Still Alive and a Give Away

Hi everyone (she says, optimistically hoping ‘everyone’ hasn’t given up on her!). Boy I’ve really missed sewing and blogging the past few weeks. We have had a big couple of weeks at work, where everyone from our offices all around the world have flown in. We have had our staff conference, days on end of presentations and meetings, all culminating in a big industry event all day today. The preparations have been enormous and my section I have to say has been pretty hard hit, being responsible for providing statistics, performance figures and other information that’s needed to all these presenters – nightmare. That’s not to mention we are two people down in our team and likely to stay that way, thanks to budget cuts (don’t you love a change of government?). Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I was interviewed for my job last week! I am reasonably confident having actually done the job on contract for the past 7 months, and it will be nice to have a permanent job, but it is an extra stressor in my life that I would rather not have! So I apologise but I have just been TOO TIRED to blog (yeah yeah poor me – I do realise there are a lot of people worse off than I am, so don’t think I am a martyr!).

Anyway, I have been doing what I can, when I can – usually half an hour here and there so I have a couple of almost finished projects that I will be able to show you soon. I’ve also been planning again. Summer is coming (although you wouldn’t know it by the mild and rainy weather) and I have nothing office appropriate to wear.

I’ve recently been reading Jennifer Skinner’s blog ‘The Very Small Closet’, and I really like her ideas. You can get the full run down at her website, but essentially it is based around individual outfits, rather than fully interchangeable separates. This idea works for me for a couple of reasons:

• I wear different styles of tops with different bottoms – for my body shape an empire line works with straight pants, a fitted T works with wide pants or a-line skirts and fuller styles of top work tucked into a pencil skirt.


• I get bored really easily - I love bright colours but in small doses. I want green and coral and aqua and teal in my wardrobe but not together! In this plan I can have a wide variety of clothes that don’t have to all coordinate – as long as I can make two outfits from each bottom garment.

However, I still love looking at other people’s SWAPs!

So the very small closet principle consists of six bottoms, each with two tops, and up to six layering garments (jackets, cardigans or whatever). I will add to this three work appropriate dresses. This will give me three working weeks of outfits without repeating – that’s good enough for me! I have been through my existing clothes and thrown away everything that’s trashed, given away everything I hate, and packed away everything that I love but is too small (a depressingly large pile!) and I have pulled together enough outfits to start along with a clear list of priorities that need replacing!

It’s working pretty well so far and I kid you not when I say I am getting out of the house at least 15 minutes earlier every morning! I won’t be able to sew on a whim so much, but then I shouldn’t end up with so many orphans either. This plan doesn’t include casual or special occasion clothes, which I also need so I will definitely be busy! It will also keep my storage needs under control as it’s a one in – one out kinda deal. I am just hoping that work settles a bit soon and I am having some time off at Christmas so as always I’m optimistic.

Finally, I have a give away. I’ve noticed a few of these cropping up around the place and I am such a joiner! Australian Stitches is the one sewing magazine that’s easy for me to access. Burda is quite exclusive (I have to go out of my way to get it) and Patrones – no way (I’ve never even seen one in real life)! Each issue I buy comes with extra magazines and since I’ve been reading it for so long I generally already have the bonus issues. Here are two extra copies that I have and I am more than happy to find them a loving home. Simply leave a comment and I’ll draw a name at random on Tuesday night, the 2nd of December my time (which is 9 hours ahead of GMT – you do the math). I’ll cover postage to wherever in the world the winner is from so don’t be shy – I’d love to hear from you.