Upgrade

So we got a new dining room table!

You might remember that this upgrade has been a long time coming.

I'm really happy with it. I think the small round table fits the scale of our dining room nook much better than the old rectangular table (there's a leaf, too, for when it's not just the three of us for dinner). The smooth surface is far superior to bumpy old tile when it comes to writing and drawing projects. And you can't deny that it's a lot more stylish.

A month or two ago my man started forwarding me links to Craigslist listings for mid-century teak dining sets. A lot of them looked nice, but they scared me. So slick and shiny and perfect!

I told him that I thought having a mint-condition mid-century piece as the only dining table in a house with a small child was not a great idea. To me, having to constantly worry about the little bumps and nicks that come from real everyday use is Not Gezellig. What I had in mind was something more like an old farmhouse table, something that could be gathered around by all and knocked about a bit.

Well, if you just want a table that can get messed up and damaged, why get a new table at all then? he asked me. Touche.

But I think the table he eventually found is a nice compromise. It's sturdy and in good condition, but it has a few of the little nicks and scratches that come from good use--just enough that we won't have to worry about adding to the patina ourselves. (It sounds crazy, but I really think I prefer this kind of imperfection on a purely aesthetic level, too.)

He seems happy with it too, so all's well that ends well. Still, I'm struck -- as I always am during home improvement and decorating projects -- by how different our approaches are to these kinds of decisions. His approach boils down to: we need a new table --> search Craigslist --> here is something within our budget that I can live with --> done --> next item. Mine is more like: dream up overall vision --> pin a bunch of images on Pinterest --> never actually do anything.

That sounds flip, but I really do think that he tends to be more focused on the part (that is, the decision about the table), and feels overwhelmed by contemplating the whole (that is, what we want the dining nook to look like overall). Meanwhile, I tend to focus on the whole, and trying to make a decision about one part of a room without reference to an overall vision makes me anxious.

It's pretty interesting. And I'd like to find some way to help us meet in the middle. Especially because we now seem to be tackling what has historically been the single greatest source of tension in our relationship: the task of Picking Out A Rug....

My favorite sweater's doppelganger

This is an Irish wool sweater that I recently found at the Goodwill.

For $6 I couldn't leave it behind. But then I felt a little foolish for buying it, considering that it is virtually identical to a sweater I already own.

Favorite sweater or no, who really needs two ivory-colored Irish fisherman cardigans, right?



Then I remembered that I keep wishing I had another fisherman cardigan, except charcoal-gray instead of ivory.

So...has anyone reading this ever successfully dyed a wool sweater? (I have to replace the buttons anyway since several are missing, so might as well, no?)

My very cursory research suggests that I need an acid dye (and vinegar), I should do this in a pot on the stove (not in the washing machine), and I should raise and lower the temperature of the dye bath gradually in order to avoid shrinking the sweater.



(Speaking of not shrinking sweaters, psst, Victoria, I washed this as we discussed--cold water, Woolite, handwash cycle in my front loader, lay flat to dry--and it turned out fine.)

Anyone have any other tips? Or a lead on someplace that does this professionally for a not-too-exorbitant fee?

On traveling for work

Don't get me wrong, I miss my man and my girl a ton. But all things considered it's not so bad.

Can I just say what an incredible pleasure it is to visit this store? Of course, the fabric is amazing. Bolt upon bolt in every imaginable color, but what I was really struck by was the quality. Good fabric is really, really good, you all.



And the staff! You would expect them to be snooty, but no. So friendly and unintimidating and helpful. My (not even handmade) shirt was complimented no fewer than half a dozen times. They want to know (really) what you are going to make and they are excited about it. I loved all the different conversations going on in the store--it felt like a kind of creative hive full of people with plans and visions. A vibe that I just don't get in any of the perfectly pleasant fabric stores back home.



To be more precise, it felt like the store was full of people who not only had plans and visions, but were serious and going to carry them out. In an effort to become one of them (I almost feel a duty), I'll state for the record here:

wool and linen plaid on white background: a Tova tunic.

tan and blue wool plaid: a simple A-line skirt from this book.

teal printed knit: a long-sleeve jersey with a simple cut, maybe a Renfrew top.

elastic thread: Washi dress here I come!

How to know you've jumped the shark, crafting-wise

You guys. I am now using washi tape as a first-aid supply.

(Don't worry, it's not as bad as it looks, just a patch of uncomfortable and very persistent eczema. Which is also the reason I'm not wearing my wedding ring, just in case I have any gossipy readers with good spatial reasoning skills.)

Since this is a silly post I'll do this other thing that seems a bit silly to me and "claim" my blog with a request that you Follow my blog with Bloglovin.

A supposedly dumb thing I swore I'd never do

...but I just went ahead and did it anyway.

 I planted some mint.



Reader, in the ground.

But here is my thinking. There's this irregular bed along our back fence. It's too shady for flowers (branches from a neighbor's tree hang over the fence in that spot), but nowhere near too shady for weeds. Why not fill it with something nice-smelling and useful? Suddenly mint's aggressive habit seems like a feature rather than a bug.

Plus, I've been trying to grow mint in containers for the last few years and it hasn't done well. And when mint does do well in a container it doesn't really stay in the container anyway. (See also: full-fledged lemon balm plants growing in the area where my pot of lemon balm used to sit.)



I'm sort of hoping the mint might eventually fill some of that unfortunate 4-inch space between our fence and the neighbors'. I do feel a little bad about planting mint right near the property line, but:
1) if the neighbors are getting free mint, what do they have to complain about?
2) my mint is nowhere near as annoying as their barking-for-hours dogs.

Did you have any idea there were so many different varieties of mint? And they all taste distinct, really (I checked).
 

Good old peppermint, of course.
 

Chocolate mint.
 

Mojito mint, for cocktails. This one was a tossup between Mojito Mint and Kentucky Colonel. I'm not sure this was the logical choice, since we are a Bourbon household, but there you go. I'm amused that this picture is the one that came out blurriest!



Moroccan mint, for tea.



And Persian mint, for savory dishes.

There might even be room for one or two more varieties, if I come across anything interesting. Man, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing, I'm such a collector.

I'm really excited about working in the yard this year. There is a lot (a LOT) to do but I have some ideas about what to plant in different areas that I think are a little more sophisticated than what I've come up with in the past. And by "more sophisticated" I mean "more informed and likely to work, I hope."

Any increased confidence I feel now is the result of a lot of trial and error (emphasis on the error). I've had a hard time finding good advice about landscape design online--or in books, for that matter. Isn't that funny? Why is there no equivalent of Apartment Therapy for the outdoors? 

One idea that really appeals to me is using a lot of native plants, but instead of trying to create a very naturalistic landscape, aiming for a kind of English cottage garden effect. Or, related to this, juxtaposing native plants with non-natives in interesting ways. 
 

In the mint bed, for example, I also have a twinberry (Lonicera involucrata) and a hairy honeysuckle (Lonicera hispidula). Both are Pacific Northwest natives in the honeysuckle family. (The twinberry is the small bush at the left of the picture above, but I don't think you can see the hairy honeysuckle--it's a low-growing plant in the back-center of the bed.) I'd like to train the twinberry to grow along the chain-link fence--essentially, espalier it--and I'm hoping the hairy honeysuckle will weave through the fence as well. I think that would be really pretty with a mass of mint below.

What are you planting these days? Do you have any good sources for landscaping "how-to" on the Internet (or otherwise)?

Wear all the things

Sweater knit skirt, Lux; long-sleeve tee, Gap; fair isle pullover, no tag but I'm pretty sure it's vintage. All thrifted, plus some burgundy tights.

I recently started a new project: wearing clothes.

What?

Oh, well, okay, what I really mean is that my project is to wear all my clothes.

This is about to be a really long, possibly self-indulgent, and probably shallow (or maybe not) post, but I'll tell you a secret, I love reading about other people's wardrobe overhauls, so I figured maybe you do too.

Anyway, for several months (if not longer) I'd been having a hard time getting dressed. Some days I would grab whatever clothes were hanging over the bedpost in the morning--i.e., exactly the clothes worn the day before--which left me feeling schlubby. Other days I would select an outfit, put it on, and realize it totally didn't work--either the proportions were off, or the shirt wasn't comfortable under the sweater, or etc. So I'd switch out one piece for another, find it was still wrong, repeat this process several times, and wind up grabbing the clothes off the bedpost again. At which point I felt schlubby and demoralized to boot: WTF, I can't even get dressed if I try? (And also, crap, now I have a giant mountain of clothes to clean up. AND, jeez, that was a waste of time for nothing.) And then sometimes I would look at my closet full of clothes and be totally overwhelmed, unable to even come up with an idea of what to wear.

Legging jeans, Express; plaid tunic that miraculously makes me feel like a model in a Japanese pattern book, no tag; big black sweater that is currently losing the constant battle against cat hair, Michael Michael Kors. All thrifted.

 The Internet is, of course, full of advice about how to edit, purge, and rebuild your wardrobe. But none of it quite worked for me.

There's one strain of advice that focuses on creating a minimalist wardrobe. Project 333, for example, where you create a capsule of 33 items and wear them for 3 months. That was the opposite of what I wanted! I mean, roughly speaking I had been wearing the same 33 items for 3 months, and it was depressing me.

Plus, I am not a minimalist. I don't want to own the fewest possible clothes. Actually I want to own the maximum number of clothes that I can effectively store, care for, and wear.

How many is that? Well, let's be honest, probably fewer than I currently own. But how many? To me it has been helpful to think about Dunbar's number, which refers to the maximum number of social relationships we can maintain, based on how many people and their interconnections our brains can keep track of. I think the same concept could apply to clothes: after all, we have to remember what we own, which items go with which other items, and so on.

Well, nobody knows how big Dunbar's number really is. But 150-ish seems to be a generally agreed on rough benchmark. What does that mean? It definitely doesn't mean that everybody should have 150 items of clothing, no more and no less. It just means that 150ish might be the theoretical maximum size of a wardrobe that doesn't require a lot of cognitive effort.

By cognitive effort I mean that I don't want to have to do things like make lists and take Polyvore-esque snapshots of outfit ideas (another piece of advice that I've frequently seen). Some people might be perfectly happy doing that, and more power to them. Me, I think clothes are fun to think about, but I don't want to think about them that much. I just want to be able to open my closet and pick out something pleasing to wear, and then get on with the rest of it.

I don't have any proof of all that Dunbar's number business but it's an interesting idea to ponder.

The other common piece of advice of course is "get rid of everything you don't absolutely love and wear." Oh, well, okay then. I mean, if it were that simple we would all have perfectly curated wardrobes already, wouldn't we?

Rose-print dress, Kimchi Blue via Urban Outfitters; houndstooth cardi, Mercer Street Studio, thrifted. And some bright vermilion tights.

And anyway, I have a lot of things that I do love, or think I love, but don't wear. What I want is to understand why not. And to figure out how to wear them.

So here is what I came up with: a sort of Slow Wardrobe Purge, if you will.

The rules are:

• Wear every item in my closet. Season-appropriate, that is--I'll do this again in the summer.
• Every item in a category (pants, skirts, etc.) must be worn before one is repeated.
• Plan what to wear the day before. (Because otherwise: clothes from the bedpost and/or the whole day in sweatpants.)
• If I can't wear a garment for an entire day (because it's itchy, uncomfortable, unflattering, or just blah), it goes immediately into the Goodwill bag. I can't recommend this strategy enough. A plain black long-sleeve tee looks like a useful basic when it is sitting on the shelf, but once it's been on my body for a couple of hours and I've realized it's kind of boxy and stiff, neither very comfortable nor very flattering--buh-bye. A totally angst-free (if slow) method of getting rid of things, and I think it is much more effective than just briefly trying on each item of clothing.  
• Each day, write down what I wore and how I felt about it. I'm embarrassed by how self-indulgent this sounds, but it has really helped me to understand what I feel comfortable in and what I like to wear. I also try to notice things like: What garments are hard to wear or not very versatile? What item in a category gets worn first? Last? Are there categories of things that I just don't feel right in? If I'm not comfortable in my clothes one day, what would I rather be wearing?

The pictures in this post are a few of the outfits I've put together during this exercise that I've especially liked.

Black cords, Kut from the Kloth via Nordstrom; moss-green cowlneck sweater, Ann Taylor Loft, thrifted; Aran cardigan, vintage John Molloy. The sweater, which I got in a clothing swap, is nearly always the answer to the question "what would I rather be wearing?"

Because I live in a very casual city and work from home, I think of myself as a jeans-and-a-sweater kind of girl. But I've been surprised to find that a lot of the outfits I've felt best in are dress- and skirt-based. (With these tights I am comfortable all day, able to resist the siren song of my sweatpants calling to me from the very next room.) Realizing that these can be everyday outfits, even if I am going no farther afield than the school bus stop, immediately makes me feel like I have a lot more variety in my wardrobe.

I am not done with this project yet but I have identified the outfit formulas that make me feel good. For me, that's mainly skinny denim or corduroy pants + tunic top + long cardigan sweater; or loose-fitting dress + cardigan + leggings or tights; or A-line skirt + tights + long-sleeve tee + cardigan. (Why yes, I have noticed the almost comical consistency of the cardigan bit.)

Look at how different that list is from the usual advice about garments that "every woman" "needs." I don't own a single blazer, as I can't imagine why I would ever wear one when I could wear, yes, a cardigan instead. I don't have a pencil skirt, a white button-up shirt, a sheath dress, a wrap dress, or a shirtdress. At this point, I don't miss any of those items.

I am far from a style expert but I think what I can say with confidence is that in order to have a wardrobe that works you have to start with what you, idosyncratically, want to wear. It sounds simple and obvious I guess, but a lot of wardrobe-building advice out there is based on totally different principles.

So I do know what I want to wear, that's the good news.   
 
The bad news is I have relatively few of some of these items in my closet (especially the day dresses and the long cardigans--plenty of cardigans, but not so many work with the skinny pants).

Black knit dress, Max Studio; gray rose-print cardi, Sarah Spencer; both thrifted. Plus those vermilion tights again!

The good news is I have quite a stash of fabric to make them (the dresses at least; no idea what to do about the sweaters, I am NOT going to take up knitting!).

The bad news is my recent sewing-for-myself output consists of one upcycled men's t-shirt, a cut-but-still-not-sewn muslin for a long-sleeve tee, and a half-finished dress (the poppy print) that I haven't touched since last February.

So I am probably doomed, but we'll see how it goes.

(I have another wardrobe-ing exercise that I did along with this one, but I've already gone on more than long enough for one post, so stay tuned.)

On the other hand

...a few reasons why I don't make many of my daughter's clothes.

Because you never know when you're going to inadvertently kneel in still-wet leprechaun tracks. (And because the paint at Kindergarten is not as washable as the paint at preschool.)



Also, because who thought it was a good idea to give Kindergarteners real pens?



And also, because this. (Yes, that's two pairs of leggings ruined in less than a week.)

I'm not saying my daughter is suuuuuch a tomboy, she does like twirly-girly things, but she is sort of inattentive to general matters of kemptness. (The kid who neither notices nor cares that she has magic marker all over her face? That one's mine.) And she's enough of a tomboy (or whatever; actually I kind of think that term is problematic) that her primary sartorial concern is: Can I stomp in rain puddles effectively while wearing this?

My man commented the other day that the clothes that I make for my girl hardly ever get worn. (Not that she doesn't wear them; it's not that she's rejecting them, it's that I rarely suggest them.) For the past several years I've made her a dress/outfit for her birthday, and one for Christmas. And maybe, in fact, that's all my schedule can support!

But I'd like to make her more (and for them to be worn more). Partly because I have tons of ideas and it's fun to make adorable kids' clothes, and partly because I like the idea of being able to make her exactly the garment that she has dreamed of.

I have this really distinct memory of wanting, when I was in maybe third grade, a prairie dress with "pink and blue rosebuds on a fawn-colored ground," an idea I must have gotten either from the Little House books or the In Grandma's Attic books. No, I never had that dress, but I remember how much I wanted it (and how vividly I imagined it). And I think how cool (and how much easier, in an age of indie pattern companies and Spoonflower) it would be to fulfill that sort of wish for my girl.

So, anyone have any tips on getting over the fear of handmades getting ruined, so that they can actually get used?