We take on a ten-day capsule wardrobe challenge and tell you how it went, what we learned, and what we would do differently next time. Lee Vosburgh’s 10 x 10 Challenge helped us to reflect on our current lifestyle and wardrobe needs. We walk away feeling motivated to approach our sewing plans thoughtfully and realistically.
- #BPSewvember
- Country and city sewing hashtags:
- The Curated Closet by Anuschka Rees
- The 10 x 10 Challenge was created by Lee Vosburgh from the fashion blog, Style Bee
- Marie Kondo
- Wardrobe Architect by Colette Patterns
- Helen’s Capsule Wardrobe
- Caroline’s Capsule Wardrobe consists of these ten items:
- Tessuti Mandy Boat Tee hack (Kelli did a tutorial on her blog for this!) in bamboo & cotton french terry
- Deer & Doe Plantain Tee in linen & poly knit
- Plaid button-down (ready-to-wear)
- Grey sweater (ready-to-wear)
- True Bias Lander Pants in non-stretch cone mills denim
- Jeans (ready-to-wear)
- Grainline Tamarack Jacket in cotton denim shirting / plaid shirting combo
- Sewaholic Robson Coat in cotton twill
- Floral sneakers
- Suede oxfords
- Patterns we mention in this episode:
- Helen’s Closet Winslow Culottes and Blackwood Cardigan
- True Bias Lander Pants and Hudson Pants
- Tessuti Mandy Boat Tee
- Helen’s Wednesday Weekly with inspiration for wearing dresses over pants
- Randomly Happy Maker Capsule Wardrobe series
Follow Helen! Blog: Helen’s Closet, Instagram: @helens__closet
Follow Caroline! Shop: Blackbird Fabrics, Instagram: @blackbirdfabrics
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I bought the Curated Closet last year and worked through her process. Her book and my workbook have a permanent home with my sewing books right beside my cutting table 🙂
One of my favourite aspects of the process was assigning a “label” to my style. Carl Jung said naming your Devil strips him of his power over you 🙂 It was rather like giving a dream a title (a helpful process by the way). It grounded or centralized who I am in my clothes. For me it was “classic edgy” or “classic artsy”.
Like both of you I work from home but thinking more carefully (and making a pie chart which wasn’t hers but someone else’s suggestion) about how much time I actually SPEND in certain activities helped me focus on what I needed more of, what I had too much of, and could be donated to allow more room in my closet for things I needed more of. The downside was that I discovered I have a slew of patterns that I’ve bought over the past year that I have no use for and I’m certainly not going to make if I have no use for them or they aren’t in my style (now that I know what the heck that is).
So the process is helpful but it can be painful too which you both talked about in the podcast and I’m so glad you did!
The result was that I sew fewer things, not sew less really just take more time to make each item and I buy a LOT less clothes in general. I can’t MAKE and BUY clothes. It would just get ridiculous – what would I do with all those clothes?? I decided if I’m going to make clothes, I need to make ALL my clothes because like you both I work from home and I just don’t have a need for a lot of clothing. That means those knit tanks and capris I wear around the house (like right now writing at the cpu), I need to make those too!
As always your podcast was brilliant. So fresh and honest and funny. PLEASE never stop 🙂
Love Kathleen
So then what is an emotional dresser?
Is it a feeling of one of the four emotions influencing what one wears that day? If so, what about basics in colors that work for this? For example, happy being your favorite color? Or rebellious (which be under anger, right) be black? What about the accessories being emotion? A favorite bracelet or mixing clothes and accessories in a progressive and unique way?
Or is it one who dresses based on the weather, say wearing blue on warm days and on cloudy days cheery bright colors?
Or all of the above?
I suppose this is something you can decide for yourself! Any part or all of the above! 🙂
Hey Helen and Caroline! I just wanted to let you know that the link for Caroline’s capsule wardrobe is broken ☺️ I just listened to the episode and was so curious to see what y’all chose! Love your show!! (started from the beginning so I’m a bit behind!)
Hi Amy! Unfortunately, that post was lost with the Blackbird Fabrics website redesign. We have updated this post with the pictures and info for Caroline’s capsule wardrobe! Thanks so much for listening. Happy sewing!