one big capsule wardrobe // summer 2015

Do you remember the winter capsule wardrobe I posted at the beginning of the year?
It was working really great until I got an internship, moved to Munich and my wardrobe needs changed completely.
I went from a very casual student wardrobe to a 'OMG I'm working for a big company and everyone looks so fancy' wardrobe within a matter of weeks. Which meant I traded comfy yoga pants and dresses for blouses and dress pants. My HR department is fairly casual compared to other departments but it's defintiely a different dress code than on campus.

Some notes:

• for this capsule I chose 60 (OMG!) pieces. That sounds like a lot (and it is!) but it covers all my clothing needs. I have fancy pieces for job interviews and business meetings, semi-casual office clothes and casual clothes for the weekends. I should also note that my outfits depend on whether I ride my bike to work or whether I take the subway (which makes wearing maxi skirts manageable). 
• some of these pieces are pretty worn out and I'm looking to replace them. When I find a replacement I'll donate the old piece. There are also a couple classic pieces I'm looking for, like a high-quality trench coat and a white blouse that is not see-through (impossible to find in Germany!). These will be added to the wardrobe if I ever find them.
• some of the basic tops are just for layering and my shirts double as sleep shirts because I usually just but PJ bottoms. If I didn't count them I'd only have about 50 pieces. Doesn't sound as bad anymore, right?
• not pictured: clothes worn exclusively at home like PJ bottoms, rain gear, sportswear and two fancy dresses for special occasions. Oh and I also wear underwear like all normal people ;)
• I marked all the items I wear exclusively at the office with one * and all the pieces that are for job interviews/formal client meetings with two **

TOPS: lightweight gray pullover, 3/4 striped top, striped baseball tee, navy v neck, Roots sweater, sheep t-shirt, Lululemon scuba hoodie, navy 3/4 top*, Life is Good "summer starter kit" tee, loose navy tanktop, navy v neck, loose striped top,  navy tank, purple tank, striped neutral tank.
 
MORE TOPS classic fit blue blouse*, charcoal-gray blazer*/**, gray waterfall neck top*/**, light blue striped shirt*, cable sweater (similar style, different color), 3/4 sleeves top*, plaid shirt, light pink waterfall neck**, gray top*, striped tee, jeans jacket, gray tee, navy striped tee, striped linen shirt, 3/4 sleeves cardigan, lacy cotton pullover*, 3/4 striped blouse, lightweight coral pullover.

There are lots of neutral colors in my wardrobe. It makes matching clothes and getting dressed in the morning super quick. You might also notice that there are lots of stripes in my closet. Having lots of tops makes layering very easy. Although it gets pretty warm during the day it is usually rather cold in the morning (around 11°C/in the low 50's F) when I go to work. Thus my sweaters get lots of wear.

TOPS & BOTTOMS gray merino cardigan*, white tank*, beige maxi skirt, red maxi skirt

These two maxi skirts are kind of my wildcards. I love maxi skirts but I usually just wear them on holidays when I don't need to drive, ride my bike or walk many stairs. I've worn the red one in the office a couple of times and got many compliments for it. And there are so many people out there wearing maxi skirts while driving, chasing toddlers, etc. Maybe I just haven't figured out how to handle long skirts correctly?

BOTTOMS skinny jeans, navy linen pants*, well-loved jeans, natural chinos*, red chinos, navy dress pants**, floral dress, coral skirt, jeans shorts, beige shorts, navy shorts*, gray shorts.

My bottoms are the pieces of my wardrobe that I'm least content about. My favorite pair of jeans is falling apart and I haven't found a worthy pair to replace them yet. The linen pants are super comfy but I can only wear them with high heels - which is the opposite of comfy. So they don't get as much wear as I had hoped they would.
My jeans shorts also need to be replaced by a pair that is more flattering. I bought them right before a vacation 5 (6?) years ago because I was in desperate need of a pair of shorts. But I have failed to replace them with a more flattering pair although I've been looking for several years. Finding affordable jeans shorts that aren't destroyed, faded, high-waisted or having pockets poke out are impossible to find. If you have a recommendation on where to find wearable shorts, please let me know!

SHOES suede pumps*/**, black pumps**, gray suede oxfords*, brown leather flats*, sandals, birkenstock arizona(my slippers that I end up wearing more outside than at home, thus I listed them here), gizeh birks, gray sneakers, toms, minnetonka moccasins, Timberland boat shoes.

I have a confession to make. I love shoes. Especially leather shoes. It's a rather expensive addiction (though I don't remember the last time I bought a pair of shoes that was not on sale) but I just can't help it. When it comes to pretty handbags and shoes I'm a typical woman ;)

Oh speaking of handbags, I'm planning to share my accessories with you once I find the time to take pictures of them.

PS: Please excuse the not-so-perfect photos. I live in a tiny apartment and the only possibility to hang the pieces was in the rather dark hallway, thus the limited amount of daylight and the lack of a wide-angle lens made taking these pictures rather difficult.

life according to instagram

Life has been wonderful and busy lately. If you look at my instagram feed you'll mainly see fiber arts related stuff. But don't be fooled, 95% of my life consists of working, studying and sleeping these days. But that's okay because I'm taking an exam on corporate accounting this Saturday, which means I'll have lots of free time to enjoy the beautiful summer we're having afterwards.

In the meantime, I have started a tacky knitting themed sock collection. Julia found these when she was in South Korea a couple weeks ago and they inspired me to start looking for similar socks. There are so many awesome sheep and alpaca socks out there, I want all of them! It's a perfect timing to start this collection because most of my store-bought cotton socks are falling apart. Don't get me wrong, I love hand knitted wool socks, but they're not very practical in the summer.

If you know of a good place to buy knitting / sheep / alpaca / fiber themed socks, please let me know!

I took a week off to spend time Göttingen with my study buddies. All my friends / acquaintances in Munich work full time and seeing everybody enjoy the beautiful weather while you're spending the weekends at the library is a litt bit frustrating. So I'm enjoying spending the evening on my parents' couch with Lina and knitting on my exploration station shawl.

So this is my life right now according to instagram. What have you been up to?

wiwo wednesday vol. 21

I've been busy these past two weeks with a super secret project that I'm gonna share soon - hopefully. But in the meantime, I have a couple of in-progress shots for you of the major craft projects I have on/under the needle.

Last weekend I finished sewing the quilt top of a triangle quilt. I bought the fabrics in Canada last August so it's been on my to-do list for quite a while. Last Thursday was a public holiday in Germany so I had a four-day weekend to work on this. I finished the entire quilt top - including cutting all the triangles, going to a local quilt shop to buy more fabrics because I needed like 60 more triangles, sewing everything together (quite a challenge in a tiny apartment!) and flooding my IG feed (@froggeddesigns) with pretty pictures of it. Sunday evening I rearranged the furniture in my boyfriend's apartment to baste it. After I was done I realised the backing looked terrible - wrinkles all over! - so I undid everything and I'm sending it off to my mom so she can baste it on her longarm machine.

Over the past 4 years I have accumulated quite a lot of pants that I need to shorten (#shortpeopleproblems). My mom helped me pin them to the correct length three weeks ago when my parents were in town and they've been occupying one of my chairs since then. I'm determined to shorten ALL of them next weekend (another three-day weekend - yay!). Wish me luck.

Good thing I discovered the serial podcast to keep me company. If you haven't listened to the first season yet you totally should; it's been accompanying me on my daily walks and it's so addictive. I can't wait for season two to launch in the fall :)

This wouldn't be a wiwo post if I didn't share my progress on at least one knitting project, right?
Here's the current state of the pair of socks that's on my needles. I'm knitting them using Wollmeise twin yarn and 2.5mm needles. It's hilarious that the second sock looks SO DIFFERENT from the first although I'm using the same skein of yarn and I'm knitting from the same end. I might actually knit another pair after this using the same skeins of yarn so I can match up the two socks that look alike the most. I'm sure my mom won't mind taking a pair off my hands :)
I'm not gonna finish them until the beginning of stash dash though - which is in only two days! I'm so excited. There are lots of WIPs in my project bags that are begging for attention which they shell get.

So what have you been working on? Are you participating in stash dash this year?

wiwo wednesday vol. 20

As always I have a bunch of projects in the making but not enough time to finish them. I have about 15 craft projects that are waiting to be completed but instead I dream about new projects. The fabrics above are gonna be turned into a triangle quilt as soon as I can decide what kind of triangles and what size I want :)
They're Kona cotton fabrics that I bought in Canada last summer.

Knit-wise I still have have lots of project bags filled with various projects; hats, sweaters, a shawl, socks... I probably have too many projects on my needles but I enjoy having a variety of stuff to work on. Plus, May 22nd - August 14th is Stash Dash so I'm saving some big WIPs to finish them then so I might have a chance at finishing a 3k or maybe even the 5k!
Anyone else who plans on joining?

Sewing-wise I'm trying out some new designs and fabric/leather combinations like the one above. I'm gonna have a biggish shop update at the end of the month but I'll share more details once the date is set.

Last but not least, I have a new apartment to decorate! I'm planning to share a tour of my tiny apartment here in Munich. All my furniture and 95% of my stuff is still in my old apartment so I don't plan to invest too much into this temporary housing. But some cute Swedish pillows (like the one above) and some homemade decor won't hurt, right?

So what are you working on?
You might also want to check this rad wiwo post my talented friend Sam posted last Wednesday, featuring a day in the life of a table!

project planning

When I moved to Munich last month, I had to leave most of my stash in storage (aka my old apartment's basement) because I have very limited storing capacities at my new apartment. So when I moved I basically had to plan all my sewing and knitting projects for the next half year. Crazy, right?

Here are the knitting projects I have planned for the near future:

An exploration station shawl out of Wollmeise fingering weight yarn. After knitting this one for my mom I knew I'd knit one for myself eventually. When I saw these gorgeous colors of Wollmeise yarn at the spring sale I just couldn't resist buying them.

When I saw the dark pearl cardigan at the Baa Ram Ewe booth at the h+h Cologne in March it was love at first sight. I was lucky enough to buy the yarn right there at a discounted price. The cardigan will be perfect for summer days at the office when it's still cold in the morning on my way to work.

After knitting scrap socks for over a year I rewarded myself with a skein of Wollmeise 80/20 twin yarn to knit a pair of socks for myself. I love the bright colors ('pitahaya' for all those Wollmeise nerds who know each colorway by heart) and it will be nice to only knit from one skein for a change. Having to juggle a dozen small yarn scraps in the subway is no fun.

This beautiful Wollmeise was another spontaneous splurge. I bought enough to knit a sweater but I'm not quite set on the pattern, yet. I'm considering James and Gable. But there are a hundred other patterns I can imagine knitting with this gorgeous yarn so we'll see what I end up using it for.

Last but not least, the only yarn I brought from home: Wollmeise lace yarn that I've had sitting in my stash for over three years. What a shame, right? I'm planning to knit a simple pullover to wear in the summer. I'll probably just come up with my own design because I haven't found anything I really loved online.

Well it's gonna be a pretty busy (knit-wise) summer around here.
Do you have any specific projects planned for the summer?

operation sock yarn // the finale

A little over a year ago I started #operationsockyarn to motivate myself to use up all those bits of fingering weight yarn I had. Today I'm sharing my (for now) last pair of scrap socks.
Is my scrap stash completely used up? Nope. But I turned all those small bits and pieces into scrap socks which only leaves me with 'big' leftovers (we're talking 50 grams plus...) which I'll turn into small toys eventually.
But for now I'm calling this project done because I have other things I want to focus on right now. Of course that doesn't mean I won't be knitting any scrap socks in the future. But I'm focusing my knitting energy on other projects.

So here's the last pair of scrappy socks. You might notice that they are not quite symmetrical. That's because I was working with very, very small scraps and didn't want to throw away any yarn simply because I'd have two more rows than on the other socks.

Is this my favorite pair of socks I made for this challenge? Definitely not. But it's a happy pair nonetheless because a) it got me my creative mojo back and b) it means I get to cast on a new pair of socks using one single skein - this will make knitting in the subway SO much easier.

Check back tomorrow for a 'project planning post' - I have lots of awesome projects in the pipeline that I can't wait to get started on. But first, let's get some sleep.

twenty four

I’m 24 today. An age that seemed to be so far away just years ago. It’s crazy to look back through this blog and see all the different birthday posts and feel like a different person every year.

Since it's been awhile since the last blog post here is a quick summary of what happened in the past 6 weeks: I moved to Munich, got to explore a lot of this beautiful city, spent every weekend traveling (moving, going home for the weekend, going to the h+h Cologne...), started my internship which meant a lot of late nights at the office and making new friends.

As I'm enjoying big city life I'm finding it hard to make time for personal craft projects. But now that days are getting longer and I’m finally settled in that is about to change.

I have several blog posts scheduled for the next couple of days to get back into blogging and making (so I have something to blog about). Check back soon to see my latest FO and a h+h Cologne (the German equivalent of CHA) recap. Should I mention that I met Stephen West and Ysolda? Maybe that will motivate you to check back soon... ;)