January's finds...ikea red and pink duvet and pillow cases (£4) to cut up for sewing fabric, two teacups and saucers (50p per pair). The basket is one I bought last year in a charity shop and currently has to travel every where with Little I, stuffed full of toys. (I just wanted to show what we cannot leave the house without.)
Also bought in January:
2 1960s dresses £ 2 each , they are pretty big but can be resized, (pics soon)
1 pair jeans £3, (I have worn these a lot)
2 wooden cd racks for kids' bedrooms £1 each (I put all the cds in them. they take them out...the pattern continues)
Chess set for T, £3 (A great thing to teach a 7 year old, seriously)
1 Sindy doll, 95p
I felt at the end of the month as if I had bought lots in charity shops and at a nearly new sale but that list is not so big.
After a year of not buying new RTW clothes I thought I would try and summarise and think about what I have learned. I don't get tempted often by new clothes, but the things that have tempted me are mainly jeans....sales such as Howies when I am sorely tempted to buy a pair of their jeans. Or the People Tree sale also is a temptation especially for their dresses, and jersey t shirts. The other temptation is when a friend shows me their new purchases and sometimes I just feel a twinge of "must rush out and buy something new too" but it is a much fainter twinge than it was twelve months ago! And it is a misplaced emotion when I want to buy something new just because a friend has...what is that all about? Thinking about it after a friend had visited a couple of weeks ago, she showed me her new jeans and was describing a dress she had bought in the sales. I think the thing I was actually envious about was the fact she had gone out with a friend and no children and had that free time to wander round, maybe have a coffee.
As I try to move to a wardrobe that consists mostly of clothes I have made I have also been jettisoning other RTW clothes. Working on a one in, one out principal, over the past year, I sold some of my old clothes on ebay and donated lots to the charity shop. I looked at my ebay history yesterday and counted that I sold 13 pieces of my clothing on there in 2010. To me it seems that I must have had a lot of clothes. I like the idea of selling my things on eabay and using that money to fund my sewing as this creates a closed circle of activity in my mind.
I think that last year in only buying second hand clothing I did go a bit overboard and bought too much second hand clothing. I have to say I do like the feeling of buying myself a new-to-me item of clothing and the idea that I have got a bargain.
Some of those 13 items sold on ebay were mistakes bought from the charity shop. Sometimes I think I buy for the person I used to be before two kids and body changes. And I am still in the process of working out what shape I am, and what suits me. I guess a £3 mistake is better than a £30 one. I am not going to beat myself up about my buying too much over the last year but I am trying to reign myself in, even if it seems like a bargain I need to slow down and think.
I thought that joining in with Sarah's Thrifty 365 challenge would be a good way to consolidate what I was already doing and to carry on in a more cohesive way, plus she has cute blog buttons. Sarah is a creative powerhouse, how does she manage to do all the projects on her blog? I don't know.
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