New Year's Resolution: My hands only

I wanted to take this cool picture of my hands for this post, but it's 1am, and that's so not happening. Instead, enjoy blurry iPhone pics courtesy of Steve Jobs.

Carrying on then.

I never make New Year's Resolutions. Okay, I never even make any kind of resolutions. I have a cynic inside me who doesn't believe in them.

But goals? Oh yeah. It's okay if you fail at a goal. A goal is a good idea that might happen if you kind of try. That's the only kind of standard I usually look for.

Looking over last year's goals, I didn't seem to meet many of them. Which is totally okay, because I had a rough year as far as life upheaval goes. I can cut myself some slack. What really struck me though, is that I made too many goals! What was up with that? I mean seriously.

This year, I thought, how about just one. That way I don't have to keep track of anything. So I made it a big one:

My New Year's Resolution:

I will not buy clothes for one whole year.

If my family needs clothes, I will sew them up. Yep, I'm including my whole family o' four in this. That way, I will have images in my head of them ragged and naked to keep me motivated. If I fail, they will suffer, muh-hah-hah-hah-haaah!

In all seriousness, this is going to be awesome for them. They all love it when I sew them clothes. Even my husband. Okay, so far I've only sewed him t-shirts and pj pants and boxers, but he wears them to death, so that must be a good sign, right??

My Id came up with some possible snags.

Id: Swim trunks? Jeans for Women/girls/boys? Men's Dress shirts? Leotards? Sweaters? Underwear?

Let's see...fabric & patterns for all of those in the stash already. Check. Check. Checkcheckcheckcheck.

Id: Old Navy, Banana Republic, Urban Outfitters, etc., sale emails?? Target? Forever 21??! It's all so...so...cheap! Just this one outfit or two. It's so cheap. So cheap! SO CHEAP!!

No cheap clothes for us this year. I always cave to those deals when I have supplies to make several of the same thing already in my stash. No more doubling up and only imaginarily sewing. I gonna do it for realz this time.

Id: Time?

Going to have to find a way to make time. Sewing makes me SO HAPPY. Wearing handmade items and seeing others wearing them makes me SO HAPPY. If that's not valuable time spent, then I don't know what is.

Id: Tights & socks? Men's jeans? Buying others' handmade clothes? Hand-me-downs?

Thought hard about it, and these are going to have to be the only caveats. I'm not subjecting my husband to happy hands jeans, so when he needs new ones we'll just go get his Levi's like we usually do.

I can't make those nylon tights, and I don't see the point of knitting everyday socks (not that I know how to knit right now anway!). Counting these as "accessories".

I'm going to make an exception for clothes that others make, because I want to support handmade stuff. One of these days I'm going to own something that Eva's made, and maybe it will be this year!

Oh and hello, not going to count hand-me-downs! Half of my son's clothes right now are hand-me-downs, and I love it! I'm reducing my consumption with them, and I feel super good about that.

Oh! Oh! Just a thought I need to throw out there. In the online sewing world where I began my modern sewing journey, aka Sewing Mamas, sewing your family's clothes is NO BIG DEAL. I know of ladies who not only sew all their family's clothes, they sew their freaking cloth diapers, wipes, napkins, you name it. And they do it beautifully, with awesome talent. These women inspire me, and it's only because of their example that I would even think to do this.




Viva la Resolution!!