I think I found it...

The scarf for the 2019 Wardrobe challenge: Using a scarf for the color choices, add one complete outfit per month to the wardrobe.  Janice over at Vivienne Files has been doing this challenge theoretically (she finds stuff online that would work as an exercise, using six different scarves and building six different potential wardrobes each year) since Jan 2016; here's the First Post she did on it; she calls it '12 Months, 12 Outfits Capsule Wardrobe'.

I've been looking for scarves all month; had several in a wish list at Nordstrom's that I'm watching and finally decided to order one as a very likely candidate for the basis of this experiment.

It's a bit...just a little bit...over my price range, even at 40% off at Nordstrom's, but I took a deep breath and ordered it just the same:

(Scarf: Ted Baker London Highgrove)

I think it has a combination of colors that I can work with; black and grey and white, for sure, for the neutrals, and various shades of pink/red and blue/turquoise and light green for accents.

I may find one I like better between now and Jan 1, but this was a beauty and I decided to go for it.

Especially as one of the other scarves I was watching sold out already (not the fox scarf; I'm still watching that one and might get it, too, if it goes on sale).

I'm actually kinda excited about this adventure.  Haven't done anything like this before; I hope I can pull it off. LOL.

Anyone else looking for a scarf?

A Little Fall Challenge

So, word has come that, after two months of black and white, our choir wardrobe colors for October will be gold and denim.

As in, mustard yellow.

Now, you all KNOW that mustard yellow and I are not on speaking terms.  I have one pair of knit pants in that color and that's pretty much it.

This is a major departure from our normal October colors of brown and burnt orange.

Whacha gonna do in a case like that?

I hit up one of my online suppliers and got four pieces of various denim-colored jersey knits.

Left to right...a cotton/poly/rayon/lycra blend of striated blues.  Might not be entirely the right color, but it has a surprisingly nice hand.  The next two pieces are organic cotton; one is slightly heavier and has a touch of lycra in it.  The last piece was labeled 'Heavy rayon jersey'...but somebody was smoking something when they picked that label because 1) it ain't heavy...I can see my hand through it and 2) I don't think it's got much rayon in it; it's not the least bit woody when wet.  But it was cheap, lol.

Here's my challenge...to turn each one of those pieces into clothes in the next two weeks. 


Which may be a bigger challenge than I really want, given that the serger has not been playing nice with knits lately.

But, be that as it may, that means I can't overthink what I'm going to make these up into.  I need to pick patterns and sew.   At least one needs to be ready to wear by Oct. 6.  'Cause otherwise, I got nuthin'.

So ...Waddya do about National Sewing Month?

I decided I need to spend SOME time in the sewing nook. Every day.  Even if it's only 5 minutes, changing the thread on the sewing machine and serger.  Which is what it was yesterday, lol.

And I'm thinking about next year.  Crazy, I know, but if friends can take their 'college football opening game day' photos in front of a fully decorated CHRISTMAS TREE, I figure I can start thinking about sewing projects for the new year.

And here's what I'm thinking....

If you, like me, follow Janice Riggs on The Vivienne Files you know that she's been repeating a series she did last year...building wardrobes around Hermes scarves.  One outfit...generally 3 items... a month...taken from the colors in the scarf.  At the end of the year, she's got a fully coordinated wardrobe.

So, I've begun to scout the internet for a suitable scarf from which to do likewise.  I may or may not make each of the three items in the months' additions, but I'm going to make that my goal.  Starting in January.

If I CAN find a scarf I want to build a wardrobe around...in my price range...lol.  I slop stuff on scarves so easily that I'm skert to spend a bunch of money on one.

Anyone interested in joining me next year?  You've got four months to find a scarf that suits YOU. ;-)

Meanwhile...life continues and the sewing space is, um, evolving a bit.

We've had a 'guest bedroom' since Son Number One  moved out on his own in 2012.  I moved my cutting table to that room and the fabric/patterns/etc have kinda taken over.  I go in and do a mass cleaning/hiding of stuff on those rare occasions when we have guests.

But it's been QUITE some time...like, 3 years...since we last had overnight guests as our parents have gotten past the roadtrip stage of life.  So that room literally has not been straightened out/organized in 3 years.

Um, it's a MESS.

And, well,  the time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things.  Of...why Lisa's back can no longer tolerate the much-loved waterbed.  The one for which I've made multiple custom sheet sets.   If you've ever owned a waterbed, you know that, periodically, you have to add water as some evaporates into air bubbles that get bled out about once a month.  If you don't add water, the support level drops. Significantly.  Now, we've known for some time that we need to do something about the water bed so that we can elevate the head of it to alleviate GERD symptoms, so it had been a while since we'd added water.

And last week I had a day with back spasms so excruciating I thought I had a kidney stone.  Only I had no other kidney stone symptoms AND...the spasms cleared up completely after I spent the night in the guest room bed.  After I rather slowly and painfully moved all the patterns, fabric, scraps, etc off onto the cutting table so I could get into it.

That implicated the waterbed as the culprit.  I haven't slept in it since.

So...this is all SO complicated...we did some cleaning in the room that Son Number Two vacated when he moved to Florida back in May.  I need to move the cutting table and all related sewing paraphernalia into that room so I can move the guest bed (queen size) out into the middle of the room so that it's accessible enough for two people to use it (IE, there's room for the hubs to put his CPAP machine), as it's going to be a process for us to take down the waterbed so we can move the bed we bought today into its place (delivery scheduled for the 14th).  We'll both be sleeping in the guest room for at least a few days.

You see the chain of events here?  So...I'm planning to sort and organize stuff as I move it.

Hence why I may only get to actually sew for 5 - 10 minutes a day for the next couple of weeks.

Ultimately, I want to turn that recently vacated bedroom into the new sewing cave and move the machines up there and everything, but there's more work to be done first. Not to mention a set of bunkbeds that need to go...somewhere else.  And the pin-sucking carpet has got to go.

Who knows when that will happen.

So, lots of handling of sewing stuff and dreaming about future projects, but not much actual sewing.

Maybe I'll get those washer linen pants done before time to put them up for the season...