Wardrobe analysis

Mr. Low has gone off to China leaving me with plenty of unfilled time on my hands in the evenings and weekends. El Kiddo would rather play video games or read books than go out and you know, do something fun (or even necessary like grocery shopping). So this weekend I found myself in the odd situation of having time to sew without any particular project catching my fancy.

I didn’t have anything to sew.

How could this be? I have a wide array of fabrics in my stash. A late-night sorting session revealed, alas, that most of what I have is not fashionable any longer. The few pieces which are passable are either very basic (teal slinky knit) or something I’m not willing to embark on sewing with at the moment (pin-striped wool suiting). I did a major cull of fabrics and gave a lot away at the Living the New Economy Opportunity Fair, and now I just have the basics left. Sooooo meh.

You’d think a trip to Fabricland would solve this… but no. I spent 10 minutes looking over what F-land had to offer in its mega-sale (50% off… again… yawn). Didn’t see anything that I was itching to bring home, aside from a wool boucle from last year’s stock that has potential… but for what? Which brought me (after hours of Internet surfing for inspiration) to wardrobe analysis. What exactly do I already have, and why can’t I think of anything to sew?

This blog post filled me with hope. And then this worksheet gave me a tool to analyze my wardrobe… or whatever there is that currently fits. It’s evident to me that my new line of work in community development requires a different kind of wardrobe than my past lives as entrepreneur, business consultant and political candidate. I’m also carrying more than ten pounds of extra body weight at the moment because I haven’t been in training for a year and I had some thyroid issues in the summer. In short, while I have some pieces that make my heart go pitter-patter (that I have made or acquired this fall), there are some gaps. Here is my new shopping/sewing project list for fall/winter wardrobe:

• 2 pencil skirts, 1 in medium brown and another in either gray/neutral or something funky like red that I can wear black tops with.
• 1-2 dresses, one that is slightly more business formal, and one which is more casual – maybe I can finally make the elusive shirt-dress look good on me?
• 1 pair of pants – medium brown, not shitty-ass polyester/spandex blend. I have a brown tweedy pair but I need something a bit darker.
• 1-2 woven blouses, not oxford-style, long-sleeved, tuck-in-able
• 1-2 knit long-sleeved tops, could be in prints
• 1 pair pajamas, top and bottom
• 1 night-dress (I have a cheetah-print stretch silk charmeuse which might get tapped for this, although I don’t have a pattern inspiration at the moment).
• 1 pair of comfy “home” casual pants, one step up from sweats but not all the way to jeans.

I will probably also want to buy a new pair of blue jeans sometime soon, probably from Value Village, since my existing pair is wearing away.

I will have to do a similar analysis in March to prepare for spring/summer… fortunately Victoria doesn’t have too sharp a distinction between fall/winter/spring so you can get away with pretty much the same wardrobe from about October until April, with the exception of adding in some brighter accessories. It doesn’t stop raining regularly until May so there’s no point in a wardrobe switch-over until then.