the heavier fabric drapes better, and you'd think it would last a bit better too. But the Vera is still well made: you can tell  by the details like the extra layer of fabric inside the bodice. It's meant to be a V-neck, with a front pleat; but it's not hard to wear it turned around for a higher neckline. It's long enough for a dress, but  it also works over leggings; and (if you look in the photographs) you can wear it as a top if you belt it up or tuck it into a skirt.

So: ways I'm thinking about wearing my second second-hand Miik dress:

Dressed down with black jeans and a denim jacket

With leggings

Dressed up with a long cardigan (this would work with leggings)

Under a pullover (ditto)

With my "festive cardigan"

With a pleated skirt

With a zippered jacket

With the jacket and the skirt

If you were in an absolute emergency (like you lost your suitcase), you could even wear the dress as a nightshirt, because it's very comfortable.

But I'm not planning on that just yet. I can think of enough other ways to wear a Vera.

Disclosure and transparency: This is an unsolicited review, and I'm not being compensated by Miik for posting about their product.

How green is green? (Product Review of Duffield Design)

Treehouse readers know a couple of things about me and my clothes-buying habits. First, I'm usually a thrifter, although I have gone out of my way, once or twice, to buy new dresses from Canadian makers promoting sustainability and made-right-here. But not often. Even my favourite purple dress from Miik was an accidental find at the Salvation Army.

The other thing you might remember is that I've been looking for a decent solid-coloured t-shirt-style dress for a very long time. One problem has been that they tend to be designed without much shape, and I would rather not spend a hundred-dollars-plus on a potato sack, no matter how low its carbon footprint. And the cheaper ones either don't last well, or haven't been popular, at least if you go by the low numbers that turn up at the thrift store. I've been searching almost weekly for over a year, and the closest I came was this long black dress. And that turned out to be, well, too black. I prefer something more cheerful.

Recently I was looking at the Spring/Summer collection on the website of Duffield Design, a small company that uses "green" fabrics and has its sewing done in Canada. I had liked a couple of their pieces last winter, although I didn't need them badly enough to buy anything. Most of their tops and dresses this season were in colours I didn't gravitate to (black, nude), but one dress stood out on the page: the Sphinx Tie Dress in Seafoam. I thought about it for awhile; had a few more tries at finding something comparable secondhand; and finally ordered one.

I'm glad I did. It's a dress I can wear for summer happenings, but it's not too fancy to wear for everyday things. (Maybe not dragging boxes at the thrift store, but other than that.)  The hip sash can be tied in front or behind, and it can even be worn tunic-length.The fabric (Bamboo-Cotton-Spandex Stretch French Terry) and the construction seem to be excellent. The fit, always a wild card when you order online, was fine, not a potato sack. (I got a Small.)

The hardest part of trying to post a review has been getting a picture of this quite intensely green dress that doesn't show up looking more teal or turquoise (my photo at the beginning reads a bit too blue). The photo below is the closest I was able to persuade the camera to come.

Think somewhere between the cactus and the handle of the teapot for a better take on "green."

Here's the dress with my "#AOCM2019 scarf":

And with another current favourite scarf:

So if you're thinking green (even if it's black or nude), and want to shop Canadian, check out Duffield Design.

I have been painting with yarn (you can do it too)

Yarn Painting With Natural Fibre Yarns and Beeswax Complete Fibre Art Kit - Sunset, 
produced by Kathy White, a fibre artist from Stratford, Ontario 
(Links are at the bottom of this post)

Kathy White, an Ontario fibre artist who also does demonstrations and workshops, wanted to share her yarn and beeswax technique with people who were interested but who didn't know where to find the materials. She has begun selling small kits online, which include pretty much everything you need to make a simple sunset-and-water picture.

You press lengths of yarn into the beeswax, more or less following the photograph on the package. The board is scored with the arc of the sunset and the line of the horizon, but that's all; it's not paint-by-numbers. Because the colours of yarn vary from kit to kit, you may not end up with traditional sunset colours (mine is all blues and greens).  Kathy's blog post about the kits shows a piece she made herself from the kit materials, which looks quite different again.

This is something that most kids could do as well as adults, but (as shown on Kathy's website), the technique can be used for very beautiful and intricate pieces of art. Some young children might not have the patience to line up the rows of fine yarn smoothly, especially at the edges, where it can be a bit tricky to keep things even. 

The kit contains a 5x7 inch beeswax-covered board, natural-fibre yarn in several colours, a chopstick tool, and instructions; you supply scissors and hairdryer (optional, for setting finished work). I have a shorter wooden tool for making toothbrush rugs, which I found I preferred to a longer tool. You can also use other tools such as knitting needles. You will also need to supply your own frame, if you want one.

Partly-done picture, showing the beeswax-coated board on the bottom half

Completed picture

Kathy White's website (there is a contact form there)
A blog post with more information about the kits

Disclaimer: I received this product as a gift from the artist, but I was not otherwise compensated for posting the review.

A little grey dress (Review of the Revolve Dress from Encircled)

Website of Encircled (Canada)
The Revolve Dress (Canadian site)
The Revolve Dress (U.S. and International)

Darrin: "I went to a great deal of trouble to find a present that would express exactly how I feel about our marriage..."
Sam: "And you bought me a PRISON GOWN!"
(Bewitched, "I'd Rather Twitch than Fight," 1966)

No, Samantha didn't like her ugly grey bathrobe. Grey carries along all kinds of boring baggage, doesn't it? Almost as much as black, and without the chic. So if I said that I wanted a plain grey dress with long sleeves (and was prepared to spend more on it than Sam's bathrobe and Darrin's new jacket put together), you might think I needed my head read. Why not buy something brighter and prettier? Why not save a lot of money and buy a dress at the thrift store? (I looked many times, but didn't find anything that fit this particular gap.) Even the Encircled website photographs of the Revolve Dress gave me a few misgivings. They seem a bit severe, and none of the photos make the dress look much longer than tunic length (although the model is a lot taller than I am. Well, most people are taller than I am).

Even so, I kept circling back to the Revolve Dress. When the opportunity to order one came a little sooner than I'd planned, I decided to at least try it out; if it looked all wrong, I could return it.

The dress arrived very quickly, in a no-frills mailer pack. But this is no "prison gown." It's made of a soft, very luxe-feeling fabric called micromodal, which is knit and dyed right in Toronto. Worn frontways, the fabric drapes from the shoulders, down the front.

Reversed, you have a boatneck neckline, with the drape in the back. Generally I avoid boatnecks (a case of Post-Traumatic Stripe Disorder from the '80's), but this one works, especially with a necklace adding some vertical.

The skirt, to create three different lengths, has ruching on one side; it's just enough to keep the hemline from being too plain. The deep grey fabric is nice enough for a party, but it can also be toned down and serious. And when the dress is tucked up to form a top or a tunic, it can play dress-down equally well.

Paired with an Encircled Chrysalis Cardi (my review)

The Smoke dress mixes well with my other clothes, and accepts my problematic penchant for mismatched teal greens. You know you've made the right choice on something (clothes or anything else) when, after owning it even briefly, you can see how big a hole there would be without it. The hard-to-match jacket I bought last winter:

my favourite navy-grey-green striped scarf:

the grey pants I found for a dollar at the thrift store:

they each have a new friend.

It can even work as a skirt, if you like to layer.

The colour choices for a Revolve Dress right now are Black, Smoke, and Plum. Sizes run from XS to XL, and there's a measuring chart on the Encircled website. The dress is made to last, but you have to be prepared to give it a bit of care: it can't go in the dryer, and handwashing is also recommended although it can be machine washed.

Moral of the story: nice things may come in no-frills mailer packs, especially if they're from Encircled.

(So what happened to Samantha's ugly bathrobe? You can watch the episode on You-tube and find out.)

This is an unsolicited review of the Encircled Revolve Dress. I received no compensation for writing it. All opinions are my own.

A wardrobe in a mailer box? (Review of the Chrysalis Cardi by Encircled)

2018 Note: This was first posted in 2016, and things at Encircled have changed slightly since then, so I've updated the review slightly.

Website of Encircled
The Chrysalis Cardi (Canadian site)
The Chrysalis Cardi (U.S. and International)

How do you fit three four dresses or tunics, four scarves, a cocoon cardigan, a cape, a wrap, a skirt, a skort, a halter top, and a sash in a box about the size of a sheet of paper?

This is how (see photo below).  This is a Chrysalis Cardi from Encircled, a Canadian company that specializes in eco-friendly, fairly-traded, travel-friendly women's clothing. It's not just a circle scarf; it's a carefully designed and sewn loop of fabric, with six strong snaps that allow several permutations. (INFP's love permutations, potentials, and possibilities.)

This is why I bought what, for me, would normally be an out-of-my-range item of clothing (see photos below). Mr. Fixit and I have a momentous anniversary coming up soon, and I needed a dress.

This is how you can change the "Grecian tunic" dress to more of a crossover style. You can also do it one-shouldered, but that wouldn't stay on the hanger. (Addition: I forgot about the "draped dress"option, snapping two ends around your neck to make a beach or halter dress for summer. That would make it four dresses.)

This is what the dress looks like when you unsnap the snaps and let it hang loose as a circle scarf.

This is what the scarf looks like when you double it up. You can also triple it up if you're cold, or lay the whole thing out flat, fold it corner to corner, and tie it like a blanket scarf.

This photo (below) gives you the general idea of the Cocoon Cardi style. (It looks better with arms coming out of the armholes.)

This is the sash. You can also use it as a hairband or a very skinny scarf.

You can also put the big tube over yourself inside out, secure it with the sash or a belt, fold the top down over the belt, and wear it as a skirt. As someone noted on Encircled's post about that, the snaps are also in the right place to turn the skirt into a skort. (Update: someone else just posted about wearing it as a maxi. I tried it and it works.) And finally (I forgot to mention), you can snap it into a cape; wrap it into...well, a wrap; and hogtie yourself into an X-back Halter, which is one I haven't mastered yet.

Which brings me to the important part. The Encircled website (and all its attached media outlets such as Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram) is an essential resource for getting the most out of a Chrysalis Cardi. (The music from their YouTube videos is now stuck permanently in my brain; I hear it every time I snap the dress together.) Obviously you don't need hand-holding if you're ordering their reversible leggings, Dressy Sweatpants, or t-shirts, but for the multi-personality items, it's very helpful. Their online customer service is also friendly and quick. All the items are made of eco-friendly materials such as modal and bamboo, and they are sewn by cheerful Encircled contractors in Toronto. If you live in Toronto or in one of the other places where they have pop-up shops, you can go and try things on. Otherwise (like me) you will have to order online. But they do take returns.

The colours on the Encircled website come and go by seasons, and sometimes they come up as "pre-orders." It's worth signing up for their emails if you want to keep informed not only about sales and special events, but about which colours are coming up. They had a raspberry-coloured Cardi not too long ago, while I was still just thinking about whether or not I might eventually buy one; but those sold out, and I went for the green one instead. They always have their basic, top-selling colours available (like black and grey).

The Chrysalis Cardi comes in only two sizes, Petite and Regular, although most of their other clothing is traditionally sized.[UPDATE: they now have a plus-sized version too.] Although certain online friends (and one of my daughters) have referred to me as "tiny," I am, in fact, just under the height line for Regular. I decided to go with Petite because I was concerned about droopy dresses, and that worked out fine; but if you're just sort-of-petite like me, you might try a Regular for more ease on the other stylings (like the Cocoon Cardi).

Am I happy with this? Yes, definitely, which is why I'm posting this relatively rare product review. Is it as much of a bargain as buying a couple of dresses and scarves at the thrift store? Why would I go and spend that much money on one piece of clothing? Well, as I said, I had planned to buy a special dress anyway, and I liked the style(s) of dresses that the Cardi turned into. I liked the extra possibilities of the scarf. I liked the pretty colour and soft fabric. I liked that the Encircled company is Canadian and responsible and all the rest of it. Is it worth saving up some money to support small companies, when they make good products? I think so.

Disclaimer: I was not asked to write this review, or compensated in any way for writing it. All opinions are my own.