Just Read: The Happiness Project

Back in 2009, when this book came out, I was still the owner of an independent bookstore.  Most of my customers were fairly discriminating readers, and I, myself, could be a little snobby about books.  So, when Gretchen Rubin wrote The Happiness Project, I dismissed it as another self-help book full of fluff.  However, a customer with good taste in reading came in one day raving about this book.  Trusting her instincts, I ordered some copies for the store and read one for myself.  Now, just about every book club on the island has read and discussed this book, and everyone I've talked to has gleaned something from it.

What makes this book stand apart from others like it is Rubin's background.  She has a law degree (from Yale, no less) and has researched and written biographies on political figures like Winston Churchill and John F. Kennedy.  Where other books in this category might be light and feel like just a lot of common sense, Rubin has done her homework and provides loads of scientific research for her project.  She also tackles her goals systematically, dividing them up into categories and setting deadlines.  This type of organization and approach appeals to me, as I love to make a list and cross things off.

So, what does this book have to do with this blog?  The focus of the first chapter/month is Boosting Energy.  Rubin concludes from her research that physical clutter was weighing her down and dealing with it daily was sapping her energy.  I like the way she addresses different categories of clutter:  Sentimental, Bargain, Freebie, etc.  She acknowledges the way we tend to value stuff and justify its existence in our lives.  Also, after dealing with her clutter, she is much more conscientious about what she is going to bring into her home.  This is the part that rang true for me.  After making a decision to consume more conscientiously, our family evaluates everything coming into our home (clothing, appliances, gadgets, etc.) whether we will be purchasing it new, second-hand, or getting it for free!  Even our kids will stop and question if they really need something before deciding to purchase it or accept a hand-me-down from a friend.

Rubin also discusses the value she began to place on experiencing things rather than consuming things throughout her experiment.  This is a value we have also tried to instill in our family, often giving experiences (trips to museums, dance performances, skateboard competitions) as gifts, rather than things.  When our kids were younger, we often requested Family Memberships to the local zoo and children's museum as Christmas presents, rather than making lists of items the kids could receive from grandparents.

As it is the New Year (sort of still, right?), this is a great read to get you motivated to make some changes that have probably been nagging you for awhile anyway.  And though you may feel you are getting a late start (the chapters are divided by months), you'll find some chapters are inappropriate or unnecessary to your life anyway.  For example, Rubin devotes a month to her career and many of us are not in a spot where we are thinking about that.  She also spends another month exploring her spirituality, another topic many people already feel they have a pretty solid footing in.  So, in the end, anyone could pick and choose their own areas and set their goals accordingly.  Good Luck!

Just Sew: Party Dress Remix

It is already time for another season of Project Run and Play.  Last fall, I successfully completed all of the challenges, although not to the level I had originally sketched out.  This season, my goal is to follow through on all of the elements I have planned.  The first challenge is a Pattern Remix of The Party Dress from Cottage Home.  There were two elements in the design that stood out to me and influenced my final product:  the looped button closures and the extra wide sash.  I immediately pictured the button loops on the front instead of the back, and the sash reminded me of an obi belt on a kimono.  The sketch I drew felt very Asian to me, and my youngest remarked it would be a perfect look for her upcoming Japanese unit in school.  I decided to only make a top, since she is really not into dresses right now and I want her to wear it more than just the one time for her class performance.

After searching various thrift stores for a fabric that read "Japanese" in some way, we kept coming up empty handed.  And so, I bought my first bit of new fabric for the first time in several years.  I still have mixed feelings about this purchase.  On the positive side: we bought it from our local, independently owned fabric store and it was used to make a well-constructed garment that will last through several children.  On the negative side (for me):  the fabric was not produced sustainably in any way and I feel badly about supporting an industry that does so much harm to the environment and exploited people groups.  It is probably a decision I will always feel conflicted about.  In the future, I will continue to look to recycling fabrics first, and will probably be more willing to compromise my vision and settle for a less desirable fabric.  Maybe.

Despite my feelings about the purchase, I really do love the prints my daughter chose.  We spent a lot of time with some cute Kokka fabrics, but most of the available bolts had too much pink.  Besides avoiding dresses, she is also into avoiding pink.  Just as we were about to reluctantly pull some fabric to be cut, she discovered a section we had somehow missed that was full of very traditional Asian prints.  I love that she picked a design with a white background, as it keeps everything lighter and younger looking.  I also knew I already had two vintage Bakelite buttons that had a similar shape to the red flowers in the fabric.

For the remix, I simply turned the bodice around to feature the closures in the front.  I also did a very simple "peplum-esque" bottom to turn the dress into a top.  For the sash/obi belt, I followed the concept of this tutorial, sizing it down to fit my daughter, of course.  The pants are basic drawstring pants made with leftover fabric from last season's white sheet challenge (the top is also lined with that fabric, as well).  She requested grey pants to match the small grey flowers, and they amazingly came out after the first batch of dye.  I used some of the scraps to create an origami butterfly for her hair, which, really, was a nice idea in theory, but did not translate well in real life, hence no close-up shots of that!  We are in the midst of a drizzly winter in the Pacific Northwest, so we took our photos inside of a Japanese subway car at the Seattle Children's Museum.  She was really happy with the look and looked pretty adorable in the Japanese section of the museum. 

Just Challenge: Project 333

Is it too predictable to write a post about getting organized, decluttering, etc. on New Year's Day?  Probably.  But I read about Project 333 awhile ago and have finally taken the plunge because it seemed pretty lame to not even let a New Year inspire me to action.  Also, as a happy bonus, my husband has jumped in as well.  You can read about the idea yourself, but the basic concept is to whittle your wardrobe down to 33 items and live with them for 3 months.  As I have mentioned before, I do not enjoy clothes shopping and do not struggle with hoarding clothes, so this idea was not particularly daunting for me.

Despite my conservative attitude towards clothes, our closet situation has been pretty tough.  Our house has three bedrooms upstairs and one bedroom downstairs.  The whole house is 1200 square feet, so each room is pretty small and storage space is limited.  We were uncomfortable with having any of our children sleep on the ground floor, so my husband and I have taken the small downstairs room for ourselves.  Its closet was not designed to be shared by two adults.

After taking a look at my wardrobe, I was surprised to see I really only wear about 28 items with any regularity anyway.  My outfits mostly consist of shirt + cardigan + skirt + leggings.  During the warmer months you can subtract the leggings and occasionally the cardigan.  In the end I kept 9 shirts, 5 skirts, 3 pairs of leggings, 1 pair of nice pants, 1 pair of jeans, 4 cardigans/jackets, 1 winter coat, 1 raincoat, 1 hat, 1 scarf, 5 pairs of shoes, and 1 bathing suit. My discarded items easily fit in a brown paper bag.  I do have 9 items in reserve to see how much I miss them over the next three months.  Several of them are a little more seasonal, so I may need to keep them bagged into the spring to really test their necessity.  Even still, if I add some back in, my entire wardrobe will probably be less than 40 items.  I love projects like these that challenge our Western ideals of necessities and hope to apply this concept to more areas of my life this year.

Just Sew: Ruffled Scarf

Last year while sewing Munchkin costumes for a production of Wizard of Oz, I discovered the versatility of elastic thread.  Ever since then I have been wanting to make ruffled scarves out of strips of t-shirts.  Of course, since it was a project for myself, it always got pushed to the back burner.  Our family was fortunate enough to have a very quiet holiday season that allowed quite a bit of down time for sewing, and I finally got around to this idea.  I made two scarves in less than thirty minutes, and I think this will become my "go to present" for 2013.

Obviously, you begin with a t-shirt in a color or pattern that you like.  I have been trying to incorporate more grey into my wardrobe, phasing out black as my default neutral, and am always a fan of polkadots.  

Cut the shirt into strips.  For my first scarf, I used strips that were around two inches wide from a relatively small t-shirt.  The scarf ended up being a little on the short side and didn't ruffle the way I envisioned (luckily my oldest daughter liked it, so it wasn't a total waste).  This shirt was also on the small side, and I knew I'd be compensating for some lost fabric due to the ruched seams towards the bottom, so I cut pretty skinny one inch strips.  

After attaching the strips together to make one long strip, I sewed with the elastic thread right down the middle.  Two things to remember when using elastic thread:   

1)  You only need to thread your bobbin with it, using regular thread through the top of your machine.  I actually didn't know that at first and spent quite a bit of time trying to thread my machine and needle with elastic thread.  It was one of those extremely frustrating sewing moments.  

2)  The thread will come off the bobbin more smoothly if you have wound it on by hand.  

As you can see, this process twists the fabric some, which was unexpected for me, but I really like it.  I look forward to experimenting with this technique more.

Just Sew: Honeymoon Hat

Woo-hoo!  I made the big time and am posting a tutorial over at Project Run and Play today.  All month they are featuring bloggers from their sew along group in Flickr.  I've been working on these fun hats to sell at the textile collective over the holidays.  They are based on a felted wool hat I picked up on my honeymoon seventeen years ago this month.  Be sure to check out my tutorial plus all the others this month.

This tutorial features a hat made from t-shirts, but the same pattern works for old sweaters, sweatshirts, and fleece.  I have also experimented with some groovy suit fabric, but it doesn't have any stretch and I haven't developed a consistent pattern for it yet.  So, after you have settled on some fabric with some stretch, you are going to cut out panels for the main part of the hat.

For a hat sized 0-2T cut one 5x6" and four 3x6" rectangles (five panels total) and one 6" circle.

For a hat sized 3T-7 cut one 5x7" and four 4x7" rectangles (five panels total) and one 7 1/2" circle.

For a hat sized 8&up cut one 5x8" and five 4x8" rectangles (six panels total) and one 9" circle.

 

Pin and sew panels together (if your fabric has a right side, do it right sides together) creating the body of the hat.  When pinning, take care to line up the tops of the panels that will eventually be sewn to the circle to form the crown of the hat.  It does not matter if the bottoms of your rectangles are uneven, as they will just get folded up into the brim.  Many people feel you can only work with knit fabric if you have a serger, but a zig zag on top of a straight stitch is really just as effective.

 You can now pin the circle to the hat.  Turn the body of the hat inside out and begin pinning the edge of the circle to the tops of your rectangle.  I sew around first with a straight stitch, and then go back over it with a zig zag to give it a little more structure.

 Flip the hat right side out and finish with another zig zag around the exposed crown of the hat.  This step is optional if you like the shape of the hat without it.  Again, I like the structure it adds to the hat.  These sew up pretty quickly (30 to 45 minutes) and although the original Honeymoon Hat shows no signs of wear and tear, it will be nice to have some different color choices.

Just Sew: Potholder Covers

I have been using the same ratty potholders for years, embarrassed of them when we have company or when I use them to take a dish someplace else.  At one point, I tried using a piece of a heavy wool sweater that had been felted as a potholder, but the heat still seeped through and they did not provide enough protection.

You can probably guess where this was going, but it took me a lot longer to figure it out.  I simply sewed slipcovers for my ugly old potholders out of a felted wool sweater.  It was so easy!  I cut two squares a little larger than my potholders, placed the potholder in the middle, and sewed them together.  I like the exposed edge, but one could turn them inside out after sewing and finish them that way.

They are so cute now!  I chose a colorful striped sweater so I have a lot of coordinating color choices for the other two potholders that are left.  I can't believe it took me as long as it did to figure it out,  but now I am so glad it's done.  I can't wait to show them off at Thanksgiving.

Just Read: Making It

During my last year as an independent bookstore owner I was fortunate enough to meet Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne, authors of Making It:  Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World.  Based in the middle of Los Angeles, they have created a lifestyle that evokes Ma and Pa Ingalls of the Little House books.  They grow their own food, raise their own meat, bake bread almost everyday, and create much of what they need from scratch instead of buying ready-made products.  Ironically, when I picked them up at the ferry terminal to take them to their author event, upon seeing my sewing machine in the back of my car (I must've been giving a lesson that day) they commented they still weren't sewing their own clothes, but it was definitely a goal on their list.

They are part of the Radical Homemaking movement where people take a hard look at their lifestyles and try to rearrange things in order to become producers, rather than consumers.  Shannon Hayes has been chronicling this movement for several years in essays, books, and her blog.  She, like Erik and Kelly and many others, came to the conclusion that they worked forty hours a week just to consume.  They then took the leap and scaled back on their traditional jobs to allow more time to produce and found, in many ways, they were better off, financially, spiritually, etc.  This lifestyle holds a lot of allure for me, and fortunately, our location and situation in life will allow us to pull it off.

That's where Making It becomes such a great resource.  Erik and Kelly worked with the publishers to make the book very accessible and not overwhelming.  Tasks are divided into sections:  Day to Day, Week to Week, Month to Month, and Season to Season.  The reader can tackle one thing at a time, incorporate it into their lives until it becomes part of a routine and then add another.  Topics range from creating hygiene and cleaning products, to gardening, to food preservation and more.  I am still checking off most of the Month to Month tasks, but really like their "recipes" for household products.

Although our family is most likely several years from being able to completely embrace this lifestyle, I do enjoy the sense of satisfaction we get now from the food we do manage to grow and eat, the eggs we collect, and the other items we choose to make ourselves rather than purchase at the store.  And, hopefully, as our children grow up and start their own households, producing will be so normal for them they will not get caught in the trap of consumerism.