Back in high school I owned a little red sweater de-fuzzer (or sweater shaver, or whatever you want to call them). It worked great, and ate all the nasty little nubbies from my sweaters. Fast forward to the last year or 2~I needed a sweater defuzzer. The little red guy's motor died, and I could not find a replacement.
The reasons I needed a new sweater defuzzer were many, as in the many sweaters I had accumulated, mostly from J.Crew and Macys during super clearance events. Each sweater has been worn several times over the years, and they are begining to show their age.
Failing to find a replacement myself, before Christmas I voiced my desire to own a new sweater shaver to my mother and several friends, who began the hunt. After Christmas, my coworker KSO made my evening when she called one night and said she found one at K-Mart. Needless to say, I was pumped! Oh the sweaters I would shave! Oh the new life my sweater collection would get!
The next day, she brought the replacement shaver in, and it looked promising. I brought it home, bought the required AA batteries, and excitedly raced up the steps to my closet to begin shearing the sweaters. The first sweater I grabbed was a New York & Co. pretty pale yellow v-neck that was really looking rough. As a result, I hadn't worn it in a very long time.
Before I started shaving, I tried to figure out what to wear with the newly shaved sweater. I had a yellow and green necklace from a jewelry party, and a green khaki suit with matching shoes that seemed like good options, so I pulled everything together in my closet. It seemed like it would work, so I started shaving. Sadly, the new shaver is no match for the old one. The good news is that my mother suggested that I use a disposable woman's razor and see how that worked~and it did!
The yellow sweater (and several of my other sweaters) now look much better thanks to a little purple bic. After trying on the outfit, I decided that the yellow sweater was too bulky and static-y for me, so I added it to my pile to donate, and replaced it with a light yellow no iron Brooks Brothers button down and a green cable knit sweater vest from Eddie Bauer. The result was an outfit that I felt good about, but would have never thought to pull together before. And all because I needed a sweater defuzzer ;)
Friday, January 28, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Happy New Year!!!
Six months down and six to go! It's hard to believe that I'm past the half point already. I can't lie~so far, this has not been particularly difficult for me. Sure, I have moments of weakness, like when I passed by Brooks Brothers and saw a really cute cardigan in their display. Or when I got the email saying all Jason Mraz concert tee shirts were on sale. Or when I caught a glimpse of a gorgeous new pair of turquoise red soled heels (can I please pre-order to have them delivered July 1, 2011?!). But overall, it has been almost freeing in a way, knowing that I don't NEED to buy any clothing, shoes, or accessories for myself. If I could stick to a diet as well as I have stuck with this, I'd be forced to shop for smaller clothes by now!
The best example I can give to show that my mindset truely is changing started last week when I got home from the dry cleaners and began the process of getting all the cleaned clothes back into my closet. I had a couple shirts and a couple pairs of pants left, but no Huggable Hangers left. The automatic solution is to go to Target and get more hangers, right? And that's what I thought immediately, even going so far as to add hangers to my shopping list. A day or 2 later, it dawned on me~why buy new hangers when I can just downsize a few more items from my closet? So, I scratched the hangers off my list, and headed back up to my closet for some weeding. About an hour later, I had accumulated several items for the donate pile, and had freed up enough hangers to get all my clothing back to where it belongs.
Here are a few other things I've learned or have been trying to put into practice in the last 6 months:
1. If you don't love something (or if you love it but realistically will never wear it for one reason or another), give it someone who will. In the past few months, I have given away a few pairs of shoes to other people. A couple pairs still fit but I never wore them, and one pair I absolutely LOVED but they were always going to be just a little bit too snug. The recipients were very appreciative of the new (to them) shoes, and I have more space to use for things I wear.
2. Tailoring is worth the time and money. Clothes don't do a bit of good if they are too long/short/have holes/whatever to wear. I had a new pair of jeans that I had owned for over 2 years but had never bothered to get shortened, so of course I never wore them. After gathering everything in my closet that just needed a little tailoring or mending, I made an appointment with Seamstress Karen (who is fabulous, if you ever need a good seamstress in the Fargo area). Now that I have those jeans back, I wear them all the time. And it is great to have the other items back in circulation too. I have already been back to Karen a couple of times since then, and I have a new pile accumulating as I write. I have also been making a point of getting to the dry cleaners on a more regular basis, since I am more likely to get wear out of clothes of they are clean and ready when I need them.
3. An organized closet makes it easier to choose what to wear. Since begining this challege, it has been increasingly easier to pull outfits together. I used to stand in my closet and take a long time to finally pick something out, only to put it on, look in the mirror, and then decide to change clothes. Now, because everything is organized neatly, and I know at a glance what options I have, I can choose what to wear in much less time. It also helps that I have weeded out many of the clothes that don't fit/I don't like/are out of style, so pretty much everything in my closet is now wearable (which definitely was not true before).
4. Getting rid of things gets easier with practice. I've held on to some things because I had never worn them, or they were a good brand (even though they didn't fit right), or I had spent a lot of money on them, or...[insert other reasons here]. Take a long hard look at what you own. If you havent' worn it in a year or longer, what is going to change to make you wear it now or in the future? If the answer is nothing, get rid of it. I didn't have the motivation to iron a few dress shirts a few years ago. I still don't now, and I don't plan on ironing them in the future, so now instead of taking up space in my closet, they are on their way to being donated. Is not wanting to iron them a silly reason for getting rid of them? Maybe. But, I tried them on, and I didn't much care for them anyway, so why postpone the inevitable? Some things that I evaluated at the begining of the process and decided to keep are now in the donation pile too. Sometimes it just takes a little time to get used to the idea of letting things go, and that's ok.
I'm liking my experiment. If the next 6 months continue to go well, I may have to extend for another 6 months after that!
The best example I can give to show that my mindset truely is changing started last week when I got home from the dry cleaners and began the process of getting all the cleaned clothes back into my closet. I had a couple shirts and a couple pairs of pants left, but no Huggable Hangers left. The automatic solution is to go to Target and get more hangers, right? And that's what I thought immediately, even going so far as to add hangers to my shopping list. A day or 2 later, it dawned on me~why buy new hangers when I can just downsize a few more items from my closet? So, I scratched the hangers off my list, and headed back up to my closet for some weeding. About an hour later, I had accumulated several items for the donate pile, and had freed up enough hangers to get all my clothing back to where it belongs.
Here are a few other things I've learned or have been trying to put into practice in the last 6 months:
1. If you don't love something (or if you love it but realistically will never wear it for one reason or another), give it someone who will. In the past few months, I have given away a few pairs of shoes to other people. A couple pairs still fit but I never wore them, and one pair I absolutely LOVED but they were always going to be just a little bit too snug. The recipients were very appreciative of the new (to them) shoes, and I have more space to use for things I wear.
2. Tailoring is worth the time and money. Clothes don't do a bit of good if they are too long/short/have holes/whatever to wear. I had a new pair of jeans that I had owned for over 2 years but had never bothered to get shortened, so of course I never wore them. After gathering everything in my closet that just needed a little tailoring or mending, I made an appointment with Seamstress Karen (who is fabulous, if you ever need a good seamstress in the Fargo area). Now that I have those jeans back, I wear them all the time. And it is great to have the other items back in circulation too. I have already been back to Karen a couple of times since then, and I have a new pile accumulating as I write. I have also been making a point of getting to the dry cleaners on a more regular basis, since I am more likely to get wear out of clothes of they are clean and ready when I need them.
3. An organized closet makes it easier to choose what to wear. Since begining this challege, it has been increasingly easier to pull outfits together. I used to stand in my closet and take a long time to finally pick something out, only to put it on, look in the mirror, and then decide to change clothes. Now, because everything is organized neatly, and I know at a glance what options I have, I can choose what to wear in much less time. It also helps that I have weeded out many of the clothes that don't fit/I don't like/are out of style, so pretty much everything in my closet is now wearable (which definitely was not true before).
4. Getting rid of things gets easier with practice. I've held on to some things because I had never worn them, or they were a good brand (even though they didn't fit right), or I had spent a lot of money on them, or...[insert other reasons here]. Take a long hard look at what you own. If you havent' worn it in a year or longer, what is going to change to make you wear it now or in the future? If the answer is nothing, get rid of it. I didn't have the motivation to iron a few dress shirts a few years ago. I still don't now, and I don't plan on ironing them in the future, so now instead of taking up space in my closet, they are on their way to being donated. Is not wanting to iron them a silly reason for getting rid of them? Maybe. But, I tried them on, and I didn't much care for them anyway, so why postpone the inevitable? Some things that I evaluated at the begining of the process and decided to keep are now in the donation pile too. Sometimes it just takes a little time to get used to the idea of letting things go, and that's ok.
I'm liking my experiment. If the next 6 months continue to go well, I may have to extend for another 6 months after that!
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