Slow Fashion October

When I first heard about Slow Fashion October, I thought it was an interesting topic, but not really for me, because I'm still changing faster than it takes me to eat a loaf of bread (that's fast), so the whole idea of slow fashion seems a little distant from myself. However, I found myself really interested in reading everyone's posts on instagram all month. My favourite week was loved. It was so fascinating to read all the stories involved with beloved pieces, and it was the week that I started to really think about slow fashion + myself, because even if I'm no longer fond of a couple things I made mere months ago, I do have several articles of clothing that have been with me for years and will likely be until they fall apart. 

Two of these items in particular- my favourite jeans and my grey cashmere sweater, were looking fairly threadbare at the time, and so I figured the least I could do in the name of slow fashion was to repair them. This soon grew into a small pile of clothes which I liked very much but didn't often wear, either because they needed to be repaired, or they just weren't quite right. So over the past couple weeks I've been working on taking a bit of time to fix them. 

I admit, it wasn't easy. It is more enjoyable to mend your own clothes than someone else's, but not by much. So far I've:

-sewed up the hole in a favourite bralette. 

-fixed the fit of a lovely thrifted wool t-shirt.

-shortened my manila leggings a little and replaced the too-big elastic waist with a band.

-removed the ruffle from a lovely little camisole in order to make it day-to-day wearable and                somewhat cover the fact that it's 2 sizes too big (first time sewing silk–reasonable success).

-took in the skirt of a dress so that it's less circle-y.

-patched my already patched favourite jeans where the material was essentially disintegrating. I           got these jeans from H&M the weekend I went to a Taylor Swift concert when I was 14. Now             that I think about it, they may the oldest item in my closet (I haven't been finished growing for             too long). I'm going to check later.

So I still just have to fix the arm hole of a tank top made out of the loveliest rayon challis (I'm putting it off because I don't want to unpick the entire bias binding, but I just can't give that fabric up), and repair the large holes in the elbows of The Cashmere. That one got put off because I had a different hand sewing project I needed to finish first. 

Although I didn't really gain any big insights from this Slow Fashion October, it has gotten the gears turning, and I hope Karen runs it again next year so I can put a little more into it. Maybe by that time I'll have knit a sweater!