a year of make do 🧵

Ok I get inspired by Leena Norms lately...

May 2026 - May 2027

No new clothing items (this includes second hand purchases).

Except for some of the below examples:

• I can replace essentials (underwear and maybe socks).
• If 2-3 non essentials wear out fully then I can consider getting something, e.g. a second hand top or I will allow myself to peruse independent people like Sin Eater.
• If I'm working through my yarn stash and need to buy some yarn to complete a project then I will allow it...
• For example, I have all the contrast yarn queued up for a kofte knitting project but would need to buy the main colour yarn 🧶 
• If I need to buy a dress for the upcoming August wedding I'm attending, I will - this is if there's a specific dress code that my available clothes don't fit into.
• I'll think about buying secondhand or explore renting first of all!
• If I run out of sewing project fabric (highly unlikely) I can consider buying some fabric for a specific project.

And for the hell of it let's try this (with less strenuous rules)...

Low Buy on Books

• I have to read 2 books from my TBR [to be read] pile before I can buy 1 new book.
• On top of this, as I get through my TBR pile, I have to decide if I want to keep it or not, and sell or give away if not.
• I'm also going through my bookshelves in general at the moment and selling books here and there... mostly they're:
• Books I didn't enjoy
• Books I highly doubt I'll read again
• My goal is to lightly reduce the amount of books I own because I want to make room in my shelves for books like - Wheel of Time series, Brandon Sanderson, Dark Tower series

It's May 💮🌸🌼🌻

 Quick check in this May!

Currently Reading: Wind and Truth by Brandon Sanderson (finally over halfway)
Other Enjoyment: Watching Leena Norms on youtube.

I am overwhelmed with my ongoing textile projects:

1. Jumper for C (90% done)
2. Cardigan for dad (15% done)
3. 200g DK yarn shawl for me (20% done)
4. Draught excluder to be stuffed with non-compostable scraps and clothing waste (1% done)
5. Spinning up a sheep fleece from ~2021-2022 (??% done, working on it bit by bit)

Languishing projects:

1. A dress which just needs a neckline adjustment and bias binding
2. Some trousers needing a new waistband

Projects I want to start:

1. Sewing the pomona pants in some checked or patterned fabric (basically I want some Mabel trousers from Beyond Nine but they are out of my budget and also probably a bit wider than I'd like, anyway
2. Sewing another Rae skirt - a very beginner friendly pattern, I sewed one in checked linen and it's had a lot of mileage

Some pottery progress:

I'm finally able to make cylinders large enough to be [hopefully] decent sized mugs. My dream pottery project is a sports direct sized mug... one day. 

One of the good things about pottery is the pots live at the clay studio, and each item is fairly small as a project, so they don't feel overwhelming like the textiles projects I listed above!

Art Progress

I've done sketching here and there, and I've made progress on that dress up game prototype I mentioned previously; mostly just making the base body image onto which clothes will be added. I also made a start on some clothing as well 😌 And on top of that I started on the Unity junior programmer tutorials.