Fall Scarf Print Mixing With the Thrifty Six

I have recently been welcomed into a wonderful group of fashion and lifestyle bloggers that focuses on styling preloved clothing and accessories in themed monthly posts (third Monday of the month). I hope that this showcase of secondhand items and outfits provides some shopping and style inspiration for anyone who is interested in creating great looks in a way that is sustainable for our planet and our pocketbooks.

Today's topic is Shawls, Capes, and Scarves...which is a perfect theme for November since these layering pieces really come into their own with the arrival of cool fall weather.

Shock of shocks, I am styling a scarf for my outfit! Scarves are my favorite item to thrift:

-They are usually in great condition

-They are one size-fits-all (or -most)

-They are pretty much always in style

-They can be found quite inexpensively.

That's how I have ended up with 151 thrifted scarves in my collection. That is a lot of scarves, but I do wear them all the time so my cost per wear (CPW) is good, averaging $0.85 per thrifted scarf.

Today's featured scarf is one I purchased from ThredUp in May 2020 for $7.51. This outfit is the 8th wear of the scarf, bringing the CPW down to $0.94, meeting my first tier target CPW of <$1. I tied the scarf using one of my favorite truly easy techniques - Method #5: loop to the front with ends brought through as detailed in this post.

OOTD 10/30/24

I absolutely LOVE the "vividly soft" colors of this scarf: the cerulean blue background and the light teal, aqua-blue, and pale yellow of the circles. Colors that I call "vividly soft" or "saturated pastels" are ones that hit the sweet spot for me between bright and muted colors. They make me happy to look at and are also flattering to my own coloration. These are colors that are lightened up but not washed out...as though the bright color has been slightly diluted with just the right mixture of white, grey, and pure water.

I created a fall print mix outfit by wearing the circle motif scarf with thrifted Old Navy plaid pants and purchased-new cheetah Oxfords by Corso Como. Like the scarf, my pants also reached my <$1 target CPW in this outfit ($0.98 to be exact). My shoes are almost there at $1.02 CPW after 97 wears.

I finished off the outfit by selecting a top in a "neutral-adjacent" color. This purchased-new crossover top from CJ Banks (CPW $1.61) is a soft indigo that relates well to the blue tones of the outfit but is so greyed out that it can function like a neutral in some cases. (For more discussion of soft indigo and other softer alternative to navy, see this post.) A blue denim shirt would also be a great choice here for a low contrast neutral. With both black and white appearing in the pants, those are options as well, especially if you are seeking a higher contrast look.

My all-DIY bracelet stack is based on a paper bead bracelet set I made to wear with these pants, and I kept the styling simple here by adding neutral black and mixed-metal bracelets to the stack. Technically, my paper bead bracelet sets are little print mixes unto themselves. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial}

The top paper bead bracelet in mostly white started out as this alumni magazine page with a perfect color palette of white, black, teal, and yellow. I didn't do anything to the page or paper strips before rolling the beads, so this was a very easy make. I like the irregular stripes of color against the white background of the finished beads.

For the bottom paper bead bracelet, I used this magazine page that screamed "great for paper beads" as soon as I saw it. I loved the dark teal background, the large scale print (that won't look like letters when beads are rolled), and the ombré effect of the colors on the "dial" from red to green. I cut strips from the green side of the sheet and applied gold metallic marker to cover up the orange text that wasn't part of my desired color palette. Isn't it cool how the dotted visual texture of the green illustrations came through on the finished beads? I loved how these turned out.

I wanted to do a third paper bead bracelet but was struggling a bit to find the right paper to go with my other two sets of beads. But when I found this catalog page with white, teal, and black clothing, I thought it had some potential. I made liberal use of my markers to make these strips more suitable for my purpose, covering up the brown tones of the model's skin and hair and adding more color to the expanse of white background. Adding marker to magazine/catalog paper not only tweaks your colors, it also adds some interesting texture and dimension to the beads because the paper colored by marker has a different look from the original paper. I like the contrast on the finished beads between the bolder marker areas and the subtler original paper areas.

My bead soup earrings of the day were designed to match the scarf in shades of teal, blue, aqua, and yellow. I think scarves are a great place to get inspiration for making earrings. If you wear the earrings and scarf together, they are in very close visual proximity right next to your face so it's nice to have them work harmoniously. If you wear the earrings separate from the scarf, you still have a color scheme that's going to look great. I know that many people are a bit intimidated by putting colors together so having a color combo vetted by the expert who designed the scarf can give you extra confidence in experimenting with it. Note that in my earrings, I added some darker blue and teal beads to the bottom of my stacks even though these darker shades aren't present in the beads. I had two thoughts there: (1) it added some contrast so the long earrings didn't get totally lost against the scarf background, and (2) I had already decided I was going to wear this particular outfit with the darker blue top so I made the earrings with some darker beads to tie everything together. You can let your creations follow the inspiration as closely or as loosely as you prefer!

Keep an eye out for a print mixing tips post to come in the next week or so. I started to add it to this post but it turns out I have an entire post's worth of thoughts on that matter!

Now let's review the shawl, cape, and scarf outfits that my thrifty friends have styled...

The Thrifty Six:

• Emma of Style Splash

• Jane of Preloved-Vintage-Handmade

• Jodie of Jodie's Touch of Style

• Nancy of Nancy's Fashion Style

• Sally of Within a World of My Own [me]

• Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge

Emma of Style Splash

"This is one of two capes I bought on eBay a few years ago. It's from a range of clothes designed by TV and radio presenter Fearne Cotton. For the rest of the outfit, I took my cue from the orange in the check print. The trousers are part of a suit but I've switched the jacket for an orange jumper. The hat is an old one from Zara." 

Jane of Preloved-Vintage-Handmade

"The T6 theme for November is 'Shawls, Capes & Scarves', an ideal opportunity to show off my genuine 1960’s hand-crocheted cape.

Although bought separately, it’s a perfect match for my hand-crocheted baker-boy cap; they're like a set that sadly lost each other many years ago…

I’m bringing them together along with a genuine 1960s ‘Go-Go’ dress and pastel pink leather ‘Go-Go’ boots to create this extremely stylised look."

Jodie of Jodie's Touch of Style

"Scarves are something I only started having fun with once I retired. And my crew took the prompt and decided to showcase different ways to layer these magical pieces of fabric. I created a necklace from 3 thrifted scarves which I shaped into flowers (but that's hard to tell when they are all pushed together like this). I think they contrast against the lime green thrifted sweater so wonderfully."

Nancy of Nancy's Fashion Style

"Hats and capes are not for me. I think a cape is a beautifully elegant piece of clothing but I have no idea how and on what to wear it, and I hate hats. So that wasn't an option. When it's cold, I always wear a scarf over my mouth to protect my lungs when I go cycling. But the idea of wearing a second-hand scarf over my mouth really bothers me. So I'm skipping school a bit and wearing a self made scarf here. Years ago I picked up the idea of crocheting. Just a rectangular piece, the same stitch that were all my talents when it came to crocheting, but I found it very relaxing. And so this scarf came out. Wonderfully warm!"

Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge

"I love any kind of topper piece and scarves are my jam so I appreciated this month's thrifty theme very much. I paired a preloved cape-like jacket (not a cape because it has sleeves) with an old thrifted scarf over a black secondhand dress for a rich color blocked budget friendly fall outfit." 

Next month's topic is my choice of Wintergreen...because I absolutely love green every season of the year but really appreciate it in winter when the colors of snow, ice, conifers, and the sky (either dreary or extremely bright) dominate the Minnesota landscape.

In the meantime, visit these lovely bloggers for the details of their thrifted shawl, cape, and scarf outfits and more style inspiration:

• Emma of Style Splash

• Jane of Preloved-Vintage-Handmade

• Jodie of Jodie's Touch of Style

• Nancy of Nancy's Fashion Style

• Shelbee of Shelbee on the Edge

Do you like wearing scarves, shawls, and/or capes? Have you ever bought one secondhand? Have you made any yourself (knit, crocheted, sewed, etc.)? Do you get excited when the weather cools down and outfit layers become more common...or do you prefer unlayered outfits? Do you like print mixing in your outfits?

Blogs I link up with are listed here.