green in progress

It's a slow and rainy weekend, and the world outside is just so so verdant. It's good spring rain, not the kind you can complain about, especially because it was preceded by about two weeks of unseasonably gorgeous weather. My sewing has been green too, which isn't usually a color I sew with, but this spring it dominated my fabric purchases. Why not?

I'm sewing more clothes, and working on learning about fit (The 1966 Better Homes Pattern Adjustments book from Bethany pictured in the photo is awesome!), and generally doing a lot of thinking about where I spend my dollars clothes- and fabric-wise.

When I was thirteen, my mother started giving me a clothing allowance: I had a set amount of money every month to buy everything I needed, including accessories, coats, underwear, etc. The idea was to teach budgeting, and I think it was a great idea, although it probably would have been more effective if I didn't also have a father who bought me things, not that I'm complaining. The cool (and relevant) part of the whole deal was that my mom would buy me whatever fabric and patterns I wanted above the clothing allowance. The only restriction was that I could only have two projects going at once. I didn't sew myself a ton of clothes (not the way my mom did when her mother gave her the same set of rules), but I definitely sewed more than I would have without the clothing allowance rule. Plus, I learned how to sew.

I think I need some kind of system for now. It would probably be more of a game to play with myself than an actual budgeting tool. Things like: I want expensive shoes, so maybe I can justify them by sewing clothes from fabric I have instead of buying them. I want new, beautiful fabric I see online, so maybe I can buy it after I make X number of useful items out of the fabric I have. Or maybe I just go back to my mom's plan—a small monthly limit on store-bought items, but all the fabric and patterns I want, as long as I stick to two projects at a time. You know, it's the two projects at a time that would kill me. :-)