Out With the Old, In With the New???

Tuesday -- Day 2 -- and the ditching continues.

This oversized black hat makes me look like a guy who might sell you camera equipment at B&H Photo, let's leave it at that.  Off to the Salvation Army it goes! 

Here's another hat -- these straw summer hats were all the rage for a while and maybe they still are.  This one never fit.  Ditch!



I was very excited to find the shirt below just around the time I started sewing.  It's quite snazzy for a rodeo or a community theater production of Oklahoma! or Whoop-Up but it's just not me (not to mention the color washes me out). 



It's really sad  --  yet instructive (for those who care to learn) -- that so many of my ditches are returning to the very place I found them.

Why did I bring this striped fabric home from the MPB Day pattern/fabric swap?  It's getting dumped and please don't tell Michael, who chose it.  It's too loud, too thin, and too stretchy to bother with.



Remember this Ott Light I found at the Salvation Army not half a year ago?  The base is too wide and the light too narrow; I don't use it.  Out it goes -- actually, I may leave this one by the dumpsters as someone's sure to pick it up and it's rather heavy to lug.



Who doesn't own a scratched teflon pan like the one below?  We have a perfectly good cast iron skillet that does eggs even better, with just a little bit more pre-heating and added butter -- nothing wrong with that.  Ditch!



Tuesday's Ditch Total:  1 plastic grocery bag and assorted other stuff, not bagged.



Friends, I want to be clear about something: not all of us are ready to throw bags of stuff out at the beginning of our decluttering/healing process.  Sometimes all we can manage is to pitch an expired bottle of Iboprofen and that's OK.  The important thing is that you ditch daily, even if it's only one little thing.

Naturally, as we get closer to what feels like "muscle" (as opposed to fat) it's going to get harder to ditch.  I'm already eyeing my sewing machine collection.  Do I really need a white Featherweight when I have two (or was it three) black ones?  If Michael doesn't feel any sentimental attachment to his mother's 35 lb. Kenmore, would it be inappropriate to get rid of it?  I mean, it's a boat.  These are all questions I'm going to have to answer myself with perhaps a little advice from the peanut gallery. (OMG, I just learned this term had nothing to do with Charles Schultz: I've spent my entire life saying Peanuts gallery.)

Moving onto In with the new, if there is a downside to the Mood Sewing Network, it is that I am obligated to buy fabric every month, regardless of my state of mind or the (currently sorry) state of my apartment.  Today I picked up fabric for a (likely) October project. 

One of my challenges as the lone male in this group of gals is that men's clothes are largely predictable (at least the kind I wear) -- pants, shirts, jackets, etc., made from the same types of fabrics -- so I feel the need to make lots of individual garments.  Like, it's not enough for me to just sew a cotton shirt; I need to sew a shirt and pants, or a jacket and shorts ensemble -- you get the idea.  Plus a little Cathy thrown in to liven things up.

For October, I'm planning a sweater-shirt-pants ensemble, made of the following fabrics, respectively:

This cement gray wool knit (which may or may not be a vest combining the knit and some other fabric):



This black and white gingham shirting:



This mustard yellow Marc Jacobs cotton twill:



I also looked at the considerably brighter Rag & Bone twill below, but I was afraid it was just too bright.  Now I'm not so sure.  Was I right to pass on the French's mustard and go for the spicy brown Gulden's?



Reader's that all for today -- I have bags to unload at the thrift store, fabric to preshrink, and dogs to walk.

Have a great day, everybody!

PS -- How's your ditching going?