Yesterday was a beautiful day here in Bergen, and any day without the threat of rain must be taken advantage of! So we hopped on our bikes, to go coffee-sampling at the city’s coffee roastery at their monthly open-house day.

Safety first! I bike in the streets with the cars, and I cannot imagine not having a helmet on – my head feels bare and it just feels wrong if I forget to put it on! Then I remember and walk inside and fetch it and go on my merry way.

I’ve been digging monochrome-ish outfits in neutral colors lately, and this fits that bill – a symphony of greys and taupes with some olive grey and brown thrown in. The dress is one of my favorites – It’s called Southward Stop Shirtdress (from Anthropologie). I love just about everything about this dress; the muted color-scheme, the super-fine-waled corduroy, the shape, the stand collar and the v-neckline, and of course…. the print. There are little deers all over my dress!

“Look, a parachuter!”

And you know what else is on my dress (apart from random chocolate stains that the print does a marvelous job of hiding)? A little bit of everything! I spy polka-dotted pocket linings, polka-dotted piping, ruffles, gathers, inverted box-pleats and lets throw in some pin-tucks too. I would never have thought that all those things could go on a dress with a print without looking ridiculously busy, but I’m taking it as a lesson to play more with elements in my garments. If this dress can make that look good, then so can I!

I have a real tendency to go with solids both in buying and in making clothes, but I’ve really been trying to get more prints and patterns into my wardrobe. I’m knitting a scarf right now in a variegated yarn which is a bit of a departure for me – but it’s part of me challenging myself to venture beyond solids!

And on a random end note, I love that this city sits on the water and is surrounded by mountains.