and in the realm of ‘real books’ – To Read Over Coffee #8
A collection of links from the past few weeks that I think are interesting/amusing/educational/insightful enough to read/watch/listen & think about over a cup of coffee.
“Making it work as a designer: Releasing Free Patterns”
The topic of free patterns & content is pretty damn divisive among knitwear designers (and “content creators” in general). Kat Goldin at Slugs on the Refrigerator (awesome blog name) wrote an excellent piece about how free content (when done well) can provide tremendous amounts of value to readers and (when used smartly) can in fact be beneficial for creators. Yay smart win-wins!!
“Reading for pleasure builds empathy and improves wellbeing, research from The Reading Agency finds”
More excuses to read? Yes please.
“Why the end of trends is great for ethical fashion and terrible for fast fashion”
Not the best written article, but yay for ethical fashion.
“‘The way you dress has never completely protected African Americans,’ echoes Warren. ‘But that doesn’t mean that black men still don’t effectively use fashion in a strategic manner. I personally have realized that your fashion could determine your life chances.'”
And in the realm of “real books”…
I listened to Tina Fey’s Bossypants, Felicia Day’s You’re Never Weird On The Internet (Almost), and got halfway through Amy Pohler’s Yes Please – all of which are wonderful. (I ran away to Maine for a couple days, which meant there was a lot of travel time, perfect for funny books by smart women).
I’m also partway through The Color of Nature by Pat Murphy and Paul Doherty, which is a beautiful book about the physics behind color in nature.
Thoughts from day 366 of a 365 day project.
The Self-Made Wardrobe is a project where I only wear garments I’ve made.
It’s a year long experiment in getting dressed without clothing labels –
it’s a year about noticing patterns, trying things, and observing what happens.
A string of semi-connected, sort of jumbled thoughts from day 366 of a 365 day long self-made wardrobe project.
1. Intentionally breaking a 365 day long habit feels strange as hell.
2. I spent my entire shower trying to figure out what the hell to wear, and then I was running late – so I ended up throwing on my black maxi skirt, and a tank top.
3. Unpacking my wardrobe has turned into something of an inowanna-iguana.
4. Apart from a few specific pieces that I miss like hell, I can only vaguely remember what clothes I had – though it seems there were piles of them.
5. I didn’t quite realize how much brain space this project was taking up.
Not in a big-huge-thing-all-the-time way, but in a lots-of-little-things-to-continually-keep-track-of sort of way. It feels like a whole chunk of brain space has been freed up (and is now tired).
6. Getting out the door is surprisingly much faster. Even though taking a daily photo took less than five minutes. Not sure how this works.
7. 365 days is a lot of days. I mean, I knew that. But this project drove home something about the potential of cumulative effort.
Focused energy + many days = wicked powerful.
8. Play & games are important. Very important.
365 days is pretty daunting.
But 1 day isn’t. And if I can do 1 day, I can probably do 2 days.
And 2 days can become 4 days. And 4 days is basically 5.
And 5 days isn’t terribly hard to turn into 10 days.
Which you can turn into 20 days with a bit of effort.
And if you’re done 20 days, you might as well do a whole month.
One month becomes two, becomes three. You’re a quarter of the way there.
And then day 100 feels pretty damn good. So three months becomes six.
And 200 days feel pretty good too. So 200 becomes 250, becomes 275.
And then day 300, and after 300 days, the last 65 feel like a walk in the park.
9. Systems make everything easier.
10. So does permission to change those systems.
11. And permission to say fuck it.
12. I’m really, really glad I’m not someone who accidentally leaves clothing places. Like, really, really, really, really, really, glad. That would have made this project practically impossible.
writing, thinking & napping
Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on.
What I’m Working On…
: wrapping up the self-made wardrobe! It’s done, it’s done!!
: so, it’s been a week of writing & thinking
: I’m slowly getting my wardrobe unpacked (and I realized yesterday that no sweater can take the place of a sweatshirt).
: yesterday, I posted about the final garment I made for the project.
: Plus I have some other things I want to write about, including some notes I took on Day 366, and some interesting numbers, like how many times I wore each piece, or how the cost of each garment in relation to how many times it got worn, stuff like that.
: and napping. This weekend involved a lot of napping.
