Two for tea

Two takes on the colors of the fall harvest: one woman in brown and gold and red, and one woman in greens. Both look great. The woman in brown has amazing boots: suede shafts and shiny leather uppers. The other one is wearing a snazzy pair of knee socks.

Baby catchers

This is a local homebirth midwife (homebirth is another one of my passions), looking completely amazing, I think. I saw her on the first day of the fair this year as well (before I had the idea to do this project, sadly) and she was wearing the most incredible skirt she had made out of past years' Common Ground Fair volunteer t-shirts. (As I mentioned before, the Common Ground Fair t-shirt is a very popular item in these parts, and you get free ones, special ones marked VOLUNTEER, for doing so.) It was a fantastic idea for a skirt, but what was especially cool about it was that rather than just making some basic, square-shaped tube skirt out of the t-shirts, she made a gored, flared, knee-length skirt with the t-shirt images pieced together in a really lovely, abstract way that was actually totally adorable and flattering. I completely want to copy this idea.

Mostly, though, I am just so happy that like me and many others, Chris clearly dresses UP for the fair. Check out this combo of floppy hat, handmade vest, bright skirt, striped knee socks (which always score huge bonus points with me) and then the totally pragmatic walking shoes. I can safely say that she doesn't always dress like this.

And here she is again with her midwifery partner Julie, who kind of does always dress like she is dressed here. She's a great dresser. And ahem, I have the exact same silver metallic Hunter rain boots. A girl's gotta be working some good boots in a place that involves mud, wet grass, manure and dirt much of the time.

Cool couple with coffee

Or it might be chai. I always like the look of a very lightweight, summery dress with hard-rockin', knee-high boots to ground the outfit. What are her boots? They might be rubber waders. And here I really like the white knee-highs, too. I'm a big fan of high socks. When I stopped to take her picture, her companion graciously moved out of the way, but I said I wanted him in the shot, too! So glad that suspenders are making a comeback.

Also, can I pause here to say that one reason I'm doing this blog is to celebrate actual folks who live in the country and wear work pants and overalls and rubber boots and such because their work and lives demand them, rather than to follow a trend or co-opt someone else's style? I've heard that a lot of folks in, say, Brooklyn, NY are now dressing as if they, too, are organic farmers in Maine...and I'm not really into that.