Category Archives: One Month of Prep

The beginnings of a plan

Posted on May 6, 2014 | Leave a comment

I’m beginning to formulate a sewing plan.

I spent yesterday diving through my fabric stash, and took a slight detour through the garment district to pick up some fabric I saw the other day.

From the fabric stash:

: a beautiful medium weight cotton (it’s actually an old sheet) that I want to turn into a wrap skirt.

: a super simple very light weight cotton that I’m planning on making into an over-shirt that I can throw on throughout the summer. I have a similar shirt in my current wardrobe that I’ll probably pattern for this project.

: Thing 1 and Thing 2, which totally needs to become a playful dress of some sort. I even have a lining fabric all ready to go!

: and an awesome black & red print I inherited. It lightweight & very drapy, I think it might be a rayon. I want to do some sort of draped maxi skirt (maybe dress?) that plays with the print without going too crazy. I think it would be easy for this print to get overwhelming.

From the garment District:

: white & grey striped cotton seersucker that will become a light summer dress.

: and a swatch of a basic black cotton jersey. My current wardrobe consists mainly of cotton tank tops & jeans. So I’ll pick of a yard or two of this to make some camis and tanks. I’ve decided I definitely want those in my wardrobe, but probably not as many as I currently have. (& I’ll start tackling jeans sometime soon.)

One thing I’m noticing as I sort through fabrics is I’m generally drawn to lighter colors when I’m fabric shopping, but if you look at my current wardrobe I mostly wear dark black & blues.

I’m not sure why this is. Maybe it’s because brighter bolts of fabric jump out on a wall of fabric? Or because black fabrics have a tendency to be clustered in one hard to reach corner of the fabric shelf?

And I’m not sure how this will play out. Will I suddenly have a brighter wardrobe? Or will I eventually remember to look at the darker fabrics when I go shopping? It’ll probably be a bit of both.

But I’m interested in seeing how this plays out.

Why is the fabric I tend to buy different than the fabric I tend to wear?

(and I bet I’m not alone in this.)

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Posted in One Month of Prep, questions & thoughts

What qualities do I want to wear?

Posted on May 5, 2014 | Leave a comment

I’ve been mulling over the idea of qualities.

As in… what qualities do I want to wear? What ideas do I want in my wardrobe? What’s the essence of my closet?

Right now I’d say my closet primarily contains ease & comfort.

Clothes I can throw on. Clothes I can move in. Clothes that are comfortable. As well as comforting. Clothes to wrap around me. Clothes to curl up in.

And I absolutely (absolutely!) want to keep those qualities.

But also throw in some delight & some play.

Treating getting dressed with lightheartedness.

What if getting dressed in the morning was more like playing dress up? Putting on a costume that enhances who we are, not hides it.

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Posted in Keeping What's Working, One Month of Prep, questions & thoughts

Why do I wear what I wear?

Posted on May 4, 2014 | Leave a comment

Why do I wear what I wear? And why do I wish I wore what I wish I wore?

I knew I didn’t have a larger self-made wardrobe, but I hadn’t fully faced how absolutely-teeny-tiny it is until yesterday. My roommate just laughed at that photo. So I spent today starting to formulate a plan, and knitting.

But it also prompted me to think some more about why I’m doing this project and what I want to explore with it.

There are so many directions this could take, but I want to focus on how I interact with my clothes, and how I feel in my clothes.

I want to focus on the place where “the self” and “the wardrobe” meet. How they influence, and interact with, one another.

I want to embrace the versatility of clothing. How a garment can mean one thing one day, and another thing the next.

I want to try to understand my relationship with my wardrobe a little better. Why do I wear what I wear? And why do I wish I wore what I wish I wore?

Indeed, why do I wear what I wear?

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Posted in One Month of Prep

The Current Wardrobe Situation

Posted on May 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

my current wardrobe

This is my wardrobe as it currently stands. Pieces I wear. Pieces I don’t wear. Pieces I like, pieces I don’t remember, pieces I hate.

the part of my wardrobe that I actually wear

the part of my wardrobe I actually wear

While this is the part of my wardrobe I actually wear on a regular basis, and will very much miss. (wouldn’t everyone miss their crinoline?)

my current self-made wardrobe

And this is my current self-made wardrobe. 2 sweaters. 4 skirts.

…that’s a sobering thought.

(And shit just got real.)

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Posted in Keeping What's Working, One Month of Prep, The Basics

The Timeline

Posted on May 2, 2014 | Leave a comment

an embroidered skirt project that I started long before this project was an idea, and will probably still be working on long after this project ends

I’m envisioning this as a 13 month long project. I’ll take one month (this month, May 2014) to ‘prep’ (build clothes, get the blog going, make some plans, save my sanity, etcetera, etcetera.) and then I’ll wear the wardrobe for a year.

If I had planned the timing better, I would have shifted the start of wearing the wardrobe to line up with Me-Made-May, ah well. But I’ll definitely be following along and trying to pick up some tips.

But! My missed timing also means that I’ll end the year with a Me-Made-May! So maybe it wasn’t such poor timing after all.

Anyway.

May is going to be a month of ‘prep’ lots of making clothes, planning clothes, pinterest pinning, plus writing about clothes & philosophizing about clothes and sprinkled with a bit of freaking-the-fuck-out.

Then April 1st I’ll start wearing my self-made wardrobe and posting daily outfit photos here. I’ll post a daily outfit photos along with new pieces I’m working on, garments I’ve finished, and excerpts from the book that I’m writing to go along with this project.

I’ll keep that up until the end of May 2015. Then there will probably be some sort of wrap up, but I’m not sure what form that will take.

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This will certainly be an adventure…

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Posted in One Month of Prep, The Basics

The Basic Idea

Posted on May 1, 2014 | Leave a comment

the original idea, scribbled in a notebook

The super duper basic idea, is that I want to create a self-made wardrobe, and then I want to wear that wardrobe for a year.

I’ve been telling myself for years that I’d add more clothes made by me to my wardrobe. But I’ve never gotten around to it.

I design lace shawls, so I’ve knit piles upon piles of lace, but I can’t wear those. And I design costumes, so I’ve made lots and lots of clothes, just not for me. I think at the moment I have a couple skirts, a sweater or two, and piles of shawls. (I guess if push comes to shove I could drape those shawls into something, but it won’t come to that. Fingers crossed.)

I figure if I’m ever going to have a wardrobe that includes pieces made by me, I need to do it as a project.

And my hope is that by documenting this as a blog, and as a book, that it’ll help you bring a new level of awareness to your wardrobe. If you want to make your own clothes, I hope this project will make the idea of your own self-made wardrobe feel more accessible. And if you don’t want to make your own clothes, (that’s totally cool!) then I hope this project will help you clarify what you want your wardrobe to do for your.

Anyway. That’s the basic idea. One wardrobe, entirely self-made, for one year.

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Posted in One Month of Prep, The Basics