Closet Clean-out

Last weekend I spent all day Saturday sitting on the couch working on a difficult group assignment for 8 straight hours! Saturday we had the most beautiful weather and I missed it completely because of school work. Argh. Sunday was much better. I refused to work on the paper any longer and decided to instead do something fun....Clean our my closet! With the hot weather it was time to switch out my winter clothes for summer clothes. Of course I hadn't been in the back of my closet in months and months and knew a lot of stuff wasn't going to fit anymore. So I started by pulling everything out and puting it on the bed so I could start with a clean slate. Next I tried on every item that was in the closet. Greg was there to give his opinions and also to laugh at some of the articles that looked ridiculous now. Plus I love telling him the stories about why I bought certain things. In addition to finding lots of stuff I had shrunk out of, I found lots of favorites that I have shrunk in to. A fun surprise! Some things even had tags on. I had intended to return them because they were too small and now they fit. Things not going right back into the closet went into 2 piles. The donation pile (above) and the alter pile (below). The donation pile looks small but it ended up being 2 leaf bags worth of clothes. The alter pile included stuff to wash and dry on hot in order to shrink them a bit. This technique actually works very well for knits. What was left in the pile I had intended to try and alter with my sewing machine but it was a huge pile. In all honesty I am not good at alterations and knew I wouldn't have time to work on that much stuff. So I went back through and kept only things that would be fairly easy to alter, items I really loved, or items I had spent a lot of money on. Those (pictured) are now in the studio waiting for school to let up so I can work on them. Here is my closet now. It was crammed full before. A lot of stuff ended up folded in my dresser like short sleeves tops that were hanging over the winter. That is a big reduction. I also made a list as I went of items I want to look out for when I go outlet shopping next month with the girls from work.

An example of the fun. I pulled out these capri pants and tried them on. Last summer none of my capri pants fit. I had grown out of all of them and since I live in capri pants I had to go out to the gap and buy a pair. I bought these size 16 and wore them a lot. This weekend when I tried them on I could get them on and off without unbuttoning them! But even better, I found my old favorite pair of olive green capris. So beloved that I refused to toss them even though they stopped fitting at least 2 summers ago. I tried them on and they fit great! Gotta love that!