a cut skirt, and finished sweater – keeping it short and sweet
Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at.
Keeping this short and sweet this morning.
In my new “figure it out as I go along” version of the Anna Dress – I cut the skirt – and then promptly needed to move on to other things.
I did manage to snag a bit of time to weave in the ends and block my well-traveled lace weight sweater – a travel story and finished objects post to come soon.
The layout for the Shawl Geometry Books Update is happening – rather slower than I would like – but happening all the same. Though ending up sick all weekend probably didn’t help anything.
And that’s the cliff notes.
making time for making
Each Wednesday, I take stock of the projects I’m working on, and where my brain is at.
My primary focus for this week has been getting the new schematics for the Shawl Geometry Books finished, and diving headlong into laying out all of the patterns.
This may seem a little bit backwards – laying everything out before editing. But I find with knitting patterns that the clarity of a pattern is rather intrinsically tied to how the information is laid out. How the graphics, text, headings all interact with each other is just as important to the readability & understand-ability of a knitting pattern as the knitting pattern itself. And laying the pages out in something approximating their final layout, lets me treat the pattern (including the intro, instructions, photo, schematic, and tips) as one unit rather than many.
So a lot of my time this past week (and this coming week for that matter) was (and will be) spent staring at a computer screen. When this happens it’s super-much important for me to block out time for making this with my hands – something that exists outside of a computer screen – if I don’t, I end up a little disconnected from the world around me.
Luckily I have my summery wardrobe infusion to work on. I’ve been blocking out a couple evenings a week and in my calendar labeling them “making time for making.” Kind of like how writing goals down really does help you achieve them – making time for making really seems to help me get things made. (There’s a part of me totally rolling my eyes at myself over this.)
I re-drafted & tested my racer back tank top pattern, plus printed and taped out the Anna Maxi Dress pattern.
However, in light of yesterday’s rememberings that I don’t really like dresses. I’m revamping my plan for the Anna Maxi Dress. It’ll still be a dress, and still be a maxi dress, but I’m completely re-drafting the bodice. Once I have more of a solid plan, I’ll write about it in detail – but right now I’m at the totally legit post-it note math stage.
My new racer back tank top pattern has just a couple teeny tweaks I want to make, but other than that it’s good to go.
And I finished knitting my no longer neglected laceweight sweater over the weekend (totally winning a game of yarn chicken!), and just waiting for me to weave in the ends and give it a nice soak. Like I predicted, our weather here in NYC turned from rainy-spring into sunny-spring right around the time I bound off, so huzzah! for sunny spring weather. Maybe I’ll weave in the ends and give it a soak this afternoon?
Why am I sick of all the clothing in my wardrobe?!
I’m currently dressing out of a suitcase I packed in the middle of December – with the vague idea (but no desire to closely examine the thought) that I’d be living out of it for longer than my originally projected 10 weeks.
I ended up with 20 pieces in my suitcase dictated capsule wardrobe. Which is about 10 pieces under the number of clothes I had at the end of my year long, handmade wardrobe challenge.
So the question I keep coming back to as I plan my summery wardrobe infusion is: why am I sick of all the clothes in my wardrobe?!
Is it the clothes themselves?
I ended up with approximately a 50/50 handmade/store bought clothing split in my carry-on suitcase sized capsule wardrobe.
So about 50 percent of the clothes in this current wardrobe were made by me, for me, as part of the self-made wardrobe project. And the other 50 percent were either from before my year of self-made wardrobe-ing or passed along from friends since the end of that year.
Which means, there’s nothing in this wardrobe I hate or dislike or that makes me feel uncomfortable or anything like that.
In fact – I adore all these clothes. And lets be honest, if I didn’t love them, they probably wouldn’t be with me.
Is it a lack of possible combinations of clothing?
One of the most important components of any capsule wardrobe is versatility of each piece within the capsule wardrobe itself.
Meaning, how many pieces of clothing does a single garment “go with?” Not “in theory” – the land of “yea, sure, I’d totally wear this top with all those skirts” – but in reality – the land of “yea, sure, I could wear this top with that skirt and this other skirt, but I’m sure as hell not going to.”
Paring anything with just about anything else is theoretically possible – but that doesn’t mean we’d all wear it.
So with a capsule wardrobe, because you have a limited number of pieces, you want to maximize the versatility of each piece & compatibility of pieces with many other pieces. The more garments one pieces is compatible with, the more looks you can put together.
Therefore it’s quite possible to have a wardrobe where you love all the pieces individually, and still have “nothing to wear.”
There might be some of this going on – but I don’t think we can attribute all of my wardrobe sickness to this. I have a pretty standard uniform. Black tank top. Skirt or Jeans. Over-shirt, sweater or sweatshirt.
This uniform has been thoroughly documented, and I have (more or less) accepted it.
Am I getting garment fatigue?
Even when I have a teeny tiny wardrobe, I still find myself going through “clothing phases.” I’ll fall in love with a particular skirt, or over-shirt, and wear it every other day for awhile. Then I’ll turn my attention on to a different piece. And so the cycle continues.
There probably some of this going on. I’m finding myself reaching for the same maxi dress, and the same shirt over and over again. (And also wishing I had a second one of each.) This whole only having one of a certain type of garment is kind of screwing me over wardrobe-wise.
I packed the dress thinking I’d pull it out once or twice – and would definitely want it during the summer in NYC – but I never thought it would become my go to.
And the shirt – I totally tossed into my suitcase because it was at the bottom of a draw, and I had already sealed the wardrobe box I was packing up.
So a significant part of my wardrobe infusion is aimed at taking some of the focus off of these two particular pieces.
Is there anything I haven’t worn?
And do I actually have a 20 piece wardrobe?
Sort of?
If I made any mistakes packing my carry-on suitcase sized capsule wardrobe it was packing too many dresses.
I packed 3.
And contrary to what I just answered to the above question – I don’t really wear dresses.
Out of the dresses I packed, I’ve regularly worn 1 out of 3.
I figured out quite early on in the self-made wardrobe project that dresses were not really my thing. But I packed them anyway because dresses often feel more versatile (dress them up, down, sideways) than a skirt + top.
I know I can dress a skirt + top up, down or sideways.
And yet, I still felt the need to pack a dress (and then another) “just in case.”
So while I have with me 20 pieces of clothing – 2 of those pieces are dresses that I don’t regularly wear, 2 of those pieces are are coats, and 2 of those pieces are what I’m currently reaching for every other day.
This leaves a rotation of 14 pieces – 2 of which are sweaters that are a little too warm for this weather.
So really, once you take away the coats, the written off dresses, the it’s-too-warm-for sweaters, and add back in the 2 pieces of clothing I’m reaching for every other day – I actually have a 14 piece wardrobe.
Which is far smaller than a 20 piece one.
But really?
I think it comes down to a lack of new clothing.
The last pieces I introduced into my wardrobe were a couple pairs of new jeans – which were replacing a couple pairs of worn out & done in jeans. So they didn’t really add to my wardrobe, they more maintained.
The last pieces I introduced into my wardrobe before those jeans were, a navy sweatshirt (that I have with me), and a black over-shirt (the one I keep reaching for). And if I’m remembering correctly, I introduced those back in the fall, around October or November – we’re now a third of the way through May…
So I think a large part of my wardrobe “over-it-ness” comes down to a lack of new.
With the year-long self-made wardrobe project, I may have ended up with only about 10 more pieces of clothing than I currently have – but I was continually introducing pieces into my wardrobe throughout the year.
And as I truly discovered during that project – one single piece of well chosen clothing can make you see your entire wardrobe in a new light.
When a new piece of clothing is well chosen and slots seamlessly into your existing wardrobe – it can open up possibilities that you couldn’t have envisioned when you bought (or made) the piece. It can open up possibilities that have nothing to do with the new piece of clothing itself.
It’s as if the sparkly newness rubs off on all your other clothing and re-makes them all fresh & shiny.
I want new shiny clothing!
And this desire is, I think, the driving impetus behind my summer wardrobe infusion.
I want to see all my beloved clothing through that shiny & new wardrobe filter.
So now, If you’ll pardon me, I’m going to go make some new clothes.
