Cooking Up My Style Recipe

· by | in Me, Process, Wardrobe | tagged , , , , ,

Readers,

Have you ever tried to define your fashion personality and wardrobe style in just a handful of words? Me neither.

At least not till a couple of afternoons ago, when I undertook what I’ve found so far to be the single most important–and head-scratching–exercise in image consultant Imogen Lamport’s 7 Steps to Style program.

Imogen Lamport at her desk - Creator of Inside Out Style

Melbourne, Australia-based image consultant Imogen Lamport.

After months of reading dozens of Imogen’s immensely enlightening (and free!) posts on her blog, Inside Out Style, about figure types, coloring, proportions, color- and value-contrast, and wardrobe-building, I finally took the plunge and bought her program so I could be advised individually and admitted to the Facebook group of sister “7 Steppers,” who encourage each other and offer helpful feedback.

I had gone about as far as I could puzzling out my coloring, figure type, proportions, and so forth on my own but was still perplexed. My closet still has too many wardrobe orphans, and I still sew too many duds.

Uh…Do we have a fitting problem here? (Jack nicknamed this 2013 sewing project “Anoraksia Nervosa.”)

It was time to tap into the knowledge of a pro who had analyzed the figures and determined the coloring of thousands of clients for as close to an objective assessment as I could ever hope to get.

But the subjective assessment was all on my shoulders. In Step 1 of the program, “Personality,” Imogen writes,

During my image consultant training, I had an epiphany. It wasn’t just the shape of clothes that’s important to finding the right styles for each person, but also your personality traits need to be reflected in the clothing, as this is how you will feel the most comfortable and stylish.

“[D]iscovering your personality style,” she continues, “is the jumping off point in my 7 Steps to Style. Without discovering all about who you are and what you love, you’ll never really feel as stylish and attractive as possible.”

This jacket from a 1930s pattern was a technical hit but a fashion miss. That’s a lot of effort to put in for so little return.

And so what occupied me a couple of afternoons ago was, first, taking the Personality Style Quiz, to help determine my preferences for seven styles of dressing: Classic, Relaxed, Dramatic, Creative, Rebellious, Feminine and Elegant Chic.

I appreciated not being confined to one category but choosing qualities I liked from as many categories as I liked and leaving the rest, as if I were filling my plate from a vast fashion “buffet.” I took big helpings from Classic and Elegant Chic, a sizeable portion of Creative, and appetizer-sized servings of the rest. Translated into a wardrobe item my “fashion plate” (ha!) might mean a well-fitted (Elegant Chic) trench coat (Classic) in a nontraditional color like chartreuse (Creative).

The next section, which I also tackled with relish, was answering “What do you love? What speaks to you? Write down the elements that make you excited.”

Let’s see…I love autumn colors, and apple pie, and berets…but not the scratchy wool-blend I used for this capacious coat!

Imogen listed:

  • Colours (Australian spelling)
  • Textures
  • Fabrics
  • Patterns
  • Design details
  • Jewellery (Australian spelling again)
  • Shoes
  • Handbags

To which I added the category

  • Hats

What sewer doesn’t have opinions on these subjects?  The spaces were hardly big enough to list all the colors I crave (Mustards! Olives! Chocolate and caramel browns!),

Wearing some of my favorite colors.

patterns I love (houndstooths, plaids, stripes of every stripe), or design details I adore (buttons and buttonholes, contrast facings and linings). In my self-generated category Hats, typical of an Elegant Chic I listed berets (and typical of a Creative, I own them in many colors).

One of my many berets.

For 7 Steps to Style participants who dress differently for their workplaces than in their personal lives, there’s a section for defining the wardrobe and style requirements for each area. I pressed on to the last section: Create Your Unique Style Recipe.

“By now,” Imogen writes,

you should be starting to get a clearer picture of the styles of clothes you love, the elements of design that excite you, and your personal style. So it’s time to create your Style Recipe–these are the words that help you make decisions about clothes and outfits, whether or not you should keep them in your wardrobe, or buy them at all.

What you’re going to be doing is creating a list of words that resonate with you as a person and how you want to be perceived. A list expressing your authentic and best self that will be used when you shop for something new, or just when you’re putting together your outfit for the day.

This was the most challenging exercise for me as for almost all 7 Steps to Style participants.  How do you condense your tastes and aspirations into a few words? Just start. Experiment with your words, and modify as needed.  As with a recipe, season to taste.

For me, the stumbling block was addressing the question of how I want to be perceived. If you want to see me cock a skeptical eyebrow in record time, tell me to use words like “bold,” “mysterious,” “edgy,” or “powerful” in my style recipe. I guess the problem I have with this is, for better or worse, I can’t control how others perceive me.

However, I definitely see how not understanding the powerful vocabulary of dressing means not being able to create strong, consistent messages through clothes and outfits.

Forget what the color orange is saying about me–what my face is saying is, “Hurry up and take the picture!”

And for a sewing blogger, such a misunderstanding would be pretty ironic.

I decided not to let myself get bogged down in the being-perceived piece of this question and pressed on. I remained curious to see how I could use carefully selected words to make finer distinctions and chart a more interesting, personal–and enjoyable–wardrobe path.

I asked myself, What am I aiming for in my wardrobe? and my answer came back about what I want in my clothes. And that’s when I winnowed several dozen words down to five and came up with my Style Recipe, Version 1.0.

The words are:

  • Crafted
  • Useful
  • Vintage
  • Enduring
  • Surprising

Here’s why:

  • Crafted.  I realized that it really matters to me to make a significant part of my wardrobe. I enjoy nice clothes–who doesn’t?–but when I slide my arm through the sleeve of a coat I’ve sewn, my enjoyment is multiplied.

    I enjoy wearing the “belted topper” I made from an early ’50s pattern.

    It is further magnified when I recall choosing the fabric, conversing with the dealer who sold me the vintage buttons, or solving the puzzles of designing and constructing the garment. Once in a long while a purchased garment approaches that level of satisfaction, but really, nothing compares with the feeling I get wearing something I’ve made.

    This Pendleton jacket from the 1950s that I discovered in a vintage clothing store is beautifully made and a joy to wear.

    (But if I really dislike the process of making some wardrobe items, I’m fine with buying ready-to-wear.)

  • Useful.  Utility should be the bottom line for wardrobe items, right? Yet, how many times have I settled for a wardrobe item that wasn’t useful enough? A scratchy sweater, a shoulder bag that slips, shoes I can’t walk distances in? On the other hand, there are ingeniously designed items that carry usefulness to a new level.

    This early ’50s easy-to-sew weskit with big pockets is stylish, easy to wear, easy to pack, and so useful for holding swatches!

    And there’s another kind of useful–say, a yellow raincoat that keeps me dry but also makes me easy to spot when Jack and I travel.

    Henry VIII may be bigger, but in my yellow raincoat I’m no shrinking violet!

    “Useful” is in my style recipe to remind me to design multiple kinds of utility into garments I sew. And when I shop I’ll ask “Is this useful?” and “How is this useful?”

  • Vintage.  There’s no getting around it: I have a special liking for the styles, silhouettes, and details of many patterns from the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s.  The only time I’m consistently excited about contemporary patterns is when I browse the Marfy pattern company site.
    Sewing pattern Jackets / Shrugs 3223

    When I think of the Elegant Chic style, Marfy patterns come to mind.

    Those patterns come without instructions, which feels scary, but the styles are so enticing I’ll eventually attempt to sew one. Of course, I don’t want my closet to be a costume museum, and it doesn’t have to be. Vintage designs can be adapted, sewn in today’s colors and fabrics and worn in fresh combinations.

  • Enduring. I want to like my wardrobe so much that I would use everything till it fell apart. If not everything in my wardrobe is of enduring design, I will still aim for a much higher percentage. If I want to get rid of an item while it still has much wear left, I’ll want to know what’s unsatisfactory with the object or what’s different in my life now and what would suit my tastes or activities better.

    The weskit? Love. The colors–meh. I can do better.

  • Surprising. I think without Surprising in my style recipe my wardrobe could end up feeling like a bowl of oatmeal: nourishing but not very exciting.

    Flannel pajamas: as exciting as oatmeal. Perhaps pair them with a robe in a fun print?

    Surprising could take so many forms:

    • a classic garment in a nontraditional color (like a chartreuse trench coat)
    • a detail that’s a different size than what’s usually seen (like a large collar or pockets)

      I love the generous-sized collar on this 1959 jacket pattern.

    • a contrast facing for a collar or pocket flap that perhaps only the wearer knows about
    • a clever combination of patterns or colors that “shouldn’t” work–but does

I think of Surprising as the ingredient in my style recipe, like a squeeze of lemon juice, that brightens up the rest of the dish. Surprising is freshness, humor, delight. Whether I’m planning a garment to sew or an outfit to wear, I’ll ask myself where I might incorporate an element of surprise.

Okay, so not every surprise is a good surprise…(from my field trip to The Alley Vintage and Costume, Columbus, Ohio)

Well, that’s the recipe I cooked up on a quiet afternoon earlier this week. After I’ve had my colors analyzed and my figure type identified I’ll evaluate my wardrobe, fabrics, and patterns in earnest. That’s when I’ll really start putting this style recipe to the test.

(Studio photos and the “surprising hat” photo are by Cynthia DeGrand)

What Instructions Will Never Tell You

· by | in Interior design, Process, Sewing Projects | tagged , , ,

Readers,

I don’t think it’s emphasized nearly enough how much this thing we call “sewing” is a process of formulating questions, cracking puzzles, experimenting, course-correcting, and adjusting expectations.

From idea to finished product can be a pretty circuitous route, and I am still surprised how many decisions are required along the way.

Take the shower curtain I made over the weekend.

Clamping a remnant over the curtain rod: Would this be a good shower curtain?

I’d been meaning for months to make one for our remodeled bathroom but had been shying away from actually committing to the project.

The bathroom when we bought the house: Hello 1958!

The remodeled bathroom, in need of a nice-looking shower curtain.

I have dozens of potential projects competing for my attention, and how any one of them finally breaks away from the pack and gets chosen would make a good research project. (I’ll put that on my project list…)

The dining room before we bought the house. We think the couch was placed to prevent innocent househunters from walking out the sliding door and tumbling 15 inches onto the brick patio.

The dining room now, with draperies I made with a Craftsy class taught by Susan Woodcock. Would leftover yardage work for a shower curtain?

Out of curiosity last week I Googled “how to sew a shower curtain” and looked at a couple of sets of free instructions, from Craftsy and from Good Housekeeping magazine.  I’d say the best thing about such instructions is their infectious cheeriness. “It’s easy!” they practically shout, and, in a way, they’re right:

  • Use the curtain liner as your starting point for measurements.
  • Use one extra-wide piece of fabric or seam together two regular widths.
  • Hem all sides.
  • Install grommets or sew buttonholes
  • Hang the curtain.
  • Stand back and admire your handiwork. Aren’t you clever!

In Instruction Land, making a shower curtain is a simple linear process, with one step logically following another till you’re done.

But in Getting Things Sewn Land, making a shower curtain is…well, anything but linear. And I think this is a big reason for my procrastinating on starting practically every project, however straightforward it may appear at the outset.

There’s the image of the dream at the beginning, and the reality of the finished object at the end–and between is the murky middle where I have to figure out what questions even to ask, let alone how to answer them.

I wanted the curtain to extend a little beyond the plastic liner. A pesky detail: How much beyond? Where shall I position my buttonholes?

In Instruction Land it’s assumed that all technical and aesthetic questions have already been settled. What’s left is a simple matter of assembling the parts.

How high or low can I hang the curtain? How much clearance does the rod need?

But in Getting Things Sewn Land I find myself asking technical and aesthetic questions right down to the finish line.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m grateful for the clarity and optimism of Instruction Land. I just have to keep reminding myself, though, that step-by-step, linear instructions represent only part of the process of getting things sewn.

The curtain top reaches the top of the ring: is that okay? Make a sample and check it out.

In my experience real sewing projects are almost always better represented by a diagram starting with a central node with many nodes linking to it to capture ideas and questions first, then decisions and experiments, then more decisions turned into steps.

The curtain sample looks crowded against the rod and inside the ring. Moisture could accumulate and cause a mildew problem.

Part of my hesitation was over whether yardage left from the dining room drapery project would be a good choice for a shower curtain.  (By the way, this is Buffalo Check by P Kaufmann in the colorway Biscuit and it’s 100% cotton.) As I discovered laundering and pressing a sizable remnant, Buffalo Check didn’t retain its crispness and stayed a little wrinkly.  So, not an ideal candidate for a shower curtain.

The buttonholes are positioned closer to the top in the actual curtain.

However, the curtain would not get a great deal of use being slid back and forth on the rod or being splashed, since this shower and tub are backups we use only when we surrender the upstairs bathroom to overnight guests.  The curtain would be functional, but from day to day would be just decorative.

I decided to match the check by hand-slipstitching and then machine-stitching my two remnants. Then I would cut the length of the shower curtain.

Speaking of decorative,I also wondered about the color, pattern, and scale of this fabric working in this scheme.  It can be tempting to use remnants because it’s economical and convenient and can make you feel inventive, but the materials should fit naturally into the visual context, too.

Slipstitching the check for a perfect (I hoped) match.

The colors in the bathroom are cool, but I thought it would be interesting to introduce a warm counterpoint.

When I pressed under the edge of one length, the cotton shrank a little compared to the other length–hence, the puckering.

I was lucky to buy Buffalo Check on clearance for under $6 a yard, so my financial investment would be minimal. I was also hankering to make a little home improvement. So the two 3-yard cuts of Buffalo Check wrapped around the cardboard tube got their work assignment.

Machine-stitching along my hand-basted line.

I made samples to check the size and positioning of the buttonholes and whether my sewing machine would balk at stitching through two double hems overlapping at the upper corners.

I figured out my finished and cut widths and lengths.

I don’t know what went wrong matching the checks. I decided to slipstitch the two remnant lengths together and then machine-stitch the seam.  Okay, so it’s time I learned to use my walking foot to match the checks vertically perfectly.

My pattern-matching left something to be desired!

But whatever caused that horrible slant at the bottom of my curtain? I’ve never made such a big sewing blunder without understanding my mistake. (I still don’t know what happened. Was one cut off-grain?)

The frustrating reality. This is my worst off-grain problem ever.

This is where I had to weigh my options, and Instruction Land was not going to be a big help. I was on my own, making judgment calls in Getting Things Sewn Land.

I debated whether the mistake would be less glaring at the bottom or at the top of the curtain.  I draped the panel over the rod and guessed the bottom.

No, I don’t like this result, but the curtain will be pushed to the side 99% of the time, minimizing my embarrassment.

It was somewhat consoling to realize

  • the curtain would be pulled to one side almost all the time.
  • when it was closed there would be only one person–the one taking a shower–witnessing the error.
  • the witness would almost always be only Jack or me.

So I brought the panel back to the sewing room and finished hemming it Sunday evening without very much satisfaction.

Monday I hung the curtain and steamed most of the wrinkles out with my garment steamer.

The finished curtain. We are not amused.

Maybe it’s my imagination, but even when the curtain is arranged to one side I feel as if I can see that slant, and it  bothers me. So I don’t know how long it will stay in its place. It could be a year or two.  Or ten.

After all, I have a lot of other projects competing for my attention.

The completed curtain in place. I’m okay with it–for now. Just barely.

Book: Let It Go by Peter Walsh

· by | in Process, Sewing space | tagged , , ,

Readers,

I haven’t seen a decluttering book specifically for sewers–yet–but when I came across the phrase “material convoy” to describe “the massive pile of stuff that you collect and carry along your winding journey” in Peter Walsh’s new book, Let It Go I ruefully nodded.

A snapshot of my “material convoy.”

In his latest title the organizing expert addresses the daunting task of downsizing your own home or that of a parent, other family member, or close friend.

I wanted to see which of Walsh’s observations or guidelines might apply to sewers and sewing spaces. Here’s what I found valuable:

  • In Chapter 1 Walsh quotes gerontology expert David J. Ekerdt, “Our possessions are extensions of ourselves. All of these things in the convoy are part of our past selves, but they’re also part of our possible selves. They’re selves I could become, so I hang on to the object to accomplish that.”

Aren’t fabric and patterns seductive, even–or especially–in their pristine state?  Years ago I attended a neighbor’s estate sale that included musty old dressers and file cabinets crammed with at least 1000 1500 patterns from the late ’40s through the ’70s–untouched except by moisture and mold.

What dreams Maureen must have had! But how many remained sadly unfulfilled?

Maureen’s estate contained hundreds of patterns like these, at 50 cents apiece. I limited myself to 12. (Hard!)

Well, of course I can’t say, but I do know the siren call of aspirational buying, and in the end it’s rarely satisfying. I’m sure she never meant for her patterns to be hauled away in grocery bags by eBay vendors.

What steps am I taking to see that my vintage buttons don’t meet a similar fate?

  • “If your home is like most people’s,” Walsh writes in Chapter 2, “it probably contains half-completed projects that the kids abandoned a year ago, an old coffeemaker that you keep in the kitchen, just in case you need it again, a broken printer that holds up the working printer, and gifts gathering dust in cabinets, still in their packages. Such homes are filled with what I call un objects: things that were unwanted and unopened, that go unused, that are unappreciated, or simply unnecessary.”

If I remember only one thing from Let It Go it will be this brilliantly simple concept of un objects. And now I have a new question for myself:

Is this item an un object? 

If I have to ask, probably so.

When I set up this sewing room 3 years ago I saw this baker’s rack as a parking garage for projects. Today I see it more clearly as a graveyard. Now I am limiting the number of projects I have going.

  • “All the stuff you own will fit into one of three categories: Memory Items, I-Might-Need-It Items, and Trash/Recycling. It’s easy to determine where each goes, and this will be your first task when you start doing the hands-on downsizing work.”

You’d be either a genius or a fool to whittle all possible categories for stuff to just three. Walsh is a genius.

  • In Chapter 4 Walsh describes four kinds of Memory items: treasures, which you keep; and trinkets, the forgotten, and the malignant, which you don’t. “Here’s a good rule of thumb: If something makes you smile, fills you with joy, brings back a good memory, and makes your heart sing when you look at it, then chances are high it’s a treasure. If not, it likely isn’t.”

    “Treasure” objects: Souvenirs of Wayward, the vintage haberdashery store in St. Leonards On Sea, a little town on the English Channel.

  • Most things by far might appear to be I-Might-Need-It items, but the only ones you’ll bring to your new home will be the ones he describes as “worthy:” “Your worthy items must have a readily visible purpose in the next stage of your life, and you need adequate space to store them appropriately. You must have a better reason for keeping them than ‘I just don’t feel like getting rid of this yet’ or ‘I can’t make a decision now, so I’ll box it up, take it with me, and deal with it later.'”

    I was going to bind the ragged edges of these towels, but you know what? They would still be old towels. They don’t meet my “worthy” standard. So off they’ll go to the humane society.

  • In Chapter 7, Walsh warns that “Thinking ‘I’ll move this to my new home’ is an overly broad and general statement that discourages downsizing. So I recommend ‘shrinking’ your ‘thinking.’ This means viewing your new home not as one space but as many smaller individual spaces, each of which will be used for a specific purpose. Not only should you break your new home into rooms but you should also consider the spaces within each room.”
  • “You only have the space you have. This is worth repeating, since it’s so important.”

“You only have the space you have.”

Walsh adds, “Accept this fact now or you’ll struggle with it later.”

Walsh recommends recording the measurements of cabinet space, closet space and shelf space as well as the dimensions of rooms and assigning them purposes as crucial steps in downsizing to your new space.

It’s obvious, but I hadn’t thought about this reality check so clearly before:

Do the Math.

“You only have the space you have:” Figuring out the sewing room floor plan in 2014. (It was fun, by the way.)


Walsh is writing about physical space, but it’s occurring to me that I need to do the same with mental space. I can manage only so many sewing projects in my head at a time. Or, for that matter, in a lifetime.

So, of the dozens of sewing projects I could consider, which ones strike me as the treasures? Which, no matter how difficult (or easy) they may be, would yield me and their users the deepest satisfaction? What physical and mental space am I prepared to dedicate to those special endeavors? “Treasure” projects might take a greater investment of resources, but the rewards would be greater, too.

Downsizing can be an intimidating undertaking, but Peter Walsh argues for engaging fully with your stuff to win the life-enriching benefits .  If you follow the Let It Go process, he writes, “You’ll have less focus on the amount of your stuff and greater happiness with the quality of the treasures that surround you. The possessions you carry forward will support your daily activities, bring you joy, resurrect happy memories, say something important about you, and perhaps serve as treasured heirlooms after you’re gone.”

From here on out, when I evaluate my fabrics, patterns, and equipment, I’ll ask myself, “Honestly–is this an ‘un object,’ or do I have a plan to make something wonderful from it?” And when I think about the things I could possibly make, I’ll ask myself which could be the “treasure” projects.

Because this sewer certainly doesn’t have time for “un projects.”

This vintage fabric by Souleiado is one of my favorite possessions, and I want to turn it into something wonderful. I just have to commit to doing the practice runs before I cut into this beauty.

De-stash Follow-up

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· by | in Process, Sewing space | tagged

Readers,

Last Saturday I joined fifteen other sewers in Sew to Speak’s first annual De-Stash on the Lawn yard sale of fabrics and notions.

Apron pockets stuffed with dollar bills and quarters and ready for business!

The weather was gorgeous, and the nearby bustling farmers’ market brought inquisitive browsers and buyers.

As I suspected, my buttons attracted the most attention, and at 25 cents a bag they were priced to go.  They went.

The banana buttons I’d had for 30 years (!) went to a woman who has a banana-themed running joke with a friend and who was thrilled to find them. I think I made her day.

Ribbons, elastics, and fusible web came back home.

My best customers, however, were the other sellers, who browsed tables between sales.  One of them joked, “De-stash and re-stash!”

Nobody wanted the grommets, cording, window shade cleats, gathering tape, weights for shade pulls, or buttons to cover.

I left my post briefly, too. to look at the other sewers’ wares, but since most of those were quilting fabrics and books I wasn’t tempted.  Besides, my purpose in clearing out the sewing room was to make space for new activities, not new supplies.

What sold?

  • Most of my buttons
  • A bolt of fusible hair canvas
  • A thread rack
  • An upholstery stapler that was almost impossible for me to use with my smaller hands
  • Some cheery yellow and blue quilted placemats I bought in France 20 years ago.
  • A tube turner
  • A neon-orange measuring tape
  • A yard of felt used in tailored jacket undercollars
  • A gadget for evenly marking the placement of buttonholes or pleats
  • A darling table runner dating from the 1940s or ’50s
  • Some upholstery tacks
  • A book on making fabric flowers
  • A remnant of perky blue and white checked cotton for tablecloths

Also coming home again were the point turner, gadgets for bound buttonholes, a hanger for oaktag pattern pieces, a needle point tracing wheel, a magnetic wrist pin cushion, and scissors.

I made $28.50 from the sale, but subtract the $12 for the table rental and I actually cleared $16.50.

And then there were the things that came back home.

What will I do with them?

Do you remember where you were when you bought each of your fabrics? I almost always do. These purchases date from 1986 to 2015.

The buttons, gadgets, notions, and yardage would be perfect to donate to The World’s Largest Textile Garage Sale, an annual fundraising event of the Textile Center of Minnesota, in Minneapolis next April. The donation would need to be personally delivered two days before the sale, and I can’t think of anyone better qualified to do the job (–or to attend the sale, of course!).

The shirt I sewed for Jack from this plaid reminds me of our visit to Paron’s fabric store in New York’s Garment District last year. Sadly, Paron’s has since closed.

Then there is every sewer’s dilemma: fabric scraps too small to donate but too good to toss.  They deserve to be used somehow.  I checked my library system for books on using fabric scraps, and requested Wise Craft by blogger and Craftsy designer Blair Stocker for inspiration.

But inspiration can come from anywhere. At lunch I was browsing the Annie Selke catalogue that came in the day’s mail and saw a footstool upholstered with a rug remnant for…$1300! Really?

We have a footstool begging for a new cover, and one of my remnants fits both the footstool and the decor. Put on the shopping list: a better upholstery stapler.

Our sad little footstool…

…could get a nifty (and thrifty) little makeover.

I’ll keep an eye open to dispersing my sewing leftovers wisely, but I’m also going to be more careful about what I let in, in the first place.

Now, a great big tailor’s ham did get past the velvet rope. Tailors’ hams must be my weakness because when my sister pulled this beauty from her stash I whined for it.  She has visiting privileges, however.

Weighing in at an impressive 3 pounds, 10 ounces.

Papa Ham, Mama Ham, and Hamlet.

Also, when she unearthed these woolens from our mom’s stash from who knows how long ago I decided to keep them for wearable test-sewing if not for actual garments.

The De-Stash on the Lawn may be over, but Sewing Room 2.0 continues.

What I gained was much more than a little pocket money.  What else?

  • Shelf space. The sewing and home dec book collections are slimmer and better.
  • Floor space. Worktables can be moved around more easily for big drapery, shade, or lined coat projects
  • Better access to my beautiful vintage buttons.  They were in bags, in boxes, on sheet pans on the baker’s rack.  That was one step too many. Eliminating the boxes and spreading the buttons on easy-to-pull sheet pans–basically shallow drawers–vastly improved accessibility.

    Still waiting for their new work assignment: living room draperies I sewed for our cute little Minneapolis Cape Cod did not transition to our mid-century Columbus house. Yardage could be harvested for new home dec projects.

What did I lose?

  • Some supplies I wasn’t using and had no ambitions to use.
  • Dust bunnies.
  • A lot of visual clutter.

Admittedly, some of that clutter was moved, temporarily, to the guest room, to be dealt with later. Over the next few days I’ll bring back the stacks of pattern folders, unsold fabrics and notions, and a box of clippings to triage.

Sewing Room 2.0 is about creating a space to support the whole range of activities required to create clothing and furnishings that serve Jack and me. When I evaluate those fabrics, patterns, notions, and clippings piled in the guest room they’ll have to make it worth my while to manage them.

And if they can’t serve my purposes, there probably is somebody else, like the lady who bought the banana buttons, who would be delighted to give them a good home.

Bye bye, bananas!

Blinding Glimpses of the Obvious: De-stash Edition

· by | in Me, Process, Sewing supplies | tagged , ,

Readers,

This past weekend I started slimming down my bloated collections of sewing supplies, taking advantage of a “De-Stash on the Lawn” event at Sew to Speak, a local fabric store, this Saturday.

Not only did I discover buttons I’d bought several presidential administrations ago–

Bought about 1991.

Wow.

–I also had some “aha” moments–of such glaring brightness I had to put on those cheap sunglass things I get from the ophthalmologist when I have my pupils dilated–such as:

Out of sight, out of mind. I need visual reminders!

I can get all excited about buying online classes when there’s a sale, and then forget about those resources when I tackle an actual project months later.

A folder labeled “Fun with Fitting Pants” is now parked with my fitting books in my sewing library. It reminds me that I have Sarah Veblen’s online class (PatternReview.com) as a resource.  When the need arises, I’ll print out her downloads to accompany her videos and pop them into the folder.

Folders ready to receive printouts from online classes act as placeholders in my sewing library.

Sewing is an activity that generates leftovers. Unfortunately, they can’t be turned into a pot of soup for dinner or compost for the garden.

No matter how economical and clever we sewers try to be, we always end up with remnants, scraps, and extras. I’m hoping this de-stash event will help redistribute our resources and become a regular occurrence.

Ghosts of shirts past, and ghosts of shirts to come. These loose buttons are now sorted and bagged for easy access. Some are headed for the sale.

Editing my sewing collections is a cinch if I have criteria. Uh–what are those criteria?

I don’t mean “I’ve had that for so long, I have to get rid of it!”

And I don’t mean “I’ve had that for so long, I can‘t get rid of it!”

I do mean criteria based on a solid foundation of current information about my

  • figure type
  • coloring
  • degree of contrast
  • lifestyle
  • tastes and preferences

I realized that my biggest obstacle to getting things sewn was being unclear about all of the above.

As long as I was agonizing over–

“Should I sew this print into a top, or a skirt? Which would be better?

“Is this a flattering color?”

Is this palette from a color analysis 15 years ago still good for me?

“If I sew that, what should I wear with it?”

–my fabrics, patterns, and buttons would languish, unused, which was equal parts horrible and ridiculous.

So I took the plunge to seriously, completely, answer all my fashion and wardrobe questions, which would greatly help me get things sewn.  A couple of weeks ago I registered for a program called 7 Steps to Style, created by Australian image consultant Imogen Lamport, and I’m liking it a lot.

If retrieving an object is difficult, it discourages use.

Loose duplicate swatches and swatch cards were in such disarray I didn’t use them much.

Rings hold swatches of shirts I’ve made for Jack, garments I’ve made for myself, and my stash. See which is biggest?

Several years ago I had puzzled over how to store my vast button collection.  I moved all the loose buttons into cellophane bags. That was a good idea.

Storing the bags vertically in plastic shoeboxes? Terrible!

I could hardly see my beautiful buttons, and I despise filing.

And the rustling of all that cellophane when I pulled or put back any bags was like the sound of dozens of people noisily opening candy wrappers in a theater.  I hated that!

I dreamed of having big, shallow drawers as in a map library or archive where my buttons could be all easily visible.

Then I realized I could achieve my goal almost as well–in minutes, using what I already had.

I roughly sorted my buttons into colors–multi-colored ones got their own category–and spread them out on sheet pans of my baker’s rack.

I’m converting the baker’s rack to mostly supply storage. UFOs are going to be phased out!

Voilà:

Reds, oranges, and yellows.

Greens, blues, and purples.

Browns, blacks, grays, whites

Multi-colored

In two seconds I can pull a pan from the rack. In two more seconds I can be scanning for buttons to scatter on a fabric unfurled on a work table.  And returning items to their homes is just as easy.    Problem solved.

I had started my de-stash project as a way to open up my physical space, but I’m ending by opening up mental space.

I can vouch for the truth of the statement I read recently in that little book, 101 Things to Learn in Art School: “Your studio is more than a place to work. It is a state of mind.”

It’s not just my sewing room that’s getting more spacious–it’s my mind.  And they’re both getting ready to welcome some fresh, new thinking.