A Cool Weather Spring Outfit for SIA: Whirlpool Frog

Salazar at 14 Shades of Grey is the curator for this round of Style Imitating Art (SIA), and she selected the 1994 textile wall sculpture "Whirlpool Frog" by Australian artist Annemieke Mein. She chose this artwork because it's still March (celebrating International Women's Month), she loves textile art, and "had to pick it" due to the spring-like image.

source: 14shadesofgrey.wordpress.com

Weather this March in Minnesota has been especially crazy with temperatures under freezing and heavy snow turning to sunny 78F (26C) temps a couple days later. It's definitely wreaked havoc on my outfit planning! But on the day that I wore this outfit, we had a very, very normal weather forecast for the date: expecting 45F (7C) and cloudy skies on a day with an average high temperatures of 44F.

So I turned to my cool spring outfit formula of pullover sweater, pants, and scarf. From the artwork, I really wanted to pull out some of the blue tones so I chose a light blue sweater and navy pants. I could have chosen jeans because denim is a terrific way to interpret the artwork but I've been enjoying the basically perfect fit of these pants lately. (Do you ever have that experience where something in your closet suddenly seems to fit just right and feels great to wear? I think it's a great idea to lean into that and wear the thing while the wearing is at its best.) They are nice wear-to-the-office pants but there is no law against wearing "dressy" pants at home for casual wear.

From there, it was a simple matter of picking a scarf from my large collection to add to the outfit. I chose this thrifted Cashmink scarf for its warmth and its variety of blue, blue-green, and purple colors.

OOTD 3/23/26

I wore the scarf around my neck and brought together in front with a DIY scarf ring made from an elastic and a shank button (1:21 tutorial video). While congratulating myself on how well the scarf brought in the colors of the whirlpool, of course I didn't notice that it did not include the green of the frog itself. Oops. I thought so much about the whirlpool that I had sort of forgotten about the frog entirely!

Bravely carrying on despite this little blunder, I chose my navy suede loafers with the mixed blue tassels, always a favorite in an outfit with multiple shades of blue.

My all-DIY daily bracelet stack started with a paper bead bracelet set I made specifically for this scarf (and outfit) in shades of blue and purple plus gold for the metallic. I completed the stack with a few stone and glass beaded bracelets. {stretch bracelet tutorial} {bicone paper bead tutorial} {tube paper bead tutorial}

I do not have page to bead images to show you for this bracelet set because it is the first set of paper bead bracelets with an exciting-to-me quality. Let me explain.

When I first started making paper beads a few years ago (summer 2021), I didn't really have a plan for what I was going to do with the beads I made. (These days, I make beads for specific projects, which is way better.) I was really just experimenting with choosing paper, sometimes doctoring it with markers/paint, and rolling it into beads to see what I'd get. I made over 2,000 beads this way (which feels impossible to me but I kept a spreadsheet so...yeah). And the math clearly says:

2,000 homemade beads + no plan = madness

So I recently decided it was time to rectify that situation, and this is what I did: I looked at all the different print pieces in my wardrobe (clothing and scarves) and shopped my paper bead stash to find beads I could make into coordinating bracelet sets for those pieces. So for this bracelet set, I found three groups of beads that worked with this checkered Cashmink scarf: periwinkle blue striped, blue and aqua colorblocked, and dark blue and purple colorblocked. I am very happy with how this set turned out! I'm not sure I could have done better if I'd picked out the paper specifically for this project.

It's been great making these paper bead bracelet sets from my stash because with the paper selected; the strips cut, rolled, and glued; and the beads glazed twice and fully dried, around 90%+ of the work has already been done! It's like...you know...making jewelry from beads that are already made...the way most people do it. But instead using beads I purchased, I get to make something with beads I made myself, allowing me to admire my work before I start making the jewelry and afterwards. I think it's Beki Foster on YouTube who I've heard say that admiring your work is an important part of jewelry-making, so I'm confident she would approve of this two-stage admiration plan.

My DIY earrings are an easy 3-beads-from-my-bead-soup-on-a-stick design that coordinates with the scarf and the paper bead bracelet set.

Now for the main event: revealing our Rabbit Imitating Art selection!

Normally I introduce our rabbit by announcing his breed and, usually, his official color, but today's bunny actually has me a bit stumped!

So I turned to my blog interns (AI) for assistance. Because I didn't want to download some kind of sketchy app, I had to look at what was available on web sites. The first one identifies rabbit species, and it came up with European Rabbit - correct(ish)! The second one identifies pet breeds, and it came up with Golden Retriever - uhhhh, what?! Note that the rabbit species AI was only 67% confident in its basically correct answer while the pet breed AI was 98% confident in its ridiculous answer. (I assume it came up with Golden Retriever because there are "English Cream" Golden Retrievers who are this color.)

At this point, I decided to just feel the mystery of this bunny, who I named the Curious White Rabbit due to his pose (investigative) and his breed (unknown).

Curious White Rabbit was out for a hop one day when he heard a strange high-pitched shrieking sound coming from some nearby water. When he went over to investigate, he found a little frog struggling to escape the point of no return in a whirlpool.

Curious White Rabbit leaned himself over the water and extended his ear in the direction of the frog. "Grab onto my ear and I'll fling you safely onto land!" said Curious White Rabbit. But the frog was distracted by the fact that his would-be rescuer had a weirdly abbreviated ear. "What's wrong with your ear?" the frog asked. "It looks blunt on the end."

"Oh, it got cut off when a human shot me at the Minnesota State Fair. It's fine, though, and will totally hold your weight, so grab on."

Artwork "improved" with rabbit

But despite the existential danger he was facing, the frog just couldn't get over this ear thing. "I wouldn't have guessed you got shot. It looks like a really clean cut by a blade. How exactly did this happen?"

In that moment, Curious White Rabbit realized he'd met his soul mate: another creature as curious as he was. He told the frog "I will tell you every detail of this story only if you grab onto my ear right now. Otherwise you will never know." So the frog did...

...and pulled Curious White Rabbit with him into the whirlpool, where they spiraled down together to Wonderland. (Surely you didn't think that the rabbit hole and the looking glass were the only portals to Wonderland!) They became known as Curious White Rabbit and Curiouser Frog, or Curious and Curiouser for short, and they spent their lives delighting in the mysterious and strange...and explaining it all to each other as best they could at very great length with a lot of questions back and forth.

Thanks for joining me today for this Style Imitating Art + Rabbit Imitating (and Improving) Art post!

To see other outfit interpretations of this artwork, check out the review on 14 Shades of Grey.

Has your weather been all over the place this month? Are you still wearing sweaters? Would you wear "dressy" clothes for a regular day? Have you had the experience of something in your closet suddenly fitting better than ever before?

Blogs I link up with are listed here.