august to august austerity...

Soooo... the stash-busting sewalong month totals kind of made me anxious. And the themes were hard for me too.  I always make dresses and dress month came around - I have made zero dresses.  (But I did make a pair of shorts and two skirts.)  During the unselfish sewing theme of June, I just ended up doing a bunch of projects I wasn't that into, for other people. It wasn't bad. I tried my hand a pattern testing for a designer who I really love and I sewed a bunch of super-boring (but much needed & appreciated) stuff for some people from my church.

Overall, thinking about my consumption and creation habits as a zero sum endeavor is seriously anxiety-producing though.  I lost my "sewjo" for a while and only got it back a bit when I thought of cutting into the beautiful tiger fabrics I've collected for my birthday and International Tiger Day - which is today!  May all tigers be well and happy! <3

I realized, when I was making things from these special fabrics, that I have a lot more joy sewing the special stuff & I have squirreled away quite a lot of special fabric... so I'm going to sew my favorite things - skirts and dresses - and maybe try some fun new experiments... but for the next year, I am really, actually going to attack my stash. Not the thrifted-for-muslin stuff. The *good* stuff.  The beautiful prints and the vintage treasures and the silk and the wool.

I want the joy and the pleasure of making and wearing things that are special and I have some patterns that are just always go-to winners for me.  I will experiment with my pattern stash too... but in austerity of acquisition, I mean to make room for total decadence of using up the good stuff.

Life is short.  Time is precious. The time is now to get into the treasures.

In doing so, I also hope to have enough fun to curb mindless spending and acquisition and replace it with total freedom to raid my own coffers of things I've been saving.  I'm sure I'll need some thread and some zippers & buttons (no matter how many vintage zippers & buttons I get, I often seem to lack the color, length, or number I want... sometimes I get creative, but sometimes that won't do.)



But I think I have pretty much everything else for a bang-up year of the fanciest make-do & mend fun.

Hello August, bring it on!





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