Just because I have not been blogging much about this 2019 goal, that does not mean I have not made progress. Truth to be told I have not been blogging much in general this year, but I detoxed my wardrobe quite a few times in preparation to finding my style and I am very close to completing my goal. I did not have much time to make any clothes however as planned, but I will get into that once our cafe project is under control.
Today I am going to share what I do with clothes that I love, but which either don’t look right or they look too boring. If it is only small fix I don’t rush to throw it away.
By quick fix, I mean like shortening the length or inserting extra pockets for practicality. I will however show you how I do shorten my clothes. I had quite a few tops and dresses that were too long for my liking.
I simply used iron-on adhesive tape to do the hems. Was super quick! However I must warn you! The hems done this way are slightly heavier and not good with clothes that are constantly getting washed. I mean everything needs to be washed sometimes. But I think this method of hemming suits best something like formalwear (where you don’t want to see stitched hem) or coats (that does not get washed that often).
If you still want to try using iron-on adhesive tape then please be aware that I used HeatnBond one. I cut each garment to the length I wanted (plus 3cm extra for the hem folding). Then I simply folded hem once, iron press, folded second time, inserted the tape, and final iron press.
If you are more interested in doing hems the traditional way. By all means, Google it! There are lots of tutorials out there.
Now a little bit about what I do with clothes that need a bit of spicing up ;-). I often use either some sort of embellishment or embroidery. In the past I blogged about how I inserted lace into a neckline and recently I did embroidery on this t-shirt that had a pocket.
To do this embroidery I positioned the pocket in the embroidery hook and then sketched a design on it using pencil. You can use any sort of pencil, but don’t use anything inky or a biro as you may not be able to wash it out. To get you started on embroidery here are a few of my favourite stitches styles I learned over the years.
Welcome back to my journey to finding my style. Today I am all about the basics! I am not talking only about the underwear (although this is also an important part of my wardrobe) but also about the clothing items that I think I should have in my wardrobe. You know, those kind of clothes that match pretty much everything else. These include the dresses (basic jersey type ones are my favourites), my loyal jeans, vests, t-shirts, some cardies (prefer the long ones) and sweaters (I got quite a few). After doing the wardrobe detox last month, I figured what suits me, what I already have and what is missing. When investing into new basics I always heard that you need to aim for top quality items, but from my experience this is not always the case. Read on if you want to find out more!
First I wanted to share what I had missing. Due to my body changing during two pregnancies what I needed are the bras (hope I am not oversharing here). I had the sports bra that still fits, some maternity bras that are just too big and then my old bras that look like brand new, and I have no idea how they ever fitted me (all been donated of course!). Like with anything else when investing in something new, I really did my research, then asked for recommendations and went to bra fitting. I did not settle for any uncomfortable bra like I did in the past. This time round I knew what I looked for and that was practicality and the comfort at the same time. I think it also look good, because it really fits. And I am not against underwire bras, turns out they can be as comfortable as the seamless ones. So hey, do your own research and do try on lots on before investing on the one (or two like me). And I did not end up spending too much money. £35 for a pair!
While in Lithuania I also visited Utenos Trikotažas, the company specialising in clothes made out of jersey material. I so wish they sold it globally so you could see it for yourselves! Although they manufacture a lot of clothes for the high street brands they do have in house designers too. Their designs may not be exactly my style, but I always manage to find lots of unique basic pieces at such a divine quality and low price! This time round I bought a long sleeve dress, few basic menswear t-shirts (I like their loose fit), some vests (some of my vests started deteriorating after 10 year service) and undies of course!
Now, coming back to subject where I talked that the basics don’t have to be expensive. Any high street store would sell basics and they are not that bad when you consider these few basic rules.
Makes sure it fits you well
Its the right shape to compliment your figure (I found longer dresses and high rise jeans are my yes’s!)
Focus on natural fiber (although not always the case, but I could not buy a sweater that was pure polyester for example)
Ask yourself, does material feel nice to your skin?
Take good care of your basics (will tell you more about this shortly)
I think this is it. I am obviously not against in investing in high quality clothing, but you would be surprised what you can find in Lidl’s for example. As you can see from the picture below I got quite a mixture. Two John Smedley sweaters that are made of high quality fine wool and then two cotton sweatshirts (one from Aldi that I am quite pleased with). I tend to focus on cotton when buying from supermarket and of course the fit may not be always great, but you might be lucky (it does not hurt to try!).
One downside when you buy the knitwear or jersey clothing from the high street brands or supermarket is that they twist. See in the picture below, the side seams are not running straight. This does not bother me anymore like it used to. The cause of this is the way the fabric was cut for the production. You see, it takes extra care to cut the pattern of the garment on the “grain” and often this is compromised when cost is a factor. Companies like John Smedley knit the garment pieces separately, which means garment made this way should not stretch sideways and therefore should not twist.
Pilling happens to any quality garment with the wear. At least in my experience. I find the more fluffy the garment the greater is the pilling. Now I know that many good companies invest in testing machines that test the pilling (I have seen them used in many factories on my visits when I worked in the fashion industry), but I think this is impossible to avoid. I learned this technique to deal with this issue. I simply use a shaving razor (gently does it) and shave these pilling balls away. Once in the while should do the trick!
Ironing is a great way to care for your garment, not only to remove the creases. The steam that comes out from the iron (hopefully you use this function) revives any clothing and gives some breath to it. I used to be obsessed with ironing and used to iron almost everything. It took a long time to narrow down my priorities (now I iron much less), but I still believe that ironing (steaming) really prolong the clothing lifespan.
Mending the clothes is another way to prolong garment lifespan! I feel I could write the whole post about the different techniques of mending, but here are few stitches to learn for a start.
Hope (as always) that this post have been useful to everyone. Thanks for letting me share! Rasa xoxo
Once upon a time I knew my style. Yeah sure, I did not always wear the most exciting piece of clothing all the time, but I did know what suited my body shape. After having kids this changed dramatically. Yes I gained lots of weight (and lost some too), but my figure (my bust to be specific) has changed a lot which made me a little confused for a while. I could not understand why some of my clothes just don’t look right even though I do fit them. It took a while to figure out that because of my bust changes the overall balance of my figure changed too. Things that suit a flatter figure simply do not look the same on a fuller figure. I decided I need to find my new style and I couldn’t wait to start. Now I have lost some weight finally the time is now! On this journey I am planning to share my top findings on how to organise your wardrobe, how I do some alterations to old clothing to better fit my new figure, how to dress effectively (thinking to try creating one of those capsule wardrobe collections). I am going to invest in new clothing and maybe make some myself too! So watch this space girlies ;-). So where do I start now? My obvious though is to first clear my wardrobe. I am not starting from scratch however! Over these past few years I bought some basics that fit and also some clothing pieces from the past does not do any harm in my wardrobe either. I decided to do a simple wardrobe detox where I remove all the clothes that no longer fit within the strict criterions I set out. So let’s get brutal, shall we?
My criteria for clothes that stay in the wardrobe were:
I have to like them (obviously), similarly to Mary Condo’s saying “it needs to give me joy”.
Have to fit me well, lots of time spend trying everything on!
Have to suit my body shape, probably the most important criteria!
With this I probably got rid of like at least 40%, my wardrobe looked a bit empty to begin with, but then I hang some stuff that could be hung from the drawers and that fixed it. Plus my drawers are much less crammed! I did not empty the whole wardrobe and then put back what I am keeping (this is what Mary Condo does), instead I removed only the items that I am not going to wear straight away. When you have kids running around I find this is much more practical. I made three piles:
clothes that I am getting rid off
clothes that I am passing on to my friend Vicki (we did lots of clothes switching in the past)
clothes that need some alterations.
Eventually the pile of clothes that I am getting rid off ended up being the largest of course. That has been bagged ready to go to the charity shop.
The drawers! I wish I took a picture of how it looked before. It was very very crammed. Although I am generally quite organised and I would not describe myself as a hoarder, because of a busy season in my life I let myself go a bit. My clothes were not only crammed, but also as hard as I find to say it; they were in chaos. I did not know what clothes I had and were mostly wearing a couple of items over and over again that were on the top. With the clear-out I gained the space where I could insert clothes organisers/dividers and fold everything in a way that is visible. I have been using my new organised wardrobe for few days now and I can’t describe how happy it makes me every time I open it :-).
Hope you find this helpful if you are also going to do a wardrobe clear-out. Rasa xoxo
