Thank you so much to Elena for featuring me on her Seamless blog!
I’ve completed my challenge now – eighteen months of no shopping for clothes, with the past 6 months as part of the Seamless Challenge.
I think it has taught me some good habits. There have been several times I’ve been tempted to buy something new to go out in – then I’ve found the perfect outfit already in my wardrobe. Sometimes unworn…
The clothes that have needed replacing are the everyday things – t-shirts, leggings, pyjamas – and I can make those.
I’ve given away or sold around a third of my clothes, and I don’t miss any of them. To make the process less painful I put anything I wasn’t sure about in a big box under the bed. After a month or two, it was easy to get rid of things that hadn’t found their way back into my wardrobe.
Since my challenge ended I’ve bought a pair of jeans, a dress and some shoes (click on the picture for details). Making jeans is beyond me, and I love the print of the dress – it has owls and deer! These were on separate shopping trips, because I found buying one thing was enough each time. Very strange – I used to love coming home with lots of bags!
I’m not going to renew my Seamless Challenge for now, but I have challenged myself to use my fabric stash by joining in the Stashbusting Sewalong, and I’m in the Sewlutions jar with a stashbusting resolution – to use twelve pieces of fabric from my stash. I’ll also try not to buy too many patterns – but this is hard!
And I’ll be keeping a record of clothes I buy. I think it will be interesting to look back at the end of the year, and should act as a brake if I’m tempted to slip back into my old, bad, ways.
Well done! I don’t think – no I KNOW – I couldn’t do what you have done, but I’m consciously trying to cut down my purchasing of clothes. I don’t get the thrill of clothes shopping like I used to, partly I think because the quality and fit of so many items in the shops are so bad!
I do love that dress – I thought it was by White Stuff, their prints are so pretty.
I feel the same way. i used to love going shopping more. Now maybe i’ll find one item on a shopping trip, and often i leave empty handed! (plus i have more money i could spend now, since i’ve been buying less and less). i feel like i’m more particular than ever about what i’ll buy. i had planned to go shopping last night because i had coupons for the US president’s day sales, but it was chilly out, so i decided to stay home instead!
Congratulations!!
Those are some great purchases!! I love shoes; I can’t make them so I don’t feel bad buying them… that said, I have expensive taste so I average only one pair a year, two tops
Well done! And I have that exact same dress – my husband got it for me for my birthday. The print is excellent isn’t it.