Mid-year seems like a good time to assess how my various make-a-long challenges are faring. To spare you having to read my earlier posts, here is a recap of those challenges. For 2018, I decided to participate in Lucky Lucille's #2018makenine challenge and Fringe Association's #summerofbasics challenge. I also had a personal side challenge to #mendofmodifynine this year. The purpose of these challenges was three-fold. First, I wanted to motivate myself to make the time to make/mend/modify things. I really love sitting down and sewing or knitting, but I secretly chide myself for these "self-indulgent" hobbies because I know there are other things I really ought to be getting done. So instead, I find other, less useful ways to avoid doing real work. I figure I might as well make something if I'm going to procrastinate anyway.
Second, I thought this would be a good way to start making a dent in my fabric and yarn stashes. I do not love every piece or skein in there, but I do love enough of it to keep me occupied for some time to come. And I'd like to get to a stash size where buying something new isn't going to be an exercise in guilt and shame, which is the way it is at the moment.
Third, I wanted to challenge myself to not buy any new clothes for at least one year (but hopefully two or more). It isn't so much a budgetary requirement as it is an exercise in controlling my rampant consumption of stuff. I have finally come to see that the bulk of my purchases in the past have been retail therapy rather than actual need. Not that I didn't convince myself that I "needed" something, but really, with time and perspective, I can see that I did not, for the most part.
So how are things going?
- No clothes shopping--I think probably at least eight months have elapsed since I purchased clothing or shoes. I stopped shopping for clothes sort of unconsciously when I started making a real effort to differentiate shopping urges from actual necessity so I don't have an exact start date on that
- #2018makenine--currently, 4 of 9 of my original list are completed. I'm not counting the fifth and sixth because although all the knitting is done, one needs a small modification and the other needs the ends woven in. Those two are both cold weather items so I kind of put them on the back-burner because I was itching to start other projects. I can hardly believe it, but I have also completed other things that were not on my list. (I am practically on fire!) I'm going to consider those things side quests instead of counting them towards my official nine because I'd like to see if I can stick to the original plan by year's end
- #mendormodifynine--I'm calling this 6 of 9 completed so far even though a few of the fixes were really minor, like re-hemming pants that were awkwardly long (I used to shove them into boots so you couldn't tell, but that only worked in cold weather). This number surprises me a bit because I used to be sooo reluctant to fix things. In the past, if it wasn't a super simple fix or something I really, really loved, I would usually quietly retire the item, dismiss it from my mind, and buy something new. I was either extremely averse to fixing things or I was just giving myself excuses to go shopping. The best part of having finally made these fixes is that I've already gotten quite a bit of use out of those salvaged items, so it was absolutely worth my while. Hopefully, these successes will encourage me to continue mending and modifying.
- #summerofbasics--this is something that I'm doing on the QT because I kind of bombed this challenge last year. What I would really like to add to my wardrobe is a casual white summer-weight shirt since it would be so easy to pair with virtually any pants/shorts/skirts I currently have, a nice white silk blouse for those slightly more formal occasions (same no-brainer outfit co-ordination), and the summer dress I meant to make during last year's Summer of Basics, but did not even print the pattern for until now. I'm currently on track to bomb again this year because the only project I started so far was the casual white shirt, which was an abject failure (so many things went awry during that project) and as half of the allotted three months have gone by, catching up seems less and less likely.
4 of 9 completed projects from my #2018makenine list
I have been weirdly disinclined to photograph anything over the last two months so I have been worse than usual at keeping progress photos. Hopefully the photo bug will bite before the year is out so that I can triumphantly post my 3x3 grid of FOs at the close of the year. Assuming.