20:20 challenge
No, this isn't a post about cricket. A couple of posts ago I alluded that I often complain that I don’t have enough tops in my wardrobe. It got me thinking about just what is in my wardrobe and how much of it do I actually wear. This evening I decided to find out. I counted all my clothes that live in my wardrobe (it doesn’t include my evening dresses that live in the spare room). Here are the stats - these are actual. You’ll see that I have a small pile of items that need to be repaired at some point.
It turns out that I wear 62.5% of these items. The other 37.5% rarely, if ever, see the light of day. They just hang there and every morning I look at them before passing them over for something else. There are a mixture of reasons why they aren’t used - they are too small, they are uncomfortable or they don’t go with other items. I have a lack of options for trousers for play - just my jeans. All the trousers listed I wear for work. I feel that there is some validity in my feeling that there are a lack of tops. I wear similar clothes to work as I do at the weekend.
Moving through the items, I became intrigued by the colours that were there. I believed I had a lot of blue and purple. Was I right? Yes and no. Here are my colours (excuse the mess at the bottom):
A friend recently gave me a gift of fabric that was pink because I always wear that colour a lot. I didn’t believe her. It turns out I have more pink and black and blue than I originally thought so my friend must be right! I also have very little purple. I adore red, yet have just one dress in that colour. I’m not a fan of orange or green but I have more items in those colours than I expected.
“So what?” I hear you all say. Well, it isn’t great not to wear over a third of your clothes. Looking at each of the items, I can’t see any immediate opportunities to refashion so I’ll probably take a lot of them to my local charity shops. Hopefully someone will want them as they are, or can make something from them. It is obvious that I can live without these extra items but I don’t want to continue complaining about not having items. So, I have decided to replace 20 items with my own creations. I guess this is like a late sewlution. Here are my rules:
- 20 individual items from 20 patterns
- All sewn between March and December 2013
- At least half of them will not be black, blue or pink
- This doesn’t stop me making duplicates but they won’t count towards the total.
That works out at 2 items a month. Surely I can manage that?! I have given myself a little head start by including my Mathilde, mainly because the numbers fitted so nicely with the months! I have chosen 13 patterns.
Peony; Ceylon; Laurel; Simplicity 8482; B5882 by Gertie; 1960s Off Center Front Button Belted Dress; Anise; Jasmine; Juniper; Alma; Simplicity 2451; Thurlow
The 14th will be another blouse of some sort. The remaining six will be chosen over the year as I know that patterns will be released and I will want them.
I’ll be working on the Alma blouse on Saturday. I’ll be joined by a friend who is making her first item. Wish us luck!