Random musings from the haze of antibiotics

Having acquired a bad case of tonsillitis, I find myself unable to do much of anything productive. Most of my spare time has been spent sleeping, whining, or watching TV. With that said, here are my random musings.

The sewing blogosphere seems to be quite the fan of The Great British Sewing Bee. I would love to find a way to watch it in Germany, but I am rather wary of trying anything less than strictly legal. All moral issues aside, the German government has been know to track down and then fine or arrest people who download illegal things, and I don't really feel like risking that.

It suddenly occurred to me that I can buy a Burda magazine from the kiosk here! I'm rather tempted to buy one just so I will have bought one. Without fabric or a sewing machine, of course I can't sew very much.

However, it's apparently possible to borrow a sewing machine from somebody who lives in my student village, which is something I might have to check out. Maybe I could buy a Burda, find something easy, buy fabric, and go on a sewing sprint. Once I'm better.

And last but not least, I wish I could participate in Me-Made-May, but given that my capsule wardrobe includes two hand-made things, that seems rather silly. Next year!

Capsule Wardrobe, part two

Here is part one.

I put this wardrobe together with the help of my mother. We aimed for compact and flexible. A lot of the pieces can be dressed up or dressed down depending on what I wear them with, for example. Almost everything matches with everything else, and I tried to keep within the same color palette mostly. I picked a pink-purple-blue color palette because that's what I already own most of. For neutrals, I went with gray and black, because I had black ballet flats. Really the only exception to this color palette is my running sweatshirt, and OH WELL if my running clothes don't match!

Overall, this wardrobe has worked really well. I rarely run out of clothes (and when I do, it's my own fault for not having done laundry). One of the things I love about having a wardrobe this small is that when I have nothing to wear, I can tell. At home I would regularly pull open a drawer half full of clothes only to discover nothing that was clean matched with anything else. Here, chances are very high that if I have two pieces of clothing in my closet, they will match each other.

Another thing I love is that I am not struggling to make myself wear things that don't fit or don't look good. Not everything I have here fits perfectly, but I did try hard to bring only things I knew I would wear.

This brings up the age-old question: quantity vs. quality. I have to admit, I don't really have either here! I certainly don't have quantity, but honestly, my clothes are not very high quality either. Almost everything is either from a store like Ross or TJMaxx, or years old, or from Kohl's on sale. I didn't want to buy an entire new wardrobe, but I can really see why someone would go for quality over quantity. In fact, I decided even before planning this capsule wardrobe to be much more discerning in my clothing purchases. I would rather have one dress that fits well and is good quality than three dresses which fit badly and which I won't want to wear.

I don't have the money to go run out and buy a bunch of $100+ dresses, but I do think that as the clothes I have now wear out, I will try to replace them with higher-quality things, if only in the hopes they will fit better. Alternatively, one of these days once I get back from Germany I *will* learn to fit things properly!

My capsule wardrobe

I forgot to update you and tell you the results of my capsule wardrobe for Germany! I guess this way worked out better, though, because now I can update on how it has been working as well as what I decided. I was reminded of my capsule wardrobe my two posts, Peter's post on quantity vs. quality and Ashe's post at Already Pretty on developing a color palette for your closet. In an effort to prevent a giant post from taking over your computer, I'm going to introduce my capsule wardrobe in this post, and then talk about why I picked it and how I like it so far in the next post.

Here are two shots of my closet:

Moving from left to right, this is what you see:

Three scarves: Red pashmina, yellow decorative scarf, and purple wrap.

Two dresses: Gray and black, and black and blue.

Seven shirts: Black turtleneck, blue T-shirt, pink blouse, black T-shirt, purple half-sleeve shirt, navy blue blouse, striped tank top, and add one purple T-shirt, which I was wearing.

Three sweaters/sweatshirts: Black sweater, purple sweatshirt, and burgundy sweatshirt.

One pair of black chinos

Three skirts: One blue and green ankle-length one, one gray knee-length one, and my VHC skirt.

One slip

One running sweatshirt
One running skirt
Two pairs of running pants (one not pictured)
One pair of pajama pants, which I was wearing

That's 25 items. Not pictured (or counted) are socks, underwear, and tights. Also not pictured are things that I consider outerwear. So, for example, I have a few hats, a coat, gloves, and so on. I also have three pairs of shoes: my ballet flats, a pair of boots, and a pair of running shoes. What's pictured here is basically the things I consider it important to match.

Before I get into the big-picture opinion in the next post, here are a few thoughts:

*A lot of these things double as other things. Running pants, for example, can be pajama pants, and my purple and blue T-shirts triple as regular wear, sleepwear, and running wear.

*Almost everything here was something I already owned. I bought the black chinos and the purple sweatshirt for this trip, as well as buying a new coat.

*Some of these are pieces of clothing I have owned for years which are still holding up. I bought that pink blouse in 7th grade, for example.

Next up: The reasons behind this wardrobe, and how I think it's been working!

I fail Fearless February

...and to top it all off, it took me three tries to spell February right!

Sorry, people. I haven't done a single buttonhole. I was traveling, and moving, and packing, and unpacking, and making new friends, and staying up to ungodly hours and going to bed early.

There are four days in February left, so I will try. But I make no more promises, because this moving-to-Germany thing isn't quite as easy I had thought it would be.

Final shelf

Here, in all its glory, is my finished shelf.

I tried to do an up and down version of a panoramic photo for you. It sort of worked. Just let your eyes go out of focus when you see the transitions, ok?

I am really pleased with how this worked out. I'm going to make a real label for every box. Then I'll work on organizing all my non-sewing stuff, and on moving my sewing machines back upstairs.

Major Reorganization

A few days ago, I just got so frustrated with the major mess that is my bedroom. No, I refuse to show before pictures. Let's just say it was bad.

I sorted almost everything out. It was then that I realized that the current space I had for sewing stuff was simply inadequate. I had this:

On the other side of the room, where I had heaped all my sewing stuff I had found while tidying that didn't fit into the shelves or the drawers, I had this:

So much stuff that didn't fit. I knew it was hopeless, so I went to my mother's pile of extra storage boxes (I didn't know she had one, but apparently she does!) and pulled out a bunch of boxes. Then I set myself to the daunting task of sorting that enormous pile of stuff out and deciding what to keep, what to toss, and how to sort out the stuff I was keeping.

Of course, once you spread a giant pile like this out, it looks horrible. Especially since I hadn't vaccumed! But here are the results of my labor:

I am super pleased to say that I got everything sorted into boxes and stored on that shelf you can see in the background of the 3rd picture. But I think there are enough pictures in this post already, so for the final finished project you'll have to wait until tomorrow!

Much needed repairs!

It's been pretty chilly around here lately. Not super cold, but enough that you do want a jacket. However, my jacket looks like this:

No lining! I have a lovely winter coat my parents bought me for my 18th birthday, which is well made and has served me well. But last winter, the lining started to tear out along every single seam. The pockets tore, and stuff fell out. So I tore out all the lining. In typical Sophie fashion, I then didn't put a new lining in. I did cut out new pattern pieces, and I did sew some of them together, but then when May came around and I moved out of the dorm, my winter coat was put in a bag and forgotten.

See how crumpled the lining is? At least I was able to find it! I've been working on putting it into the coat since Wednesday, in small chunks when I have time.

At the moment, I have the lining all sewn together, and one pocket is all the way in and the other is halfway in. I am hoping to finish this up tomorrow, and then devote the weekend to two pursuits: writing final papers and going to G Street Fabrics for the DC sewing blogger meetup!

Wardrobe design

I'm not entirely sure who reads this blog. Probably about 50% of my hits come from family or friends. But for those who don't know me in real life, I'm going to be spending the Spring semester abroad, in Germany. BUT! I'll be going on the German semester, which means I'll be gone from February to July. And, due to the fact that I am flying on a cheap student ticket, I get to check one bag.

This means I need a very focused wardrobe. It also needs to be very varied, because this is the Freiburg temperature map:

(Image source: weather.com)

In other words, I need to be prepared to dress for temperatures in between 29 and 78, with the possibility of it getting cooler or warmer. Yikes. I don't like extreme temperatures, and both of those ranges sound unpleasant to wimpy me!

So, here are my thoughts, in no particular order.

1. Skirts are more versatile than pants, because they can be worn with tights in cold weather and without in warm weather.
2. Skirts and tops are more versatile than dresses, because with two dresses you have two outfits and with two shirts and two skirts you have four outfits.
3. I should have at least one pair of shoes that I can do *lots* of walking in.
4. I should have a pair of warm boots, which I can do *lots* of walking in. So I guess really I need two pairs of shoes I can walk in, since I won't be wearing winter boots in the summer.
5. I probably need at least a week's worth of outfits, but do I need more? If I do laundry every Saturday, I could theoretically repeat the same clothes every week for six months. Theoretically. That would be pretty boring!
6. I should probably limit my clothes in terms of colors, so pick one neutral color to be my neutral colors for the semester. Then I won't have to bring as many shoes, for example.

Has anyone else done anything like this? Does anyone have any advice? I don't want to be too spartan, but I also am starting to worry about packing, and if I decide to sew a bunch of things I want to know sooner rather than later!

From one kind of crazy to another

Well, home from NYC, and freshman orientation at college is over. I have to say, orientation is less fun as a junior than as a freshman! Oh well. I'm currently working on organizing my room (including my sewing space) for the upcoming semester, which starts, um, tomorrow. Yikes! Pictures post-organization will follow.

May wrap up

I didn't get a whole lot done in May! I basically worked on play costumes, with a side step into ancient Roman garb. So my list of finished projects is pretty short:

1. A sewing pattern/fabric purge (not something I sewed per se, but it's a project related to sewing, hence a sewing project. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!)
2. A tabard for Romeo and Juliet (quite easy, rather boring)
3. Juliet's dress and overdress (a fun challenge since I had to draft sleeves and the entire overdress)
4. K's tunics and toga (and ok, honestly, he did most of the work on that one!)

That's pretty much it! I have done some small repairs and alterations on other costumes here and there, but nothing worth blogging about.

However, I did do a lot of reading this month!
I read:
-The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (re-reads--these are such awesome books!)
-Of Sacraments and Sacrifice (a very good pre-VII introduction to the subject!)
-The books of Tobit, Jonah, and Micah twenty times each and the Gospel of Mark ten times (I have started a project to read each book of the Bible twenty times to gain more familiarity with it)
-The Hunger Games trilogy. (I have to say, I wasn't expecting a lot from the Hunger Games, so I was very nicely surprised! Although I do think she dropped the ball a bit in the third one...there wasn't really much in there that I haven't read before.)
I know there were a few other books, but they're not coming to mind. I wrote down my list, but then I lost it moving home from college. Oops.

Well!

That was a successful purge! Two days ago I had 55 patterns. Now I have 26.

I had two boxes of fabric. Now I have one. (Ok, all you people with "real" stashes, stop laughing!)

Moreover, almost every piece of fabric I own (I think there are four exceptions) has a specific project attached to it now. Not "this would make a cute dress," but "I'll make this up with X pattern for Y person." This should help me to actually do projects, because the decision making has all been made already.

Now, where to get rid of these supplies? Obviously I could just freecycle them, along with instructions to take the whole box, but I'm hoping to find a way to get them to someone who's likely to use them. Some of the larger fabric pieces are going to a college friend, and some of the scraps are going to a mother I know who will use them to make sachets with her daughters. The other fabric I'll offer to a local children's theater company. As for the patterns, I haven't yet made a decision. Most of them are from the 50s-70s, in fairly bad shape, although complete, with a bust size between 31-34 inches.

Why do I complicate my life?

Ok, so today I realized something. I collect complicated patterns and fancy fabrics. I also get overwhelmed by long projects and am often scared to start them. I have all these theoretical plans of making structured jackets, full-size quilts, and other heavily involved projects. As a result, I never get anything done. I'm overwhelmed by the amount of sewing supplies I have, the number of patterns that would be great if I could alter them so they actually fit, the yards of cloth that seem like they would be good for something someday, and so on.

This has got to stop.

I'm perfectly happy in a simple knit skirt, or one made out of quilting cotton. It's easy, pretty, feminine, and cheap. And it's not overwhelming. A simple dress I can pull on over my head sounds like magic to me--no fussing with anything.

I like things simple, but I haven't been applying this to my sewing life.

So--strict rules for a great purge. I'm thinking to get rid of all the patterns that aren't in my size, or the size of someone I'm likely to be sewing for (sister, mother, etc). Then get rid of all the pieces of fabric that I can't match to a pattern. I'll probably allow a few exceptions, to make my life a little easier. Nevertheless, this should greatly reduce my stash. Will it cost more money in the long run to not have all this stuff on hand? Yes, but probably not enough money to make it worth the amount of my mental energy that I waste on worrying about my sewing supplies. I'll talk this plan over for a day or two with my mother, so feel free to chime in--am I crazy? Are these rules too tight? Too loose? Any exceptions or other nuances you would add?

First day of work

Yesterday was my first day working in the costume shop, my new work-study job. I arrived at 2:00 to discover that the shop was in minor tumult due to the fact that it had flooded earlier in the day. I don't know the details of what happened, but it apparently cause quite a mess. The custodian was leaving with his bucket as I was arriving. Since my boss arrived to find her shop full of water, she was a little behind schedule and disorganized. As a result, there really wasn't much for me to do. I was given a tour of the shop, picked out a pair of scissors to be "mine," sorted out a bunch of buttons, and looked at my instructional packet.

The packet is a bunch of pages of photocopies from sewing instruction books. The goal is to get everyone up to speed on techniques they need and to make sure that everyone is using the same terminology. For example, I would say that slip stitch is the stitch you use to create a blind hem. According to the packet, slip stitch is one stitch and blind hem stitch is something different. I don't know if that's costume shop terminology or if the rest of the world differentiates as well, but at least now I know! When there's downtime in the shop, we workers will go through our packets and practice the skills included in it.

I'll post a description of the shop soon, hopefully with a few photos, but in the meantime let me just say that I covet this room so much! The props I can take or leave, and the fabric is kind of costumey (duh, it's a costume shop!), but I want that many machines and drawers and that much space!

Quality over Quantity

When it comes to clothes, I definitely subscribe to the "less is more" camp. I don't believe that that is what's best for everybody, but it's what works for me. I just moved home from college yesterday, and I spent most of Saturday afternoon packing. I could not believe how much stuff I had! I had, for example, 62 books.

On the clothes front, I realized that it was time to be a little more ruthless in clothes purging. I tend to have T-shirts that I don't want to wear, but don't want to toss. In the interests of reducing clothes, I got rid of all my pajama T-shirts, and replaced them with the T-shirts I don't wear. This way I can keep the T-shirts that have sentimental value, but they won't be lying around doing nothing.

The problem with me and clothes is that if I can't see it, I won't wear it. I need to have a small enough wardrobe that I can have a pretty good idea of what's in it, and be easily able to find everything. I would love to hang most of my clothes for better visibility, but as I have no closet at home and only a small one in college, that's not happening any time soon. I see the appeal of having a giant wardrobe to mix and match with, but I can't handle that much clothing. I really can't.

Do you have lots of clothing, or a small amount? Any good organization tips for when storage is extremely limited?

Fabric storage

Or, finally she posts a picture or two!

I'll admit it--my fabric storage is a mess. In theory, it's organized, but in practice, it's sort of shoved into boxes. I have my fabric separated into four categories. One is wovens suitable for clothes, one is knits, one is quilting cottons, and one is "fancy" fabrics--velvet, lace, and so on.

This is my box of wovens:


Yes, it's a cardboard box. Actually, it's my serger's box! Since I took this picture, I have improved things a little bit. My dressmaker's dummy no longer lives on top of the box. However, I still have everything jammed in the box where I can't see it. (This is not quite as bad as it sounds, and a future post on how I keep track of what fabric I have will explain why.) And yes, it's ugly and impractical.

Here you can see my fancy fabrics, which are the three piles on the left, and my knits, which is the one small pile on the right (with the blue striped fabric on top). This may have to be changed, as I bought 7 more yards of thickish knits (which I still have to photograph and blog about) a few days ago. The striped box on the shelf above is full of my serger cones. And some spare elastic.
This is the box I keep my quilting cottons in. I actually like this storage idea. This is a shoe rack that my mother didn't want. The cottons are roughly sorted by color, and I have some notions in there too, in those purple boxes. I have a jar of empty spools and a jar of buttons there too, as well as a bag of scraps and my sister's knitting needle binder. And my other sister's Mardi Gras beads.
So yes, this is a mess. It's not that well organized, and it really really unattractive. However, I have two severely limiting factors. One is money. The shelves I have are the shelves I've got to work with. The other is space. I forget if I have posted a picture of my bedroom/sewing room, but it is small. Think college dorm room size. I simple haven't room for another shelf or some super-organizer.

That said, if anyone has any ideas, send them my way! These disheveled piles of fabric (because honestly, that's what these are) are starting to weigh down on me.

Thoughts on clothes

I'm trying to organize my clothes and plan for college. This isn't really sewing related, but tangentially it is.

Pants/shorts:
I have three pairs of pants, namely one pair of jeans, one pair of black twill pants, and one pair of black poplin pants. I have one pair of shorts, which I wear once a year for cleaning out our pond. I also have a pair of "work jeans" with paint marks and glue on them, and a pair or two of sweat pants. I also have my karate gi pants.

Shirts:
I am really lacking in the shirts department, I know. About a year ago, I realized I barely had any shirts. My stunningly creative way of dealing with this problem was to go to the craft store and buy several T-shirts. Yes, those uni-sex shapeless things that are basically dyed undershirts. We all have our problems. Mine are my shirts.

Skirts:
I have a lot of skirts, but many of them don't really work for day-to-day wear. The ones that do are a black knit ankle-length skirt (that can double as a dress), a white and black skirt that hits just below the knee, a blue linen skirt about the same length, a blue corduroy skort, and (for the days I really feel like pushing the envelope) a floor-length knit skirt made out of pink, purple, black, and white squares cut from T-shirts. (Examples of skirts that aren't day-to-day wear include a long black velvet sheath skirt.)

Sweaters:
Meh. (I've been saying that a lot lately.) A lot of my sweaters are getting old. I could probably use a few more of them.

Dresses:
I have nice dresses. I really do. I have three dresses I can wear on a fairly normal day--a flowered sleeveless one, the Simplicity 6699 I just finished, and a brown shirt dress from Kohl's, which is shorter than most of my other skirts and is therefore a bit more casual than the other two. I also just ordered another dress from Lands' End. (The thought of sewing that many buttonholes gave me a headache.)

Shoes:
I have a pair of black ballet flats, two pairs of slides (black and brown), a pair of workboots (which double as hiking boots, canoeing boots, and anything-else-that-might-get-messy boots), and one pair of knee-high boots, which are brown. Because of some undiagnosed walking abnormality, I rip every shoe I wear to pieces. For real--I think my longest lasting shoe since I went through puberty has been one year. Because of this problem, combined with my strictly limited budget, I have to wear cheap shoes. (Yes, I have tested--the high price/quality shoes fall apart just as fast as the cheap ones.)

Other clothes:
I'm pretty sure I have more fancy clothes that a college student really needs. I have more pajamas than anyone needs. I have a bathing suit, a bathrobe, many hats, and I'm blanking on other categories. Except underwear, but I feel no need to discuss my underwear on the internet.

So why am I posting this? Because it's your turn to chime in. What do you think I need to buy, or, if you think I can make it, do you have any pattern recommendations? This question is directed at anyone with an opinion--you do not have to have gone to college. It would be immensely hypocritical of me to limit opinion-giving to only those people who know what they are talking about, after all! So, ready, set, opine away!

(Now watch this post not get any comments at all..... :P)

Pattern organization

I haven't got very many patterns, but most of the ones I do have are vintage and battered. (I realize I'm making myself out to look like a liar with this picture, in which one pattern is brand spanking new and the other is battered, but not very old at all. These patterns aren't typical!) I keep my patterns in two Ikea boxes on a shelf in my room. I have them sorted by category--dresses, skirts, shirts, pants, children's patterns, doll clothes patterns, and accessories. In the white box, I have the first pattern in each category upright to make it easy to see where each category ends. The blue box is too narrow to hold a pattern sideways, so all the patterns in there are upright.

When I decided to sort my patterns out like this, I had trouble originally. A lot of my patterns fit into more than one category, like my Very Easy Vogue 8562 that I mentioned in this post. This pattern is a dress as well as a jacket. I was initially attracted to this pattern for the dress, so I put it into the dresses section and put a photocopy of the pattern envelope into the shirts section, with a note that the actual pattern could be found among the dresses. I did the same thing with all my other patterns, putting them into whichever category I thought I would be most likely to use them as.

Inside the sections, my patterns aren't organized. I have a terrible time remembering pattern numbers, so organizing them by pattern number wouldn't really help, unless I saw a pattern on the internet or in the store and wanted to know if I had it already. But that doesn't happen very often. Besides, I only have about 50 or maybe 75 patterns--it doesn't take that long to pull out all my dresses, say, and flip through them.

As I get more patterns, I'll have to figure something else out, but for now, this works for me!