Wearing and Growing

Beaded top: Indian tunic, thrifted and shortened by me

Silk skirt w/ brass buttons: Thrifted

Shoes: Thrifted

I followed Milla's lead last weekend and finally got down to business with a long overdue closet cull. It felt good to go through it all, get rid of things that I just wasn't wearing, store the ones I decided to hold on to, swap out the spring/summer items with the fall/winter ones (though this has felt a bit premature with temps reaching the 90's here lately!), and just take general stock of what was actually there on those overstuffed shelves and doubled up hangers.

Turns out it's so much easier to shop your own closet when things are organized and readily accessible. So for this outfit, shop my closet I did, and put together some items that had been lost in the sartorial shuffle. Pretty basic, simple lines with a bit of shine... silver beads, brass buttons, metallic woven leather.

I thrifted this top in the form of an Indian tunic with long slits up the sides. I fell for the beading and the diamond cutout. To make it feel a bit more wearable though, after months of not wearing it, I decided to try shortening it and got as far as cutting and pinning, before it went to the sewing bag where it had been sitting... indefinitely... as things do in the sewing bag.

It wasn't until my sister came over with a curtain she needed help hemming that I actually pulled it out. Heck, I'd already dusted off the sewing machine and read the manual to re-figure out how to wind the bobbin and all that jazz. It says something about the frequency of my sewing that I require the manual each time I start up a new project.

Anyhoo, it's much more wearable now, especially after rediscovering that I own it.

Now, for something completely different...

Have you ever heard of a tree collard? No? Well, you would not be alone. Maybe a year ago Lucas read about them somewhere and we thought, "Wow, greens from a tree? How cool would that be?" Haha, Dr. Suess moment... but really, these things will grow for many years and become tree size, they're evergreen, and apparently the leaves are even more palatable than actual collard greens and can be plucked from the tree to eat raw or cooked as you would kale or other such greens! Neat, eh?

Turns out they're not likely to be readily available at your local nursury though, so we were pretty excited when Lucas stumbled upon some for sale at the National Heirloom Exposition. They say to give it about a year to get established before beginning to harvest. Also, they don't seed often or grow true from seed, but are easily propagated from cuttings. They say to take cuttings between year one and year two, to make more plants for yourself or to share with others before the plant becomes woody which makes cuttings harder to get.

We're looking forward to being able to harvest and make new plants next Fall, I'll let you know how it goes, and if you're interested, you can learn more about this cool veggie tree here :)