Here on the Canadian prairie, I’ve been wearing my winter clothes for the past five months and as I look out the window at the big dump of snow that fell earlier this week, I know that I’ll probably be wearing them for quite a lot longer. Perhaps it’s the fact that the days are getting longer and we’re all beginning to yearn for spring, but at this time of year I become bored with my winter wardrobe. Staring into my closet each morning and trying to decide what to wear, I find myself feeling very uninspired.
So what am I going to do about that? I tried picking up a couple of new-to-me pieces at one of our local thrift stores in an attempt to add a bit of variety to my late winter wardrobe, but that didn’t do the job. One is a basic t-shirt that will probably show up on the blog at some point in the future. It fits into my wardrobe well and can be worn year round, but I wouldn’t exactly call it inspiring. I had thought about showing you the other item today, but when I wore it earlier this week, I still felt blah.
So, here’s what else I’m going to do. I’m going to take a deep dive into my closet with two goals in mind. First, I’m going to pull out anything that hasn’t been worn this season. That’s easy to do because at the beginning of each new season, I turn all the hangers backwards. Once I wear an item, I turn the hanger around. Anything that’s on a hanger that is still backward hasn’t been worn since I switched over to my winter wardrobe at the end of September. I’m going to take a close look at each of those items and ask myself why it is that I haven’t been wearing it. Then I’m going to either wear it or set it aside to be donated.
Once I’ve completed that midseason cull, I’m going to spend some time trying to figure out new ways to wear what’s left in my closet. It’s so easy to reach for the same old, same old over and over again, but that just leads to boredom. Hopefully I’ll come up with some new outfit combinations that help me feel a bit more inspired about getting dressed and if I’m successful, I’ll share some of those with you on the blog.
In my search for inspiration, I’ve also been checking out Merrick’s Art, especially her 4 Ways to Wear It blog posts and her videos on Instagram. You might want to check her out too.
Following Augustine 
Hello again from Bellingham! I had a wonderful lunch out eating Fish and Chips at the AK Ferry Terminal with my museum group (14 of us) yesterday. Joanna, my wonderful pilot daughter is in the air en route back from Paris to Chicago. Both she and Mark (pilot husband) are coming for a week at the end of this month. J dropped a trip for no pay to do so.
Just a thought about winter dressing. I own three Norwegian cardigans, two Icelandic ones and two Irish ( Aran) ones. This past winter, my first alone, I have worn those in various combinations almost every day. For one thing , I have turned the heat down quite a bit , it had to be kept fairly high for John while he was ill and I want to see how all my utility bills work out. I shall be living the rest of my life on Social Security and our savings so I need to figure out how much to withdraw every month. Anyway I have only worn skirts a couple of times and this is unusual for me! It worked out well.
We have daffodils blooming but it’s still winter here. My little lawn is 80% moss and I am seriously considering letting it become a moss lawn. Best wishes, Jan
I rarely wear skirts and I do have some cardigans that I haven’t worn as often as I might. In fact, I’m wearing one of them this morning.
Enjoy your visit with your daughter and son-in-law!
I like your method of turning hangers backwards to see what you’ve been wearing. I recently did a closet sort and figured out a new to me method that got me past some serious procrastination on culling out items that had left my closet a bit overstuffed.
First, I started on laundry day. That way I didn’t have to sort anything I’d worn in the last week or 2 making less in the closet to sort. Also, I just chose one type of clothing to sort… shirts on this day.
Second, I went through my closet one by one, but I didn’t try to decide if I was going to get rid of an item. I just asked myself if it was a definite keep or a ‘hmm?’ All the ‘hmm?’ items got pulled out and hung off to the side for a second sort. I used the edge of an open dresser drawer to hang them on temporarily.
Third, I organized everything left hanging in the closet into categories and by colour.
Finally, I looked at what I had and if I wanted any of the ‘hmm?’ items to fill out gaps, keeping in mind items still in the laundry. Anything I put back in, I put the hanger backwards. If the item was not needed or had something about it that made me not choose to wear it, it came off the hanger and went into the donate stack. I had to try on a couple things to decide, but having a neatly organized closet of clothes I really like to wear made it easy to get rid of those not so great things.
In a very short time and with very little stress about deciding what to keep or toss, I had a good stack to get rid of and about 20 empty hangers!
Nice! I really like the “hmm” idea. I think I’ll give it a try.
I have also been struggling with being inspired by the same winter clothes. I think coming up with different combinations can be the key. However I have been very uninspired to do even this HA!! Even though I actually love winter clothes I am ready for some lighter weights. Have a wonderful weekend.
Now that I’ve written about it and shared my goals with everyone on the internet, I feel obligated to go ahead and get the job done! lol
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