My Wardrobe: The Spring Plan

I've been reading about Capsule Wardrobes for the past year or so.  In a nutshell, it's breaking down your clothing into fewer pieces that can be worn in many different, complimentary ways.  I clean my wardrobe every season change (so fall and spring, lol), and always get rid of things that I didn't wear even once the previous season.  I have kept a few black things and a white dress shirt for concert wear and some dresses for "mandatory fun" (i.e. a work dinner with J).  Other than that, I'm down to bear bones.  I am also finding myself being more critical of the things I keep.  Does it fit?  Does it flatter my figure?  Is it comfortable?  Now that we are living in Italy, I am having a terrible time finding things to wear in the stores.  1) I am NOT a mall shopper.  Not even in the US where I have an idea of what stores sell what. 2) The markets sell things, but you can't exactly strip off your current  shirt to try on whatever you are looking at, and there are no returns 3) The NEX has eclectic taste, which does not mesh with mine... to say the least.

This leaves me to sewing for myself (gasp).  So I ordered some fabrics and some patterns and decided to really work on this.  Things I have made before never fit right, or I hate it after one wear.  This throws me into a tailspin of body hate and tears.  Which I then self-talk out of (thank you years of therapy and Dr. Lluy).  It's not the clothes, it's my body.  And it's my body in a kinder sense.  It's my body in that it is unique and fearfully and wonderfully made.  I embrace it's lumps and bumps and curves (and non curves).  And now, my tears will be over adjusting patterns and ripping paper rather than over the parts they are trying to cover.

Okay, on with the show.  There are several different ways to create a Capsule Wardrobe.  I am totally visual, so I decided to try the Soduko method.  In this method, you have a 4 x 4 grid full of clothing.  You have 4 bottoms, 4 tops, 4 shoes, 4 accessories.  You make them fit in this grid and magically, you end up with 10 outfits.  I plan on printing it out and taping it to my wardrobe, lol.  If you look closely, you will notice I only have two pairs of shoes.  That's because I only really wear two pairs of shoes.  I also only used two sweaters. My plan was to make all but one of my tops.  I have one done and spring has sprung, so we will see if I get any more done ;)  I'm okay with this since I'm still parading around the house in ratty clothes that really need to be washed more often than they are because they are warm and cozy ;) I'll let you know!

Outfit 1: Sabrina Slim pants in gray, Margo Blouse in raspberry, navy cardigan, black sandals
Outfit 2: White cardigan, brown sandals, jeans, Margo Blouse blue shirt
Outfit 3: Black sandals, white cardigan, Mama Lauren blue blouse, jeans
Outfit 4: Coral Shirt (no picture), gray skirt, brown sandals, navy cardigan
Outfit 5: Sabrina Slim pants in gray, white cardigan, black sandals, Coral Shirt (no picture)
Outfit 6: Margo Blouse in raspberry, brown sandals, white cardigan, gray skirt
Outfit 7: Navy cardigan, jeans, Mama Lauren blue blouse, brown sandals
Outfit 8: Black Sandals, Margo Blouse blue shirt, jeans, Navy cardigan
Outfit 9: Sabrina Slim pants in gray, brown sandals, Mama Lauren blue blouse, navy cardigan
Outfit 10: Black sandals, jeans, white cardigan, coral shirt (no picture)

My Wardrobe: Sabrina Slim Pants

I finally buckled down, tossed my fears, and attempted a pair of pants for myself.  Baby steps, right? So it needed to have an elastic or yoga band waist, stretchy (i.e. forgiving) fabric and not too many complicated parts.  This is slightly ridiculous because I have done plenty of fitted, non elastic waisted, complicated pants in kid size.  But trying to fit them on myself is a completely different matter.

So, I decided on the Love Notions Sabrina Slims.  I read tons of reviews both online and in sewing blogs and decided they would be a good pair to try.  Plus, I had similar pair that I wore the seat out of years ago, so I figured I already sort of loved them!



I was very studious and created a muslin pair of shorts.  It was from the same fabric type but in this maroon-y color that really did nothing for my legs.  I cut them out, basted them together and threw them on.  I made very fast observations because it was super cold (well, after taking off my purple, paint stained, fleece pants and slippers, anything would seem cold).  Then I tweaked a few things, froze trying them on again, ignored kids pounding on my door wondering what I was doing, threw my hands in the air and decided that was good enough.

And then, I made the real pair.  There are  more things to tweak, namely widening the legs, because I do not really like skinny legged things.  This should solve some of the gathering at my knees.  I really don't want to adjust for a big calf, which is surprising because I have chicken legs. I will probably also remove the back pocket but leave the welt... or make a faux welt because I like that it adds to my pancake rump, but I do not like that you can see the pocket from the outside, and my phone pulled my pants down when I stuck it back there today, so I probably won't be using it anyway ;)  Maybe I should tighten up that elastic a bit, lol

On to the next project... non stretchy pants.  Sigh.

P.S. I would have provided a full body shot, but every picture my husband took had me staring off into outer space.  Except the one of my rear, I have no idea where I was staring for that picture.  Unfortunately, therefore,  I had to cut off my head.  Well, then I was just left with a chest and legs, which looked equally odd.  So, I focused on the legs. You will have to use your imagination for navel north!

Spring and Summer Wardrobe 1

I finished the dresses for the big girls.  I am excited for warmer weather and to see these dresses on them, because, believe it or not, I didn't even stick them on their owners to try them out before sticking them in the wardrobe.

In addition I had to make some unexpected changes.  The serger ate a the top tier on one dress.  The youngest boy chopped up a skirt, thinking it was scrap material.  And Berry informed me that pink is no longer her favorite color.  She now likes blue.








So, I have settled on these five dresses for each girl.  Not pictured is one dress each from last summer that are stored.... somewhere.

So, when you see any of our normal pictures or adventure pictures, don't be surprised if you spy one of these pretties.  I'll let you sort out who's who. ;)

A Sweater

The kids and I read about groups of people who knitted throughout WWI to support the troops.  So, I decided to make this an educational experience and  ordered some knitting needles, some yarn, and a book (I don't recommend the book, just YouTube it, it's free-er).

After figuring out how to cast on and knit a few rows, I lost the oldest.  The others didn't even bother.  But, I found a new hobby :)

I have made several hats, a few dishcloths and countless scraps to try out different needle holds, different methods, and different shapes.  And then I decided to dive into a sweater.  It was a free pattern and I had the right size needles and the right weight yarn (who knew there were a billion different needle and yarn sizes?).  Since Baby Bird is tiny, and has no clothing opinions yet, she is my guinea pig, lol

There are quite a few mistakes, which I will not point out, and if you notice them... shhh!

Quilting 101: Sewing Strips Together

Sew (that's a pun, get it, sew)... it has come to my attention that not everyone knows how to connect two hunks of fabric in order to make a long hunk of fabric.  What?  You may ask.  You know, let's say you need 40 inches of fabric on the edge of a quilt and you have two 30 inch pieces, so you need to combine them to get at least 40 inches.  OR, you want to  make a binding for your finished product.  OR, you're working on some other, completely un-quilt-related thing and you want a stronger bond (like a covalent bond, rather than an ionic bond... both strong, but one, clearly superior)... then this is for you!!!

Option 1:  Sew the two pieces, right side together using a 1/4 inch seam (or 1/2 inch, or 2 inch if you really want to).  You end up with a normal seam.  Ta Da.  Nothing wrong with that seam.  However, it's not a very strong seam, it will rip apart if any stress is put on it (or five year olds play tug-of-war with it) (or your dog/cat uses it as a play toy).

Option 2:  You do a biased seam!!! AKA Slanty seam (yes, that's the technical term).  So, how do you build this super duper strong seam?  Easy.
A) Place one hunk of fabric right side up, horizontally on your work surface.
B) Place the second hunk of fabric right side down, vertically over the first piece.  Line piece number 2's top and right edges with piece number 1's top and right edges.

C)  Get out a small ruler and fabric safe pen (or if you really like living on the edge you can eyeball it at the machine... I'm daring like that... sometimes... okay, not very often, but in this case, yes)
D) Mark from the upper left corner of piece 2 to the bottom right corner of piece 1 (no, I am not left handed, but I wanted the picture to look snazzy and every photo I took with my left hand came out blurry, so my impostor left hand is pretending to do the work, while my right hand is taking a steady photo) (just in case you were wondering)

E) Stitch on your line

F) Trim about 1/4 inch from your line, on the right hand side

G) Open, press

Woo Hoo... you now have a longer piece of fabric than you began with... and it's strong!!!  Excellent for edges, bindings and miscalculations in fabric cutting (not that I have ever done that).

P.S.  Aren't my new floors nice?  Please ignore all the other stuff that photo-bombed the picture :)