Thoughts on sewing and having less stuff

This isn't a post with a new project in it - it's for me to marshal my thoughts on having too much stuff and how that relates to sewing/crafting/ making (for me at least).

Like a lot of other bloggers (Katie blogged about it here) I read and enjoyed the Marie Kondo book (not an affiliate link so click away!). I was inspired to start clearing out quite a lot of stuff, starting with my wardrobe as she suggests. She says this is a good place to start as you aren't so emotionally attached to your clothes. I'm not sure this is true of people who make most of their clothes but I actually didn't find it hard. 

The pile of clothes that went to charity (and even prior to this I went through stuff fairly regularly - I wouldn't say that this was years worth of clutter that was purged):

A year on, my wardrobe still looks much like it did and my drawers have never been tidier! Its far easier to keep my clothes in order and see what i have.

Since then i have worked my way through books, CDs, fabric and notions, make up and toiletries and paperwork. My husband and daughter are both complete hoarders so i am still working on them although hubby is coming around to it, seeing how much tidier the house is! We have no junk drawers any more and have got rid of a couple of pieces of furniture we just don't need for storage anymore.

Doing this totally hit my sew-jo for a long time though. I don't want to be making 5 new garments a month so I have stuff to blog about and filling my wardrobe back up again.

So i have come up with a plan of how I reconcile my new "less stuff" outlook with the need to still make things.

Unselfish sewing - I have been making more for the small person - costumes, dresses and leggings. I am also planning a jacket for hubby (belated birthday present since he couldn't make his mind up on the colour!).

I am thinking more about what I wear day to day and what I need to fill in wardrobe gaps or to replace things that are wearing out.

I am shopping the stash rather than buying fabric. When I culled a lot of clutter I went through my stash. There wasn't much i got rid of but I love everything left  in there and want to wear it rather than look at it on a shelf!

The same applies to patterns. Rather than jumping at every newly released pattern, I am trying to see if I could adapt something already in the stash to make something similar.

Following on from that, I want to remake more patterns. I have so many that I love and have done all of the tracing adjustments and muslining for but only ever made one version. It's a better use of my limited sewing time to spend less time on the preparation and fitting and more time on the fun sewing bit!

I have never been that keen on making underwear but its.a great way to open up new avenues for sewing, use up scraps and develop new skills!

Instead of rushing through to the end to have a new garment to wear, i will be doing a bit more thoughtful and slower sewing. This will he another way to improve my skills.

I don't normally adhere to the blogging commandment of asking a question at the end of a blog post to encourage comments but I am interested to know what you think! Is minimalism/decluttering just a current first world fad? Have you been inspired by it? Had it changed your outlook on sewing or sewing behaviour?

If you are interested to learn more here are some blogs i have added to my reader as well as the book linked to above:
The Minimalists
Becoming Minimalist
Miss Minimalist
Be More With Less
Zen Habits

The Texan flower frock

So its been a while!

As part of my MeMadeMay pledge (to wear totally me made except underwear), I added that I wanted to make 4 new garments and write 4 blog posts. I always find that however much I enjoy doing something, sometimes I need a push to do it if I haven't done it in a while!

I have been getting into the whole decluttering/ minimalism thing recently (I have marshalled my thoughts into a separate post to come) but overall I want to use patterns and fabric I have already rather than buying more. So this uses a piece of fabric i bought from Joanns when I was in Dallas last year. I met up with Brooke from Custom Style and she kindly took me shopping (and burrito eating), armed with loads of coupons so I could take full advantage of the cheap prices vs the UK.

This is a quilting cotton in a gorgeous dark floral print.  The selvage says it is a Joanns exclusive. I don't have an issue with quilting cotton for dresses but I have generally used "designer" ones. This is definitely less good quality than those. It's much stiffer and I found a few flaws in it (after i had cut unfortunately!). So it needed a pattern that didn't need drape and I chose the Deer and Doe Belladone which i picked up in their Black Friday sale back in November. The a-line skirt works fine in the stiffer fabric.

I didn't realise the hands on waist was causing  back wrinkles and hubby obv didn't notice (grr bad bloggerhusband)

I may be the only blogger who has made this up with the plain back! I had intended to make the open back version but when I muslined I wasn't sure that it was very me. I might make another version for summer with the open back though.

I did my usual round of alternations - a small FBA, lengthening the bodice by 1.5", lowering the bust darts by 1" and lengthening  the skirt by 2". After muslining I lowered the bust darts another 1".  

In the final version, the bodice could probably be 1" longer and the skirt would hit slightly closer to the knee. However it is totally wearable as is and I'll make this change on future versions.

Ignore derpface please

Sorry for the phone pics in this post. On the day we took these we went to Windsor, hubby brought his Go Pro and assured me the pics would be brilliant. However if you have ever seen your backside in a fisheye lens, you'll realise why people normally use them for landscapes! So back up phone photos it is!

It's been a while...

Much longer than I intended but I am back trying to catch up with the huge backlog of things I have to share!

First of all I'm going to share my new season sewing plans.

We are in the process (almost there!) of turning our tiny utility room into a sewing space which is so exciting. Previously I sewed on the dining room table (our kitchen is off the dining room so there's no way to shut the door on any mess) with all my bits and pieces and fabric stuffed in a very full cupboard, so it will be great to be able to have them out. I'm sure it will double my productivity if I don't have to spend 30 minutes digging out a piece of interfacing or the right colour of zip! For this reason I haven't done much sewing for the past couple of months. All my stuff is packed away to keep the dust off it. But I have been planning!

I have had a lot of success in the past couple of years following along with the Fall Essentials Sewalong hosted by Sarah at Rhinestones and Telephones. It works well for me to plan my sewing for the season (actually why don't I do it when there's not a sewalong happening?).  So I am working along with that again.

Here's what I am planning:

Fashionable foundations for frosty weather

I wear my Maria Denmark Paula pleat skirt all the time. It's in regular rotation in my wardrobe and so I am planning another 2. I have navy baby cord and wine coloured twill washed and ready to go.

I also want to make a pair of wide legged trousers so I'll be working on the Pauline Alice Sorell trousers. I hope I can nail the fit as these are pretty much my perfect trouser pattern! I have some grey flannel type stuff in the stash for these.

Chic chemises for cool climates

I have had a breton top planned for ages and bought striped jersey in the Guthrie Ghani sale a while back. This will be massively useful in my wardrobe as my last one died last winter. I'll probably use the Renfrew pattern for this but modified to have more of a boat neck.

I am also planning another Jenna cardie  (I know I haven't shown you the previous versions yet. Stay tuned!). This will be in  teal double knit to replace a RTW one which has developed a huge mystery greasy mark on the sleeve which won't wash out.

Fabulous frocks

My cousin is getting married in October in Scotland.  I want to make a dress for it but haven't chosen a pattern yet. I have a few vintage patterns in mind. I'm looking for a red or burgundy fabric possibly polka dot, but until I find the pattern I won't be shopping for it yet.

Underneath it all

Depending on time and how many knit scraps I find when I clear out the fabric pit... er... cupboard I may make vests or knickers but I don't massively need either so they aren't a huge priority.

Tender tootsies

No socks planned. My carpal tunnel is still playing up so knitting isn't really on the cards just now.

Those cosy nights

Probably the most urgent clothing need - pyjama trousers. I have 2 pairs that are falling into holes.  Planning to use the Maria Denmark Laura lounge pants pattern again but I think I'll extend the waist up to make a drawstring closure similar to my preferred RTW ones.  I've never found ribbing of a quality that I like to make as per the pattern. I need to get fabric for these still.

Baby it's cold outside

I don't need a coat as the one i made last year is still great. But a warmish jacket would be good. I have a lust for a cape but not found fabric or pattern for it as yet.  To be honest this may not be finished by the end of the sewalong and I'm not going to stress myself out over getting it done to a deadline!

That's my plans. 8 items plus the cape, 2 sets of repeats and most from  patterns I have made before and regularly wear so not much fitting required. Other than the potential cape, all are from patterns I already own and most of the fabric is from the stash (to be honest I am getting nervous about sorting out my stash and being able to see how much I actually have - more than I think I am sure!)

Really looking forward to getting into a sewing routine again after a couple of months off. And also getting back to blogging again and showing you all what I have been making. It's good to be back!

Pondering grief and sewing and blogging and probably some other things too

This is one of the top google images for pondering - an awesome pondering baby!

I'm writing this at 4am after having been awake thinking about it for an hour.  Insomniacs unite! It's one of those things I have had half-formed ideas about for a while but never quite felt like putting them down in writing.  I don't know if I will even hit "publish".

This feels like a weird post to write.  Since the sewing category was added to Bloglovin my blog has got quite a number of new followers (welcome - and thank you for following! If you don't blog you may not realise how much that Bloglovin new follower email makes someone's day!) and this seems like an odd post for people to start with.  It's not my usual way and normal sewing-related service will be resumed shortly!

As I have blogged about before, my dad died in November just over a year after his stage 4 cancer diagnosis.  As he lived in the US and I am in the UK, my brother and I had several last minute dashes to hospital to see him.  His death wasn't a surprise - in fact a year of relative health after a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer is pretty good as these things go.

I'm not sure I have had a typical grief reaction in that I have (and still do) feel a bit numb to the whole thing.  According to Dr Google, this is fairly normal and part of the grief process but it doesn't feel like anyone else is grieving in the same way.  I have a family who need things to carry on relatively as normal and a demanding job (where I was supposed to change teams in January but a recruitment issue has meant I am actually still doing 70% of my previous role, which trying to take on a new one which has been exhausting.  For 6 months).  This week was my dad's birthday on Wednesday and it's Father's Day here on Sunday so it's been a tough one.

And unlike other forms of blogging, blogging about dressmaking is tied up a lot in how we feel about how we look.  Serious comfort eating since my dad's diagnosis has meant I have put back on most of the weight I was so happy and proud to lose.  Isn't it annoying when you find yourself becoming a statistic for diet failure? And who wants to put pictures of themselves up on the internet when they don't feel good about how they look?  This post is partly inspired by thoughtful posts from Jo Sews and Karen from Didyoumakethat about body and style changes and also posts from Jo Sews and Miss Demeanor about mental health.  The sewing blogging community is such a positive place and it seems like it is rare for people to admit that they are finding it hard.  Maybe increasing use of Instagram perpetuates that - I read recently that IG is seems as a much more positive place than Twitter as it is full of pretty, carefully chosen images of a moment in time, whereas Twitter is a bit more ranty.  The difference to my mind is that a thoughtful Twitter conversation is a lot more supportive than a lot of IG likes (although IG likes are lovely too, don't get me wrong). But it's hard to talk about feelings on IG when there's no pretty picture to accompany them.

In the aftermath of all of this, my sewing productivity has suffered.  I have definitely been finding it hard to summon up the effort to sew after a day at work and long commute home.  I only realised recently that this sort of lethargy is part of the grieving process.  I have tried several ways to bust out of this - making quick and easy gratification projects - multiple makes of patterns I have already fitted, knit projects, quick to sew projects, all of which have resulted in some great and really useful wardrobe additions.  I am currently wrangling with trouser fitting which has been a slow process, partly because trouser fitting is hard, and partly as I'm not happy with how I look and so I'm not sure I want to wear the trousers right now.  However I am almost there and pretty proud of the end result!

All of which brings me to blogging.  I have quite a backlog of things to show you, most of which need photos.  I think I will have a big photo taking session with hubby and get as many of them photographed as possible to show you and then I can move onto new makes. I have some great summer dresses planned which I can't wait to sew up and wear, and I haven't felt like that about a project since my winter coat!

Sometimes I think we have to force ourselves to get back to the things we like doing and build back up that habit again. For me that goes for sewing and blogging.  I used to be very good at sewing for a block of time each day (even if that was half an hour - it's amazing how quickly garments come together over several 30 minute sessions) but I haven't been doing that recently.  I thought that one day I would just feel like doing it, but I guess it's kind of a habit that I have fallen out of the way of doing.

 As for blogging, I'm not really someone who writes weekly or monthly round ups of what other people are doing/ sewing or shopping links just to have something to post on a particular day.  My favourite blogs post when they have something to say or show, rather than posting on a schedule that it says you should have in some blogging guide or other. That's not really going to change around here - I'm not one of those bloggers like Karen or Gillian who has great ideas of topics that the whole community responds to and ends up writing their own blog posts about.  So I'll get back to showing you my self-made garments and hopefully hearing your thoughts, feedback, ideas and comments on them.

Have you ever experienced a lack of desire to sew or take part in another favourite hobby even though you know you love it?  Any tips for getting back into it you can share?

Me Made Everyday!

I hope you all had fun in Me Made May.  I didn't use the Flickr group this year as I have got into Instagram (you can find me on there @jolittletime), but I loved seeing everyone's self made garments being shown off on IG!

I did pretty well with my own pledge (just don't mention that I was meant to have made trousers - I'm working on it OK?).  I wanted to see how far i would get without repeating a garment and did pretty well - my first repeat was on 23rd May.  If the weather had improved and I could have rotated in a few of my more summery items I might have gone all the way to the end.  Still, there's always next year!

I blogged about how much I like this aspect of sewing last year and on Twitter we discussed using the hashtag #memadeeveryday to share outfit photos on IG and Twitter.  I noticed a few more people talking about carrying on photographing their me-mades in real life now that May is over so I thought I would revisit it.  There's no rules, no need to do it 7 days a week, get any kind of fancy photos, or even photograph at all if you don't want to!


The lovely and very talented Katie of What Katie Sews made a blog badge you can grab below or from my sidebar.  Feel free to share it on your blog or whatever social media floats your boat!

Hope to see your me-mades in the wild the rest of the year too!

<a href="http://somanypatternssewlittletime.blogspot.co.uk/2014/06/me-made-everyday.html"><img src="http://i268.photobucket.com/albums/jj34/JoanneMack/memadeeverydaybadge.png"></a>

PS Did you see that there's now a Sewing category on Bloglovin?  See Oona's post about it here and add your blog in so that people can find you more easily!

In for MeMadeMay

Almost missed signing up this year - April has gone by so fast!

I have struggled with pledging this year as I wear me mades most days anyway and since I wear a lot of dresses it tends to be a whole me made outfit. I do want it to be a challenge so I have decided to tackle my sewing nemesis - trousers!

So here goes:

I, Joanne from Sew Little Time pledge to wear at least one me made item a day for the duration of May. I will also make a well fitted pair of trousers during the month.

I'll be posting outfit pics on Instagram daily (I do this anyway when I am wearing mades, under the #memadeeveryday hashtag). You can find me on IG as @jolittletime. There will be a round up post or two throughout the month but I'll be trying to catch up with the big backlog of items I have waiting to be blogged.

Are you joining in this year? I feel like I haven't seen as many pledges as usual on blogs. Good luck if you are!

Don't look back...

... in anger I heard you say.  

Now that you've got that earworm, let's pretend you are reading this post in early January when I meant to write it rather than the end of January when I actually did.

I was going to write a nice post about top 5 hits and misses and so on, but then I realised - I don't want to look back at 2014 in great detail. It was a crappy year for me personally. My dad was diagnosed with cancer at the end of 2013 and  died in late November. Hence the big blog gap and the lack of interest in reviewing the year.

So I'm looking forward at 2015 instead!

There were some good things about 2014 I am going to bring forward:

Wardrobe architect was great! It really helped me to define and refine my style and colour palette. But I struggled when it came to the final task of creating a capsule wardrobe. I think this is because I don't like the idea of a few mix and match pieces. I'm not someone who buys a couple of great quality investment pieces each season. So I'm enjoying the understanding of colours, prints and silhouettes that I gained without making a specific sewing plan out of it.

I loved Marie from A Stitching Odyssey's vintage sewing pledge (pics of my finished garments are at the top of the page). I managed 4 out of the 5 I pledged and the items I made are in pretty heavy rotation in my wardrobe. It's made me very keen to work with more vintage patterns and I have signed up again for this year to make 5 items. And a few new vintage patterns may have fallen into my Etsy cart!

This year WILL be the year I conquer trousers. The fear I have of fitting them is stupid and if I can make bound buttonholes and welt pockets, I can make trousers! I am starting with the Sew Over It Ultimate Trousers so I can get a steer on fitting without worrying about a fly front, and moving onto Colette Junipers. I also want to give jeans a go, so I have the Iconic Patterns Jess jeans and the Jalie pattern to try.

This year I am going to revisit some of my favourite patterns I have made in the past. I've done all the fitting and muslining work already so I can concentrate on the fun bit of sewing and wearing! In particular the Emery, Mortmain and Anna dresses really lend themselves to pairing with different skirts to make a new look with minimal fitting effort. The bodice from my Christmas dress was pretty awesome too.

I am planning to sew up fabrics from.my stash. This isn't a stash diet, but I have some really lovely fabrics that I want to use before I buy much else. The exception to this will be knits as I really don't have any stashed.

So no specific plans that I won't stick to beyond the next couple of garments.

Hope your new year has started well. Are you planning for 2015 or going with the flow?