Raise your hand if this sounds like you: you’ve been sewing for awhile, make quite a few garments on average a month, but when you open your closet, it feels like there’s nothing in there to wear. Any takers? Yeah, that’s how I’ve been feeling lately, too. On the days that I go in to the office, or I’m going out to dinner with my friends, I stand in front of my (very messy) closet and scratch my head, trying to figure out what I can put together.
Part of it has to do with having full reign now over what I can wear on a daily basis – no more all-black dress code for my job, and since I work from home a lot during the week, I can choose to put on whatever I feel like (although honestly, a lot of the time it’s the same PJs I slept in the night before, shhhh). It’s kind of overwhelming, since I haven’t had these kind of choices since college and I forget how to mix and match what I have to make new outfits. But…I don’t think I have a lot of things that go together in my closet, either handmade or RTW.
I think my closet dissatisfaction comes back to my resisting to buy new clothes, since most of the time I look at something in a store and realize I can make it. So, the RTW clothes in my closet are couple of years old and don’t necessarily reflect how I want to dress anymore; sometimes they’re clothes that I designate for the weekend because they’re worn-looking. And then, there are my decisions about what to sew. A lot of the time it depends on what fabric I have in my stash or what I gravitate towards at the fabric store, what new pattern is out that I just have to make, or what’s going on the sewing blogosphere at that time (Archer and Bombshell sewalong, anyone?). I have an idea in my head of what I think I’ll wear, or what I want to wear, but it doesn’t always match up to reality. I’m on a mission this year to sew more cake and less frosting, which should help, but I really need a clear blueprint on how to design a closet full of clothes that fit my life and what I need.
Sarai, I think you read my mind, and a lot sewist’s minds, too:
The timing of this series over at The Coletterie couldn’t be more perfect! Sarai expressed the same kind of frustrations with her closet and wardrobe and is launching a series on her blog that explores how to build a wardrobe for us sewists. Each week will have a different post related to wardrobe planning, and will delve into topics such as defining personal style and creating capsule wardrobes. These are great topics, because for me, my personal style has changed so much over the past few years that I have no idea what to dress in anymore. My hopes are that for 2014, I’ll have a clear idea of what kind of garments to make and a cohesive closet of clothes that I love to wear.
Do you want to join? Head over to The Coletterie for a button and join the conversation #WardrobeArchitect
this is basically how i felt a year ago, so i begun to make more of an effort to sew things i would reach for on an everyday basis. there are still some glaring gaps, but it's getting better! i also recently organized my closet to group like garments together–that also helps!
Yeah, I think a lot of us have this issue (and perhaps even non-sewists as well?)! Like Lisa said, I've been trying to think more about what I sew, but it's hard to resist the bright and shiny new things. : ) Looking forward to the Coletterie series as well.