November 13, 2023
This art is on the VERY short list to be included in next year’s “Six Paintings, 12 Months…”
Lane Near Wormingford by John Nash
No Black Friday for Me, Thank You!
She’s leaving Thursday, after an early afternoon meal with her large, rowdy, noisy, messy family….
She will help clean up the kitchen and dining room.
She will help do dishes.
She will help pack leftovers for everyone.
And THEN… She’s off to her favorite quiet rural area, where her favorite small hotel is holding a room for her….
Silk blouse – Orvis; earrings – Estella Bartlett; scarf – Elizabetta; alpaca sweater – Alex Mill; pants – Orvis; socks – Bombas; boots – Blondo; weekender – Madewell
Yes, she’s going to change clothes before she leaves – she wouldn’t want to wear her favorite silk shirt to muck about in a holiday kitchen!
She’s just taking her small tote; she doesn’t need too much for a long weekend alone…
taupe earrings – Saule Label; green earrings – Variety Gift Shop; bay leaf cardigan – L.L.Bean; flannel shirt – Lands’ End; hat – L.L.Bean; cardigan – Alex Mill; ivory and lily pad green tees – Lands’ End; cashmere gloves – Nordstrom; waterproof boots – Blondo; crossbody bag – Lando; taupe scarf – & Other Stories; stone cotton pants – L.L.Bean
Just an hour drive, and she’s in a different world! Walking, reading, napping, eating lovely, light food that isn’t turkey…
THIS is how a holiday weekend should be spent, in her humble opinion!
What she will do depends on the weather – she has a jacket in her car (she thinks!), but mostly she will only need a hat, and maybe gloves with her sweater outfits:
She’s not going to see a mall for three days! That’s her idea of heaven on earth…
Are you shopping on Black Friday? I’m certainly not….
love,
Janice
p.s. Five years ago, we endeavored to pack a foolproof suitcase, in navy, grey and purple…
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I’ve never done Black Friday shopping…I’m not much of a shopper at all.
Today’s heroine sounds like a gal with whom I could be friends. I certainly love her taste in art – it’s calming and it draws you in – and I think it would be lovely to build upon it for a whole year.
When I was a kid, the Friday after Thanksgiving was always a time for beach walks or exploring the area near where our relatives lived.
The atmosphere of Black Friday is designed to cause panic and consumer overspending. It’s a hell scape.
This painting an inspiration for my country walks capsule.
Wormingford is a village near Colchester in Essex, UK. It is on the banks of two rivers so lots of lovely walks. It is close to the Suffolk border and not far from the town of Sudbury, the birthplace of Thomas Gainsborough. The Gainsborough House museum and art gallery is definitely a place to visit. Nice cafe too. John Constable, the Suffolk artist, was a friend of Gainsborough.
Cool! My uncle lives in Suffolk – next time I get to visit him, I will also visit Wormingford! Thanks for sharing this information – you’re very kind.
hugs,
Janice
I’ve just been reading more about the artist John Nash. He was a war artist in both the First and Second World Wars. He was an accomplished landscape artist, particularly water colours. He was also a wood engraver and illustrator. I like his work for it captures the stillness and solace of the English countryside which, in parts, has hardly changed in thousands of years. After WWII, he and his wife moved to Wormingford. They are buried in the churchyard.
Love the art (please use it for the year-long) and the whole wardrobe. Not sure how I’d look in that green, but it is such a calming hue that I wouldn’t care.
Of course, our heroine has her tablet loaded with a few excellent novels and maybe a podcast or two. Maybe she has Beethoven’s Pastorale (Symphony #3) cued up on her playlist for one of her walks. The rest of the time she’s listening to the migrating geese overhead.
I have to wander off to learn more about this painting. It’s one that keeps you looking and wondering about the technique, knowing that not just anybody can achieve the effects.
This is very much my kind of weekend wardrobe in slightly different colors. I always check the links for colors that fit into my palette and often find a tempting piece. It’s time to get out a chart and plan very specifically what will get me through the winter. I’ve discovered several sweaters that are past their prime. If a sweater turns up with several small holes (meaning it cannot be donated) what can be done with it next to keep most of it from the landfill? Are there organizations that repurpose such garments? I’m having a similar issue with a 24-year-old camel coat. The collar is frayed, but there are yards of perfectly good wool. A clever seamstress could convert it into a jacket or a child’s coat. I am not a clever seamstress. 🙁🤔
In my area there are people that make mittens from wool sweaters and then sell for a local charity. My friend does that and that’s where all of my old sweaters go. I think the program is called ReMits.
Maybe offer the items on your local Craigslist or Freecycle site. Some crafty person could also definitely do something with the coat fabric also.
Good luck with finding new homes for your items!
There are a fair numbers of books and FB groups devoted to “visible” and “modern” mending. Some of the fixes are so beautiful and decorative it makes you want to cut holes in things.
You know that mended clothing is no longer something to be shunned? Eileen Fisher has a whole department where they take old clothes from her brand and mend them (beautifully, of course!) and re-sell them. There are also a lot of books available that show and explain how to repair things. We recently patched a pair of Belovedest’s jeans, and we feel like geniuses…
hugs,
Janice
I wanted to add that wool hats would be fairly easy too! You already have a cuff at the bottom of the sweater and then you just cut a tall half circle up the body of the sweater and sew from the inside! Those would be a treasure for someone indeed!
Take one of the sweaters, felt it, and cut it into patches of interesting shapes to use over the holes on the other sweaters.
Maybe a tailor could replace the collar with a velvet or tweed fabric?
This is very pretty – and as others mentioned calming, soothing, draws you in. I do have some sage green, my browns tend to be more of a reddish brown. I’d be willing to follow this for a year and see where it goes. Oddly enough I am planning on wearing a green (emerald green) sweater today with very light gray (stone?) pants – an idea I got from your post Friday that had the white pants with the green sweater. Black Friday? Not me. I’m done except for a couple of gift certificates. I start way early watching for sales and gifts. Have a lovely day ladies.
I shudder at the thought of Black Friday which has only been coined as such in the UK since 2010. It was introduced by Amazon. Retailers have lots of seasonal sales throughout the year – pre-season, mid-season, and end-of-season. They often have flash sales and discounts on particular lines. I noticed in October that retailers had already got their Christmas stuff out before Halloween; sometimes alongside each other. By Black Friday, retailers have very little that they haven’t already discounted at some other point during the year. In order to be discounted, goods must have been offered at full price for at least 30 days. You can expect a frenzy reported in the press. I stay well clear.
I would love to see this painting as one of the 2024 ones, as well as this heroine! I will be doing some online black Friday shopping as I have my eye on one pair of sunglasses and I need to get some gifts for my mother, husband and kids. I am just waiting on their lists….I never buy anything for anyone that they have not asked for and want.
How I miss shopping with my parents on the day after Thanksgiving! It wasn’t so frenetic back in the 1980’s and ‘90’s. We would drive to downtown Cincinnati, and Mother and I would peruse the department stores while Dad visited his favorite camera store and other shops. We’d have a leisurely lunch, often at an Indian restaurant. We would buy a few things relating to Christmas. Then we would drive home to eat leftovers with my husband, who had gone to work that day. I wish I could have those days back again.
Oh that sounds lovely…
hugs,
Janice
What a lovely memory!!!
I live just over the Ohio River from Cincinnati and would enjoy downtown in the mid 1970s-mid 1980s. When I had babies, we would head to McAlpins for breakfast with Santa. Such glorious memories!!
Then Malls were built and everything changed. I loved shopping in the city. Black Friday was still spent with family as it is now.
I think this painting will be excellent for the 6 paintings series. I hope you will include black as one of the neutrals. Ebony, ivory, moss and mushroom sounds wonderful to me. I need to go have a look through my closet.
Oh, I was looking at it and thinking denim for the sky blue would be a great extra neutral! :)
Denim is DEFINITELY what I was thinking too!
hugs,
Janice
I love these soft earthy colors!!!! I’d be happy to see them all year–and to live in them!
I had to come to the comments to see who shops in malls on Black Friday. :) I thought I would hear lots of “no”s, and I did. I will be home decorating for Christmas. It’s one of my favorite weekends of the year!
Camille
P.S. Thank you once again, Janice, for adding beauty to our lives. I look for you every morning!
Lovely wardrobe, lovely scenario. If invited along, I promise to be calm and quiet… At least I can plan my own cold weather getaway. Im tempted to find a beach hotel and take long windy walks, with a fireplace waiting in my room. I do have a request, Janice, for a future post. I have pants and a utility jacket in shades of sage. Rarely wear them but I love the color. Could you try basing a cool-tone wardrobe on sage? Thanks for bringing so much joy to three mornings every week.
I don’t normally do brown and green but, oh my! is this capsule gorgeous! And the shades are juuuust cool enough that I might be able to get away with it. Definitely something to think about.
It’s always a pleasure to see a cooler-toned take on green with brown – to me, I’m seeing a lot of sage and taupe here, which is very pretty and has a lovely muted quality that would suit me well.
I’d be looking for taupe pants to substitute for the light ones since I don’t like to wear white/ivory/cream/stone/etc. pants (but it could be difficult to find ones that coordinate with the two taupe sweaters). My main reason for avoiding them is that I don’t like how I look in pants in these light neutrals (I have nothing against them on others). Secondarily, they aren’t particularly practical for me since if I can get them dirty, I will…and any scenario that involves waterproof boots is a guarantee that I will get them muddy in 2 seconds flat.
I’m curious if there are other readers who also avoid light neutral pants and what kind of mental substitution they make for them in these capsules. I think my go-to considerations for the substitution are blue denim jeans, the darker neutral, and an accent color. Often one or more of these are already included, of course. I don’t typically choose a second pair of pants in a color that’s already included (though I know that’s a perfectly reasonable option!), so if none of those work, I will consider a darker version of the light neutral, which sometimes makes sense and sometimes does not. There are also times a print pair of pants in something simple like a pinstripe, plaid, windowpane, herringbone, etc. is a nice substitution as well (though I’m not seeing it in this case).
With all except the plaid shirt I think a pair of patterned (herringbone, plaid, windowpane) pants would be lovely! You could wear the plaid shirt with the other pants. But for my money denim jeans would be the way to go. A pair of medium toned, really worn in ones so she can lounge in them while she reads.
I have a similar taste to yours—I have trouble with very light colors on the bottom. After following Janice for a while, I found some lightish grey jeans that stand in nicely whenever I need a lighter shade on bottom. I also have grey and khaki skirts that work well as a neutral that’s not too dark. I also just wear a lot of jeans, as denim is my other neutral. I love winter white and white, but I keep it for tops only.
This wardrobe is just so lovely, and exactly how I like to dress. Not my preference on color, but it’s just so soothing and peaceful feeling that I could see enjoying a full year of it!
Like everyone else, no Black Friday for me – I just feel that this whole time of year is over-commercialized and frankly off putting because of it. We’re even skipping the Thanksgiving festivities this year (probably). So I’ll put up a simple tree with lights, scour the property for some evergreen boughs and other natural decorations, and then sit back and call the holidays done.
I live about 7 miles from Colchester and I have been through Wormingford quite often. It’s a pretty village and worth a visit even if one blink and you have missed it.
Recently I bought a Hobbs coat, mainly cream and a pale moss green so I hope this gets chosen as one of the 6 paintings. I am definitely out of my comfort zone with this colour palette but couldn’t resist the coat as it’s so pretty. I have been looking, so far unsuccessfully, for trousers in taupe or a digestive biscuit colour. Proper brown is a step too far for me but beige and green are lovely.
And I have just remembered I have a blazer in pale blue and darkish beige that I haven’t worn yet. Yay I’m nearly halfway there.
Oh I hope you include this in the 2024 paintings! I don’t wear brown usually but these taupe-y shades are tempting me. I like the styles and would add denim as my neutral. As for Black Friday, nope, I shall never step foot in a mall or store on the day after Thanksgiving! I did when I was a teen and enjoyed it. Now I can’t imagine it.
oh, these colors.
One pair of trousers is also too light for me, I would take the darker brown ones (light cardigan). I’m also curious how blue goes with it…
I recently said that we were invited to a wedding. Husband and son bought suits in these colors 👆, not black.
And I sewed myself a dress.
This sounds like my birthday in January. Yes, I gather with friends and celebrate, but after that, my husband and I take a 2 hour drive to our favorite area on earth, stay in a rented cabin, and just burrow in. The kids used to come along because they love it too, but this year they’re both busy with college at that time, so it will just be the two of us. I’m really looking forward to it!
My capsule would be similar to this but with more emphasis on PJ’s/loungewear and cozy socks & slippers.
Please, oh please, let me wake up and find this wardrobe in my closet! Only the plaid shirt would be unused. Otherwise, it’s just wonderful.
I would very much like to see more of this heroine. Unlike other commenters, I would not prefer denim over the cream pants. I like it best as it is. Softer, more elegant, than denim, somehow.
PS I think these are cool colors!
This painting and wardrobe make be say “ahhhhhhhh.” I absolutely love it. Yes please for next year!!
This is a lovely capsule! The colors are so calming. If I were to customize it for myself, I’d change out sneakers or loafers for one of the boots since they are so similar. I’d also pick a different color for one of the sweaters for some variety. That green cable sweater is so nice though! I have wonderful Black Friday memories from the 90s and 00s, but haven’t been interested in participating for a long time. But Shop Local Saturday is fun and it feels good to support local businesses.
I am continually grateful to you Janice for introducing me to artists and artwork that I haven’t seen or heard of before. I think this painting is absolutely lovely and so is the wardrobe you created. I can also very much identify with the heroine of this wardrobe! I do hope you choose to use this as one of the 6 paintings in 2024. I love all the colors you chose here and I agree that the blue in the painting would make denim very viable to include. Personally, I think you could also include a bit of medium to charcoal gray but I think black would be too harsh against the other colors as they are softer and more muted. At any rate, this feels like the beginning of a very beautiful and functional wardrobe. I would happily spend a year in these soothing nature tones. I also think Fable of England might have some lovely accessories. And, no Black Friday shopping for me!
Those Fable England people are such a plague to me – I want EVERYTHING they make… I think it’s pretty much a settled choice that this painting will be one of the 6 for 2024!
hugs,
Janice