Alright, you darling black hills burros, the gig is up. It’s been fun spending the days sewing, shopping for fabric, surfing the googles and going snipe hunting with the basset hound, but the higher beings have decided to let me out of the time-out box and return to the world of the eight to five work day. Tomorrow I start a new job, one which will require me to commute. In a car. To an office building. Also, I’m guessing there will be some expectation that I wear shoes.

Before your little burro hearts explode from the alarm let me assure you that I’ll continue sharing projects here. I’m even going to continue teaching at Sewtropolis and working a few shifts here and there! I’m guessing you may see more plotting and daily outfit posts as there will no longer be endless days during which I do nothing but sew and walk the hound dog, so my amazing productivity will be slightly stemmed (WHERE is my sarcasm font??) And what with actually having to go to WORK every day, I’ll actually, you know, have to wear something other than shorts and a tank top, so daily outfit posts will be so much more interesting!

Which brings me to the today’s post…. my wardrobe! I think long time readers have probably picked up on the fact that I’m a bit OCD and a lover of planning and lists (executing those plans, on the other hand…) And, like any average American upon hearing the word that I’ll be returning to an office job three years after being laid off from my LAST full time office job, my first thought was, of course, “I have nothing to wear!!” To which many of you will undoubtedly roll your eyes and respond that I have TONS of things to wear. Fair point. Back to my point, though. I’m not sure what I have to wear to THIS job!! My last job was very corporate – suits were the order of the day. I’ve slowly gotten rid of my entire work wardrobe. It was ill-fitting and just not to my taste! In its place I’ve ranged around, basically making things that tickle my fancy and fit the needs of a housewife who works and teaches at a sewing shop! Luckily, the office seemed more on the casual side so I won’t have to master tailoring to create a closet of suits over the weekend, but I had a hard time falling asleep last night, mentally catalouging my wardrobe. So I decided today to ACTUALLY catalog my wardrobe! Here it is folks! This is everything I own, clothing wise. Well, almost everything. I didn’t photograph jeans, tanks, long sleeved t-shirts, outerwear, shoes, scarves or belts.

You’ll note a few things as you scroll through – first, I marked items that came from a store (versus my sewing machine) in the lower right as ‘ready to wear.’ I also went through and used red/yellow/green to code each garment. Red means it’s not OK for the office, yellow means possibly could be alright if worn with tights or on a Friday and green means the garment is cleared for trips to work. Let’s take a look, shall we? You can click on any image to see larger.

I think we’ll look at separates first. Here are all my shirts/tops/blouses… Um, I tend to make the same thing over and over, don’t I?

I always feel like I don’t have a good selection for tops. I tend to go for a knit cami under a cardigan for my basic ‘uniform’, so I just don’t look at interesting blouses. I think I need to focus on that with my fall sewing! Next up, skirts.

A lot of my skirts are fun, but a little… bright. Goofy? I’m not sure the right word. Also, I tend to make my skirts and dresses a tad on the short side for appropriate office wear. I need a few more basic circle skirts and pencil skirts made from more subdued wools and such! Now, how about my vast selection of trousers?

Um, yeah. I’m a skirt girl. The first two trousers are SUPER wide legged from Lane Bryant – and they have to be at LEAST five years old! The third pair are the Marrakesh trousers I made last year – they’re OK, but have cargo style pockets! And the last pair is a pair of grey cords. Again, perhaps OK for a Friday, but I don’t love the fit. The jury’s till out as to whether I’ll take another run at trousers… Let’s look at cardigans!

As you can see, I clearly need more sweaters! More colors! Pink! Orange! Turquoise! Purple! That is a sad looking rainbow!! I put my sweater collection together separately – there are a few ‘cardis’ in this collection as well, but they are all much bulkier and casual…

I really love the 3/4 length sweaters I’ve made – they are the first and last sweater in the first row. They look great with circle AND pencil skirts! It’s just so hard to find a proper sweater-knit that isn’t craptacular acrylic. Sigh. Now it’s dress-time!

Seriously, you carrot loving half horse/half mules. I used to have enough suits for over two weeks of a suit a day with no repeats. This is what survived. The yellow jacket is handmade and I love it, but it’s WAY too long! The black jacket is from Lane Braynt and the skirt matches the jacket and is re-made from trousers. It’s OK, but the fly pokes out in a rather disconcerting way! The grey jacket at the end is also from Lane Bryant and is really too big, but passable.

So that’s it, burros! My wardrobe! I still feel like I don’t have THAT much, although I know I have some good basics and honestly, could sew twice as many again garments without having to buy any new patterns or fabric. Although I should probably start buying interfacing by the bolt…

Well, I’m off! I have a few more errands to do today and then tomorrow will be my first day – although it’s a training day as the person who’s leaving is done on Friday. I’ll be at Sewtropolis all day Friday (and Saturday!) and then next Monday is my first official day as a working girl! Watch for a lot more wardrobe plotting posts in the near future!