New Clothes! (Sort of)

I tackled my mending pile today.  (Survival tips are at the end of the post if you want to try this yourself some time.)

Now I have added the following back into my wardrobe: a slip, two dresses, and a sweater.

Here was my mending pile:

 

 Here's my "new" sweater:

Tips for tackling the mending pile

1. Don’t do it very often!  Then it feels like shopping—“Look what I found!”  (Seriously.  It works.  It had been so long I actually thought I had lost the slip, but how does a nice girl like me lose an undergarment?)

I tried to make a rule that I would mend one item every time I went to play in my craft room.  Didn’t follow it.  Not even once!

 

2. Call a friend.  Here is Carla working on pretty smocking and keeping me company.  There is no way  would have done it without her!

3. If you hate something why fix it?  If you are going to have to rework the entire garment, why fix it unless you absolutely love it?  The first reason is why the brown dress went in the give-away pile.  (I love the Franciscans.  But I don’t want to dress like one, in polyester no less!)  The second reason is why the lovely yellow dress went into the give-away pile—the amount of work necessary to get it to fit was just too much.

I also sorted the pile and discovered that much of it was stuff for re-fashioning.  

I promptly popped it in a box, labeled it, and put it with my other fun stuff. 

The mending stash is now much smaller!