Although the weather is warming up (this weekend, it seemed that snow was melting before my eyes), it's still tights and boots season in Minnesota. But when I wore this navy floral dress last week, I only had to pop a knit blazer over it rather than a pullover sweater, so I'll take that as a win.
I also wore my scarf in a loose necklace-like tie (Method 5: Loop to the front with ends brought through...from this post) rather than snugly around the neck for warmth.
An advantage of this tie (when the ends are brought through multiple times) is that the visual impact of the distinctive print of the scarf is somewhat diminished...you mostly see the colors of the scarf rather than the print. This worked well for me because I had chosen a scarf with similar navy, blue, pink, and peach tones to the dress but with a floral print that clashed a bit. (This is an advantage of the braided method as well.) It's still a print mix, but it's a more subtle one than if I had worn the scarf with its print easy to see.
I wore my go-to oatmeal DIY 5-braid headband made from an old t-shirt and simple silver earrings.
I enjoyed the opportunity to wear this dress with my tall cognac boots one more time this season. The cognac looks great with navy and picks up the orange-y color from the print.
My daily bracelet stack is based on a recent DIY paper bead bracelet set that I made specifically to coordinate with this dress. For this set, I wanted to emphasize the navy, blue, and pink/peach colors of the dress's print and left out the yellow and orange tones. I added a DIY blue lapis lazuli bead bracelet, a DIY soft blue glass disk bead + silver spacer bracelet, and a purchased navy/silver bracelet to complete my stack.
The top bracelet started life as a photograph from Audubon magazine of a large flock of waterfowl lifting off a lake against a rising sun. I loved the shades of blue and pink/peach in this photo, and I thought the small images of the silhouetted birds would show up nicely on paper beads...not necessarily recognizable as birds, but adding an interesting speckled quality to the beads. I cut 7 1" triangular strips and rolled them up into bicone beads. These turned out great with no doctoring of the paper strips before rolling!
Coincidentally, the lowest bracelet also was made from bird magazine paper, this time from Birdwatching...a navy page with blue and white text...and a yellow bird that didn't fit my color scheme. I cut my strips from the left (oriented here, top) edge of the paper without the yellow bird, once again 7 1" strips for bicones. I colored over the white text with a light blue permanent marker to match the large blue lettering. None of the letters on the paper is visible in the rolled beads! Instead the beads have lines and streaks from the blue text against the navy background. And yes, I did keep the leftover paper with the yellow bird for later use.
Other posts in this series:
These cognac boots always remind me of a favorite rabbit fur coloration: the castor of the rex and mini rex breeds. Castor (which comes from the Latin for beaver) refers to the rich orangey-brown color that has a dark/light speckled quality (called the agouti pattern, which is the pattern wild rabbits have), as shown on this rex rabbit. This coloration together with the unparalleled softness of the rex's velvety fur makes for a gorgeous combination!
One thing that struck me about this rex rabbit is how much the head and ears reminded me of a hare. In my office, I have a print of this famous painting by Albrecht Dürer from 1502 that is called "Young Hare" in English but is "Field Hare" (Feldhase) in the original German. I was impressed to learn that the hare is drawn with such accurate detail that it can be identified as an adult hare rather than a young one. Do you also see that the hare and the rex rabbit have some similarities in the head and ear shape?
I was curious how a Google image search would identify this rex rabbit so I loaded up this image and here are the results. The first result, rex rabbit, is correct...and the second result is hares. So Google agrees that there is some similarity there.
When I looked into the origins of the rex rabbit, all became clear. The first rex rabbits were developed from cross-bred Belgian hares! But wait...Belgian hares aren't actually hares...they are European rabbits that were bred to resemble hares. The hispid hare and the red rock hares are also actually rabbits. And the jackrabbit? It's not a rabbit; it's a hare. And the Easter Bunny, who will be visiting children all across the land very soon? He's a hare! The Osterhase ("Easter hare") was introduced to the US in the 1700s by German immigrants.
So what's the deal with rabbit versus hare? Is there even a difference? Sure, rabbits and hares are technically distinct. But in the US, people tend to not generally distinguish between rabbits and hares in normal contexts, calling both "rabbits." (Interestingly, in Germany, people tend to call both "hares" instead.) If you want to get scientific, you could call both rabbits and hares "leporids" (Latin for "those that resemble a hare"), which is the taxonomic family that contains both. They are also (along with their cousins the pikas) both "lagomorphs" (Greek for "hare" + "form") at the taxonomic order level.
Or you could just go with "bunny." This is definitely the word I use the most day to day.
A castor rex rabbit by any name would look as wonderful as an oversized accessory to my tall cognac boots + navy floral dress outfit!
Do you like the dress + blazer outfit formula? Do you ever choose how to wear your scarf based on the print and how it works with your outfit? Are you a cognac leather aficionado? Do you have a preference among rabbit, hare, and bunny as the term for these adorable long-eared mammals?
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