Tuesday, April 11, 2017

I Wore Blue for Weeks...and No-one Noticed





I carried out a small experiment over the last two weeks, rather by accident. I wore three of my handmade dresses over three days, and realized they were all in shades of blue. This made me wonder how long I could continue. Turns out I have more blue clothing than I thought!


The interesting thing was that as I examined my closet each day, putting more unexpected outfits together in order to keep on my blue streak, nobody noticed. No-one at work, coworker or customer, seemed to notice any theme at all. Nobody commented on the lengthy repetition of blue of all kinds.


As sewists, we often feel critical of our own makes -- oh, but the zipper isn't perfect, the stripes aren't exactly matched at the side seam, the collar isn't perfectly symmetrical, and so on. Nobody else but us (and perhaps a few sewing friends) will ever see those so-called mistakes, but sometimes they are all we see, instead of the beautiful finished garment that we are wearing.


The last two weeks showed me that not only do others not notice our small errors, they often don't notice anything at all! What was I wearing yesterday? you might ask someone. They will have no clue. Because really, your appearance isn't all that important to them. If you wear a clown suit every day for two weeks people might start to wonder, but dress neatly and averagely and rest assured that NO-ONE CARES what you're wearing.


So wear what you want, don't apologize for your good-enough sewing, don't limit yourself to wearing only styles that you think hide your 'trouble spots' -- own them. Nobody else is going to care; hey, they probably won't even notice your outfit at all! This is a strangely comforting thought.


But after I finish my next two blue projects, I'm probably going to try to branch out colourwise, just a little bit, and brighten up my closet. Blue's not even my favourite colour! What about you? Do you tend to sew in one palette -- intentionally or not? If so, which one -- and why?