The Year of Handmade; a summary

So for this past year I chose to forego all RTW clothing and only allow myself to wear things that I had made myself. All my clothing, including underwear, bathers and raincoat, hosiery and socks; everything had to be sewn or knitted by me. The only exceptions I allowed were shoes and boots.

I drew each of my daily outfits in my Fashionary, thus keeping track of the wearing tally, if you like, of each item of clothing.
So, the quantitative assessment: I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that yes, I analysed all those funny little paper dolls, itemising all my clothing worn this year along with adding up the number of "wears" that each item received this year. I plugged my results into an excel spreadsheet, which is to say that I sure don't expect anyone apart from me to be the slightest bit interested in the nitty gritty, of course! I just did that bit for fun.

But to summarise, the most worn items in my wardrobe this year are:

White Tshirts, by a country mile. I have 3 identical white Tshirts, and each one alone got more wear than any other top in my collection. Skirts: my ivory curtaining skirt (left) ; my refashioned, little denim skirt (right), my midnight blue, over dyed corduroy A-line skirt (centre). Re-dyeing that blue skirt really did give it a fabulous new lease on life, elevating it to the third most frequently worn skirt in the wardrobe. (left) Oversized peppercorn cardigan and (right) chocolate cotton cardigan.

My army jacket was the second most worn item in my wardrobe this year... love that thing! My ivory cotton cardigan and the blue bell-sleeved top also came in pretty high.

Dresses, from left; the Aquarius dress, Japanese cotton sundress and the sew bossy dress. Statistically, the sew bossy dress squeaked out on top, but actually all of my dresses got a heck of a lot of wear, even my winter dresses; with "wears" spread pretty evenly across the board. I wore 28 dresses this year... sounds like a LOT I agree, but actually 9 of this number have already move on to either the scrap bag or the Good Sammy's. None of these three, but.
Jeans: The frequency of wears for my jeans is quite low; I'm very much a skirt/dress wearer, with tights for winter. I think I really only need a new pair once every two years or so. The purple flares got the most wear.

Shorts get about the same wearing frequency as jeans. My hot pink linen shorts are firm favourites, which is interesting since they felt like a very whimsical and possibly crazy addition to my wardrobe at the time! 2013's two favoured scarves were both simple, unhemmed pieces of jersey knit, for summer a light and breezy ecru, and for winter, a long long raspberry. Please tell me, if a rectangle of fabric is enough to keep me happy then why o why do I knit so many scarves?
Tights; two pairs of plain black wool tights, and my paprika tights got a lot of wear too.

Um, underwear; yes, well all of that got worn too...
Obviously some of my more recently made items did not get a look in, and their usefulness will not be apparent until after next year; but this can't be helped at this point.

Now for the qualitative assessment: Going into this project, I wondered whether I would feel needlessly restricted by not allowing myself to wear RTW this year. That was dumb, since I have absolutely masses of me-made clothes and didn't feel lost for choice, not at any time. However, and these thoughts have been with me from the very start of my totally me-made journey, ?four? years ago: I do admit to ebbing waves of uncertainty about my sanity. I mean, making all my own clothes seems both silly and masochistic sometimes, even to me, a battle-hardened convert of several years. When I look at and admire other ladies' outfits it would not even enter my head to judge them on whether they made it themselves or not, and yet, I do judge myself quite severely on this basis.

But whether it's good/sensible or not, I'm in the habit of making all my own now, and would find it hard to buy clothes in a store. I would feel too guilty, believe it or not. I've successfully brainwashed myself. I'm in two minds whether or not to actually act on this. Whether to continue as I am, or to rehabilitate myself, so to speak... maybe see if I even am capable of buying something.
Yes, I do realise how very silly that sounds.

If I've proved anything at all to myself, it's merely that making all your own clothes can be done. Be your own sweatshop, yo. I am. I can, and I did. Which has precisely zero significance at all, to anyone, anywhere. And yet I feel strangely proud of myself, nonetheless.
Will I keep this up next year? well yes and no.
NO I will not be regaling the blog with fashionary pictures any more. And I will be happy to welcome back into my life some of my old RTW items I've had for many years. That amounts to some Metalicus Tshirts and a petticoat, a handful of Country Road camisoles and a few cashmere cardigans, all very high quality items and all years and years old now. I also have a few scarves that have been given to me as gifts by family, that will enter rotation as of tomorrow. Black tights! The two woollen pairs I wore this year have both sprung holes in the toes. I think I could spoil myself and just buy these from now on, at least.
However, YES, in that I think I will continue to keep tabs on my clothing next year too... just because I found it really interesting and a useful exercise in future wardrobe planning.

The final paper dolls... :)