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I am a hoarder. I admit it… I am one of life’s collectors, keepers, not throw away-ers and I’m starting to tire if it. I have begun to get excited about the idea of SPACE NOT…
WIP Wednesday - Overhauling my wardrobe, and finally posting about it
This is something I've been thinking about and working on for about a year now, and it felt like time to finally get all my thoughts into one place and out into the open. Click the Read More if you want all the history and thought process behind the overhaul. The short version: seasonless strega fashion in earth-tone solids, layered princess seamed dresses with high-low hems with asymmetrical layering underskirts, made from natural fabrics, accented with silver jewelry and leather boots and a practical bag. An adventuring fairy tale girl layered up and ready for anything.
Thanksgiving 2013, my husband and I flew from sunny southern California to snowy Michigan for a family reunion with my dad's side of the family, many of whom we hadn't seen since our wedding almost eleven years earlier -- before I was seriously sick. We were only going to be gone a few days, with long days of traveling on either side, and I needed to be put together enough to hang out with uncles and cousins and in-laws, and yet comfortable enough for long days of lounging inside and lots of food.
I struggled with what to pack, since my wardrobe consisted mainly of comfortable ratty things to wear around the house, and a few nice outfits to change in to before leaving the house, which I only do once or twice a week. The 'nice' outfits felt like costumes I put on so I wouldn't look as sick as I am, and while there are a couple of pieces I really like, none of them really felt like me. And those 'nice' outfits weren't really meant to be worn for more than an hour or two, since I'm rarely out of the house for longer than that.
I ended up pulling together two skirt + sweater combos and a dress + cardigan outfit, with tights, boots, and multiple layers of socks for each. Over the weekend, I found myself gravitating towards the dress (my River Song dress), as it was more comfortable while still looking put together. I started to think about putting together more travel outfits like that dress, easy to wear and comfortable but still 'nice'. Christmas was similarly difficult to pack for (if less complicated since it was just hubby and I, @jezunya, and our parents, from whom we inherited this wacky joint disease, and so who generally get it), and the idea of a travel-ready wardrobe started to really take hold.
At the beginning of this year, with that thought starting to percolate, I ran across Coletterie's Wardrobe Architect series, aimed specifically at sewing a cohesive capsule-style wardrobe, full of things you'll actually wear, that actually fit your life and your body as it is now and your tastes and favorite colors and all of it. And yeah, looking in my closet, I definitely have a lot of disconnected pieces, a lot of things that I liked as a one-off but had never tried to fit into a larger wardrobe.
The first week of the Wardrobe Architect series focused on "making style more personal" and included some really well put together exercises to get you thinking about how your history, culture, location, etc, contribute to and shape the fashion you wear. But my knee-jerk reaction to the questions was I don't need to do this. My history doesn't affect my fashion at all.
That thought stalled me out for awhile, so I took some time to examine it, and why specific sections -- History, Activities, Body -- were in particular difficult to think about. My adult life has been largely shaped by my illness, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, and the chronic pain, chronic fatigue, and other symptoms that go with it, often in ways that are completely overt -- I lost my career to it four years ago, after a decade of fighting to keep working, even part-time. When I was working, I certainly tried to dress a certain way, and the indoor/outdoor wardrobe separation started during the years when I was consulting and contracting from home and only rarely meeting clients face to face. During those years, my 20s, I tried to mold my fashion towards some variation of girl geek -- unnatural hair color, snarky tshirts, cyberpunk influences, lipstick gamer, I went through several phases, all while keeping my uniform pretty solidly to tshirts and jeans, with the occasional black skirt. But as my joints started to hurt more, jeans became less of an option, and my staying-home wardrobe started to grow.
But looking back, my childhood was also influenced by the genetic disease I didn't yet know I had. I associate playground games like RedRover with my elbows hurting and jungle gyms with my hands feeling over-stretched and clumsy. I loved being outside, but I was never going to be athletic or coordinated (poor proprioception is a symptom of EDS, turns out). I was raised by a pair of geeks who read me series like The Belgariad and The Chronicles of Amber before I started grade school. Some of my earliest memories involve watching my parents set up for a late night D&D party before being ushered off to bed; I was so short, my line of sight was even with the table top, with all the dice and painted figurines, and I remember being captivated. Another early memory involves me pretending to be Tinkerbell to my teenaged uncle's gracious Peter Pan. Those are the parts of my childhood that really stuck with me, and have stayed consistent into my 30s now.
When I first retired/became too ill to work, at the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011 -- back when I was still calling it a 'sabbatical' -- my style had started to drift towards a Zooey Deschanel-esque retro type look. After years of short hair, I started to grow it out again, and kept it that way when I found that wearing it long and curly let me go longer between showers, which were getting increasingly difficult and monopolizing of my 'spoons' -- dry shampoo and hats worked better on long hair than short, for me. Pants of any kind were pretty much off the table by this point, my hips and knees too tender and too prone to dislocation to deal with fitted material, so skirts were a natural fit. And I found that petticoats could make up for a lot of uncomfortable seating out there.
While retiring was absolutely the right thing for me to do (deadlines and my health simply do not mix, nor stress and my health), I suddenly found myself with my days freed up and directionless creativity just piling up. For a decade I'd worked in a high pressure creativity-on-demand career, and it was hard for my brain to just suddenly stop that daily output just because my body could no longer keep up. One of my longer contracting jobs, during a bit of a remission in my illness, exposed me to a great deal of mainstream designer fashion, and unleashed a shoe fetish I never knew I had. With all of that boiling around in my head, I started following sewing blogs like Coletterie and Gertie's Blog For Better Sewing and others like them, and even attempted my own sewing blog at one point (which I know is old and dead and missing photos, pardon the dust, but it's mostly an historic record at this point), and started sewing in a much more retro-inspired direction than I had ever explored before.
But over the last four years, that retro-inspired look, with curled hair and trimmed bangs and winged eyeliner, became more of a costume that I put on for the rare times I left the house, and not something that was truly me. I realized that in a lot of ways, the lady-like, almost porcelain doll look I'd fashioned only emphasized my own bodily frailty, and did nothing to compensate for it beyond not pressing on my joints as jeans and trousers had.
In late 2011, I sewed a floor-length jersey maxi skirt, along with a couple other knee-length skirts. The knee-length skirts became "outdoor" pieces, but the maxi skirt quickly became daily at-home wear, since it felt more like clothing than sweatpants. In mid 2012 I fell in love with River Song's Day of the Moon dress, and made my own version for Dragon Con 2012. I took a princess seam pattern I had previously modified to fit my bust-to-waist drop -- 10" difference over less than 4" of vertical height, bust to waist, which makes finding anything that fits off the rack basically impossible and was largely the reason I learned to sew -- and used that as a rough guide to draft the bodice for the River Dress, and completely free-handed the skirt and all the details. It was one of the first patterns I'd drafted largely from scratch, and the shape, princess lines with a full skirt, was so comfortable that the River Dress entered daily circulation for at-home wear as well -- at least until the next summer, 2013, when the polyester twill I'd used started to become unbearable in the southern California heat.
So by the time I traveled to Michigan for Thanksgiving 2013, the retro porcelain doll look was starting to feel decidedly not-me, and even with the few options I managed to put together, I still gravitated towards the River dress. When in January 2014 Coletterie started posting the Wardrobe Architect series, I was ready for a change. And in examining my knee-jerk reaction to the questions of how History, Activities, and Body influence my core fashion, I came to a couple of interesting and, frankly, freeing conclusions.
The first was that I have to stop dressing up to spare other people a clear view of my illness. A little coverup over under-eye circles is one thing, but I had to stop doing this thing where I wouldn't feel comfortable leaving the house if one hair was out of place. It was a security blanket that had quickly become a security anchor and I needed to cut free. I had to stop acting like fragility was a trait I chose to have, rather than something illness forced on me. And twee was really just not me.
Second realization was that I actually do have a core style, stretching all the way back to preschool. I remember my favorite dresses from kindergarten and first grade, and both of them were my favorites because they reminded me of the SCA tunics we weren't allowed to wear 'just because'; my 'princess dresses'. In middle school I wore short dresses with leggings and slouchy leather boots, in high school skirts that reminded me of this or that character, all very romantic and flowy. I learned to sew and designed and made three prom dresses, all of them princess-seamed and fairy tale inspired. That's what feels most ME. And I don't have nearly enough of it in my closet right now.
Third, it would save me a lot of stress to have one wardrobe, not the indoor/outdoor separate wardrobes that I've evolved over the last several years. Things that are true to my core style, comfortable enough to wear at home even into the evening, but that look enough like real clothes to wear out. All tailored to fit me and to work around my most painful joints. And pockets. Pockets in everything.
The fourth realization was really the doozy: as a retired full-time disabled person with limited demands on my attention outside of the house, my fashion doesn't have to conform to anyone else's ideas. I am answerable to no one! A bit like HaaH wrote about depression, it's weirdly freeing, kinda makes you feel invincible.
So, okay, if I can wear anything I want, provided I sew it to my bodily specifications, what do I want to wear? Week two of Coletterie's Wardrobe Architect focused on "defining a core style". Realizing that I had a thread of a core style reaching back to before I started kindergarten was a jumping off point. That style has always revolved around fantasy books and fairy tales and adventurers and whatever fantastical story had captured my imagination most recently, and still is. But I'd never tried to put a name to it, so looking for inspiration pictures stalled me out for a bit.
After many (many, many) Google searches and Tumblr tag searches of every related term I could think of, in late January I came across a Japanese street fashion/subculture called mori kei, or roughly 'forest style', outfits constructed around the idea of a fairy tale girl living in a little cottage in the woods, with layers and romantic fabrics and sturdy shoes and bags. It was the closet I'd seen to what I was thinking, and after some additional digging, I found the more westernized dark mori, which has more of a goth slant. Between the two, I was able to start gathering some inspiration pictures, finally, The summer of 2014 saw the rise of 'strega fashion', mostly coalescing from other people who frequented the mori kei and dark mori tags, so I felt like I got to see the birth of it up close and personal. Strega fashion is finally a label I feel like I can apply to my aesthetic without reservation.
With avenues for inspiration pictures open to me, for awhile I just saved pictures with reckless abandon (yes, I was born in the 80s, I still use my phone as a phone, and never quite got on board with Pinterest) until I started to see some patterns emerge. Big skirts and asymmetric layers, solid earth tones, natural fibers and leather, seasonless mix-and-match. Still a definite fantasy and fairy tale influence, but also post-apocalyptic and 'misplaced time traveler' influences.
I know from experience that princess seams look best on me and work well with my illness problem areas -- tender hips, knees, elbows, shoulders, and ribs, and nausea and bloating that can make waistbands difficult. And I have a master pattern I know fits my weird shape, so win/win. While I would like to make another dress or two from the River Dress pattern, with drop-waists and huge skirts, for most of my dresses no waistline will be preferable, and the gentle flare of an A-line princess seam dress will be enough skirt for good swish and comfort. Also: pockets.
Finally I started sketching, and what emerged was the idea of layered princess seam dresses, skirts, and tops, in wovens and knits, natural fibers as much as possible. Soft over-sized leggings and socks and the practical boots I got for my birthday this year and have worn nearly every day since, to keep my oft-chilled feet and legs warm, and cardigans and other layering pieces on top. I played around with skirt length for awhile, but in the end found that a hem that hit at about mid-thigh in the front and back of the knee in back was a really good look for me (at 5'2" anything that makes me look taller is a win) and very comfortable, since it has none of the short-skirt drawbacks, with the back length. I made one as a wearable muslin in July and August, and an underskirt to go with it, and wore it excessively during the hot months of the so Cal summer.
I made a few adjustments to my master pattern after making the dress, but clearly it was an instant favorite, and I want one in each of my core colors, in rayon jersey and challis and linen, just as fast as I can sew them. (Which turns out to not be that fast, given my health the last few months, but my brain is miles ahead of my body, as ever, and I've learned to be gentle with myself. Deadlines and I don't mix. I'm not keeping anyone but myself waiting, and it's not like I'm clothes-less in the meantime.) Weeks three and four of the Wardrobe Architect series were on 'exploring shapes' and 'building silhouettes', which flowed naturally with my thinking. Initially I had been leaning more towards tops and skirts as my 'uniform', but the success of my brown linen wearable muslin has swayed me back to dresses.
Weeks five and six of the Wardrobe Architect series were on 'your color story' and 'organizing your palette', which pushed me to finally codify what colors I actually like to wear. I'm really not one for prints, never have been, outside of maybe a small calico floral or a subdued paisley as an accent piece. I like plaids in moderation, and have found I'll wear slightly more saturated colors away from my face than I'm comfortable with in a top. By looking honestly at my closet, the things I wear and the things that rarely leave the hanger, I came up with a set of solids I'm really happy with. I used pictures of fabric rather than flat colors, because I couldn't seem to visualize with flat colors.
The palette I settled on, left to right: black, charcoal, mist, white, eggshell, natural, cognac; wine, sapphire, slate, olive, leaf. Cognac is mostly reserved for accessories, like the boots linked above, and wine and sapphire are my statement colors, such as they are. I feel more comfortable with the remaining colors closer to my face.
From there the Wardrobe Architect series goes on to talk more about organizing your palette, but because I want a seasonless wardrobe (and so therefore no separate spring and fall palettes) and because I don't really do brights, there isn't much organization to do. The week after was solids and prints, and I am definitely in the solids camp. A nice bit of texture is enough excitement for me, lol. Plaid if I'm feeling really feisty. ;)
Week 8 of the series was on beauty as it relates to your wardrobe and your overall style. Since stepping away from the retro porcelain doll look, my beauty routine has fallen into place fairly naturally, mostly just by taking the path of least resistance. I let my bangs grow out for a few months, then got my once-yearly hair stylist cut and had my stylist blend the bangs back in. Even after the trim, my hair is down to my waist when straight, and just below my bra strap when curled the way I like it. I kept doing rag curls after showers through this fall, but a month or two back I figured out a way to wet-set my hair without rags and get exactly the curls I want. It makes the process of 'putting my hair up' to dry after a shower much faster and easier, and require far fewer tools, and is easier on my ends, so all around win. I may do a photo post on it at some point just to show off the technique, I'm so happy with it.
My makeup routine has similarly simplified, especially now that I'm not trying to do winged eyeliner before leaving the house, lol. If I'm staying home, I don't wear any makeup at all, and on the days I do go out I tend to go with a pretty natural look, just cover-up and blush and mascara. Now and then I'll do heavy eyeliner if I'm feeling like it, but usually I stick with the natural look. The beauty post talks about identifying a signature look in your beauty routine, something that is consistent across multiple outfits. For me, it's long blonde mermaid-style hair, curly with tapered ends; natural make-up plus/minus eyeliner; Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfumes*; the TARDIS charm on a black leather necklace I always wear; boho jewelry; practical boots and bags. All of which fits with my overall style angle of strega fashion, an adventuring fairy tale girl layered up and ready for anything.
(*I'm currently really enjoying Deep In Earth and Jazz Funeral, and have like seven more scents on my Christmas wishlist, all forest-y: Strangler Fig, Bohun Upas, Deathcap, Yggdrasil, Bewitched, Black Forest, Pontarlier. Yeah this might be an addiction. But on the plus side, they'll take up less room than a shoe addiction would have, had I let myself give in to that one.)
Weeks 9, 10, and 11 focused on building the actual capsule wardrobe, using all the information you'd gathered about yourself to that point. I've largely been stuck on this step all year, working through the research and development of what I want my signature look to be. I initially planned on having skirts and tops as my primary 'uniform', with dresses as a back up alternative, but after making a muslin of my master pattern, I'm completely won over to dresses. That and the lack of a waistline in a princess-seamed dress, as the IBS parts of my illness can often make those difficult.
With that silhouette solidified, once I was recovered enough from Dragon Con to start sewing again, I moved on to knits. I want a combination of knits and wovens in my wardrobe, while avoiding polyester as much as possible, and I've just fallen in love with rayon jersey. I found a basic eggshell colored 100% rayon jersey at JoAnn's (which I'd link to, but they don't have on their webpage, for reasons I will never understand) and went about drafting a knit dress pattern from my wovern dress pattern. I took out the back zipper and removed ~25% of the waist measurement (25% negative ease) while keeping the shoulders more or less where they were.
I got that cut out of the eggshell rayon jersey the week of BlizzCon, but then caught the BlizzCon Crud (and I didn't even go!), which took me out for the count for a week or ten days or so in the middle of November this year. That gave me time to read up on sewing knits without a serger, and time to stress about it, and time to put off sewing because I was stressing about it, lol. When I finally sat down and started sewing it, it went together like a dream, no problems at all, the whole thing done in a couple hours, even at my slow speed. Just today I got a twin needle so I can finish the edges, but as a muslin it was another total success. It fits well, needs just a little adjustment to the back of the skirt, and it's ready to be cut out again and again.
My plan is to make these two master patterns, knit and woven, up in multiple colors, all with the same style lines. I went to Fabric.com and found a sapphire, olive, and charcoal I'm happy with, to go with the eggshell that's nearly finished, all in rayon jersey. With how fast the eggshell wearable muslin went together, I'm really hoping I can get dresses made up in each of these three before Christmas, so I can have good lounging dresses for bumming around my parents' house, watching movies and playing games and eating too much food. But we'll see if these new fabrics are as easy to sew. Fingers crossed.
Beyond the fairly urgently needed knit dresses, I'm going to try to clean out my fabric stash before I buy any new fabric. Earlier this year I went through the cedar trunk where I keep my fabric stash and narrowed it down to fabrics within my color palette, with enough yardage to make a dress or skirt out of, but I still have a lot of fabric to go through. Next up I'm going to draft an overdress pattern from my master pattern, using the same style lines with different armscyes and a slightly shorter hem and slightly lower neckline, so the underdress(es) shoes through. Everything with enough yardage will become a dress or overdress, and everything else will become underskirts for layering. It'll be fun to figure out what to make with all the miss matched pieces I have. I have a piece of mist gray wool and a piece of wine red velvet that I think will each be big enough for overdresses, and if I could get those done before Christmas that would be amazing. No deadlines, but the more traveling clothes the better.
Picking back up with Week 12, which was on accessories, and this is another area that I feel like I have fairly well in hand. Cloverfield, of all things, instilled in me a desire to always wear practical shoes, and since my illness makes my toes perpetually cold and prone to dislocation with any sort of heel height, I've gravitated towards boots with a low heel that I can hide thick wool socks in, even in the summer. The pair I mentioned before, that I got for my birthday this year, have become my go-to every day wear, and IMO look really cute with the high-low hem of my dresses. At home I wear ballet slippers with or without socks, but for leaving the house, if I'm not wearing the brown boots, I'm wearing the pair of La Canadienne Stephanie black riding boots I got for Christmas a few years back, or basic black Converse. I've somehow managed what was turning into a serious shoe addiction into a desire to have only exactly the right shoes, perfect for me, and no others. I have a few other pairs in my closet currently, but those three are my core shoes: brown boots, black boots, black Converse.
As far as other accessories, I have a suede purse I made years ago (out of scraps from a suede costume piece I'd made my hubby even more years ago -- jeez I'm old, lol) that is on its last legs, but I still like the concept of it -- practical, soft walled, black leather, slight kidney bean shape, cross-body, one bag for everything, big enough to fit a handicap parking placard in, along with all the other necessities. I'm hoping to remake this in heavy hemp canvas and leather some time next year, hopefully before my current one gives up the ghost. In there I also keep a pair of classic Wayfarer sunglasses that I borrowed from my hubby and have since become my signature.
For less functional accessories, I have a couple pieces of jewelry I rarely or never take off: my engagement ring (stopped wearing the wedding ring with it a couple years back, don't miss it), a white gold vines and leaves ring my husband gave me a decade ago on my right ring finger, the silver TARDIS charm he got me last Christmas on a black leather cord necklace, and my silver cartilage piercing. Even at home, I always wear those pieces. When I leave the house, I often add a collection of beaded and leather bracelets, some of which I made, two on the left and three on the right, and sometimes add silver thumb rings as well. I have one pair of silver dangle earrings I really like, very strega, but wear rarely, and a collection of floppy hats I've knitted specifically for bad/dirty hair days. And a soft black leather jacket with big silver zippers that I love to death. Hopefully all of these will show up in outfit posts soon, once I get enough of my wardrobe together to start showing it off.
And with that, I should probably get back to sewing. This wardrobe ain't gunna make itself. Thanks to anyone who read this far. ;)
I have gotten a note from Coletterie to remove their content, so now it has been done. You can still find all of their wonderful tutorials and blogs posts over on their page, but alas I think the snippets are gone into eternity :<
This is a video and photo tutorial for installing an elastic waistband. The tutorial is for a specific dress, but the technique should apply to any project. There are instructions for both knit and woven fabrics.
So the Wii U takes forever to set up, so I got almost nothing done sewing- or knitting-wise yesterday. I did watch one episode of True Blood waiting for Boyfriend to get home, and I did finish the foot of the sock for Father's Day socks, but that was only about 20 min of work.
Hopefully going to finish the Mabel skirt today after work. I get to leave early because of Tumor Board (working lunch is free lunch and leave-early lunch!) so I'll have a smidge more time. And if I don't finish it, I'll have tomorrow morning to catch up! Yay for weekend!! :)
When you understand what works for you, it’s easy to start looking good … every day
My newest book in my sewing library is Looking Good…Every Day by Nancy Nix-Rice (Palmer/Pletsch Publication). I have just got it and starting to browse through all topics.
“When you understand what works for you, it’s easy to start looking good … every day!”
Instead of just one fabric for the dress, I decided that I wanted white at the top and then the rest in a lovely sage flower fabric that I had got hold of.
I started off cutting out the white pattern pieces.
I then planned out the curve I wanted from the other fabric. I drew this onto paper and made a pattern piece.
I then cut out the front and back from white cotton.
Then onto my sage fabric, love the pattern and colour of this.
I attached the white piece on to the main fabric.
I then added white cotton bias around the neck and arms and shirred the waist with some bobbin elastic in my machine, and this is the result:
Pretty happy with is and looks nice with a brown belt, and all that from 1m of fabric and some white cotton! :)
Coletterie: How to Care for Delicate Handmade Clothing
Posted by Rachel on September 20th, 2013
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Two things inspired this post:
Some of my handmade dresses were not making it out of the washer/dryer as safely as I would have hoped.
I saw some beautiful images of hand washed vintage garments on DearGolden’s instagramfeed.
I decided I needed to do a bit of research on how to properly care for my precious handmades, and extend their lifespan. I asked Lauren of Dear Golden for a few tips.
I found that knowing how to properly prewash your fabric will indicate how you should wash and dry your final garment. I now hand wash nearly all of my handmades with the following process:
Give it a warm bath with appropriate strength detergent.
Lauren says, “I don’t have a set method or process for cleaning vintage. It’s garment by garment based on the fabric, age, condition and type of stain/discoloration.”
The being said, the products she uses are (from most gentle to most heavy duty):
Water only.
Palmolive for anything that seems organic.
Fantastik on synthetic chiffon or acetate.
Regular Tide.
Nellie’s oxygen brightener.
Borax, OxiClean & bleach very very sparingly and never on silk or lace.
“Different garments have different needs – I’ll have one tub with more harsh stuff in it with perhaps a cotton dress that can deal with that, right on down to a tub that just has water in it.”
Drain out soapy water, rinse off the garment, then let it soak in clean water.
Gently squeeze water out so the garment is not sopping wet, then lay it out on a towel.
Now that your garment isn’t sopping wet, you can hang it on a clothesline to finish drying.
Tip: Don’t have enough yard for a clothesline? They make really nifty ones you can mount above your bathtub! I have one of these at home and use is weekly to hang-dry all of my intimates.
Or just lay your garments out in the grass to sun-dry like Lauren did below. “The sun does wonders. Sometimes just soaking say a cold-rayon dress in water, quickly so it doesn’t bleed as they sometimes do, then letting it dry laying flat in the sun will remedy stains.”
Do you have any machine wash/dry disaster stories? How do you cheer yourself up when mistakes happen?
