Inspiration, lately

Yay! A clean new look to the blog! Took a little longer than anticipated and there's still some work I need to do on categorizing old posts to show up in the sidebar (not to mention, I foolishly held off posting until it was done, so now have a back-log of posts), but I'm so pleased! Let us know if anything's broken on your ends, will you?

And now, a brief break from the Influence Series, before plunging back in: I've been running across some seriously inspiring things on the interwebs lately, and wanted to share. Sometimes the internet/email feels like a vast, many-headed monster that is gobbling up all my time and energy, but other times it reinvigorates me and makes me see my own habits and life in new ways.

• Firstly, have you heard about Me Made May? A fun project started by Zoe of So, Zo, the goal is to wear more of one's hand-made clothing items out and about. Zoe herself is dressing in nothing BUT Zoe-made articles throughout May, but other folks are pledging various levels of participation; lots of people, for example, are saying they'll wear at least one hand-made item every day.
  
  
  
  

  This is such a cool challenge, and although (let's be honest) nearly every month is "Me Made Month" around Family Trunk headquarters, I thought I'd play along by documenting my outfits this month & maybe doing a weekly post about them. Since I make so few tops I won't be able to commit to entirely me-made outfits, but I can definitely commit to at least one handmade garment every day. You will also get to see how HORRIBLY REPETITIVE my work outfits are, but hey - a girl can only sew so fast.

• Secondly, are you familiar with Susannah at Cargo Cult Craft? She's doing this amazing Fashion on the Ration project where she attempts to "spend one year shopping and sewing within the British wartime clothing ration imposed in 1941."
  
  
  
  

  In addition to being crazy challenging and a fascinating history lesson, this brings up SO many interesting ideas about impact and cost of clothing. Since rationing worked on a coupon system which applied equally to, for example, a cheap wool skirt and an expensive wool skirt, and a person couldn't (theoretically, leaving out the black market) buy either skirt without the requisite coupons even if she had enough money, there is a huge incentive to buy only high-quality clothing, stuff that's likely to last for a long time. There's also an incentive to recycle, trade, shop thrift stores, and, famously, "make do and mend." On the other hand, there is little incentive to sew from un-recycled fabric, rather than buying clothes new, since both raw materials and finished goods were rationed; the goal is to reduce consumption across the board. This is a slightly different perspective than my usual one, which focuses more on knowing where my materials are coming from than on reducing my bottom-line consumption, and I've been thinking about Susannah's project a lot since I discovered it. Her blog also features all kinds of cool stuff on austerity Britain, a place and time I find fascinating; I highly recommend checking it out.

• And lastly, as a fellow dachschund-owner I feel compelled to point out that Pamela Wynn of Flint Knits is trying to pay some steep vet bills for her super-cute puppy, and designed an adorable tiny sweater for babies & kids in order to raise some cash. Although I am normally not a knitter-for-babies, Mr. Bingley insisted that I spring for a copy of this. So cute! Look at the little sewn-on ear!! And there are already some cool-looking variations on Ravelry! On a more serious note, I love the idea of being able to so quickly leverage a fairly obscure skill like sweater design into a real benefit for one's family—one of those moments when I truly feel lucky to live in the internet era. All my best wishes to Crush, Pamela!

That's all I got. Back soon (really & truly, this time) with the completed back, and then the completed front, of the Breeze-influenced cardigan I can't WAIT to wear.