the easiest way to organize a closet is totally fake

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The easiest way to organize a closet is easy, a pain in your ass, and totally fake: Throw all your shit out. Voila! Pretty closet!

Let's face it, every post on Pinterest about closet organizing has a jam-packed closet as the "before" and a barely-anything in it closet as an "after."

really elfa? REALLY? THIS IS NOT AN AFTER.

THAT IS NOT A CLOSET FOR REAL PEOPLE.  Seriously, I do not have only 20 shirts in my closet and three dresses.  Organizational people are LYING TO YOU ALL with these pictures. Nearly every after picture I've seen puts a third of the stuff back into the closet, which looks great, but isn't how people actually live.

I mean, my current closet is big, and if I staged it like this, it would look ENORMOUS.  And I would have a pile of clothes on my bed bigger than my eldest child and no place to put them to keep my pristinely organized closet picture perfect.

Because, confession time: I am both a purger and a hoarder.  Maybe "completist" might be better descriptive than "hoarder," as (despite my occasional freak out to the contrary) I am not, in fact, living in filth and stacks everywhere. I come from a family where things were kept for years--decades even--because they were "perfectly good" but also never used.  And so I get rid of things.  But I do still regret throwing out 6 years worth of Martha Stewart Living Magazine several years ago, I have a complete collection of Cook's Illustrated magazines, I have a shit ton of yarn and fiber, and when I find I shirt I like, I buy it in every color I like. Because FUCK capsule wardrobes.  

So what, you may say, is the real way to organize a closet? 

By now, I'm sure everyone and their mother has heard of Marie Kondo's Life Changing Magic  of Tidying Up.  I know I'm not the first, or the thousandth, to blog about it.  I read through the book, and I liked some of what she said about keeping things that spark joy and ditching the things that don't (but you can pry my books from my cold, dead, hands).

 I have always folded items of clothing and "filed" them in drawers instead of stacks, as she describes--save the socks. I have opinions on socks: Socks should not be rolled together, they should ALWAYS have the cuff tucked together and folded inside so they don't come apart. I also have opinions on sheets, which is a whole 'nother post.  (Oh, and I don't anthropomorphize my things, because I am not a toddler.)

That said, much of what she has to say about closets and clothes  is kind of brilliant, at least for me.  Keep things you love--and I do think that useful everyday things fall into that category. While the random tank top might not itself spark joy in you, the outfit it completes might.  And the random tank top with the weird cut that just never sits right and has the itchy tag certainly does NOT spark joy so toss that shit. I also do not rotate clothes seasonally, because I am lucky enough to have a closet big enough to not have to, but also because so many of my clothes are 4-season pieces.  Dress + wool cardigan + heavy leggings + boots = winter outfit. Same dress + linen cardi + sandals = summer. 

And I love her mild mild debunking of other organizational tricks.  Because again, OPINIONS, I have them.  Do NOT get me started on that "trick" of hanging your hangers backwards to see how frequently you wear something. It's ridiculous and completely disregards the need for special occasion clothing and sentimental favorites. If you love something and it's a sentimental favorite, why on earth would you throw it out? Just to make space? Why is space more important than sentiment, or memories? Get rid of the shit that is "perfectly good" and never used if you want space. And face it people, no one wants to go shopping for an outfit for a funeral when the need comes up. No one. 

And so I cleaned out my closet, somewhat following her suggestions, somewhat following my own.  Three and a half giant garbage bags later (delivered to a friend, and anything she doesn't want is off to donations), it's tidy! and by no means is it a pinterest after picture, but it's so much better. I still have a shit ton of stuff crammed in there, and I still have multiple black t-shirts--now all filed in a single row though.  

I tried things on, and tossed a bunch, I refolded the chaos that had crept in, using  a number of the container store's clear drawer organizer boxes--which I already had, and are fantastic, by the by.  I used some of the post-it sticky label tape and a sharpie to label things that were not clear when folded neatly, like "camisoles" vs. "layering tanks" vs. "short sleeve layers".  I did not color code the labels, despite my inclination to, because the colored sharpies were downstairs and that would require moving myself. 

 I'm pretty pleased with the labeling solution, myself. And I extended it to the hanging things. Because I have many leggings, and could never figure out which neatly folded legging was which and where the fuck was the really lightweight capri legging goddamnit!, I decided to group them by category and hang them, labeling the hangers.  So now there are hangers with a label tape tag of "full length black leggings",  "short black leggings", "exercise leggings", "pant-like leggings", "second tier leggings", etc.  

Of course, I ignored Marie Kondo's suggestion of hanging everything in length order rising to the right, because that's silly.  A. I'm a lefty.  B. the right hand side of my full-length hanging section is partially hidden, so NO. C. By length doesn't work for the way I wear clothes. Category is way better but has it's own hidden problems.

I still am not quite sure the best way to organize the many dresses I own.  I'm leaning more toward use: tunics/dresses too short to wear without leggings, day dresses, slightly fancier day dresses, fancy dresses, formal dresses. But then where do the maxis go? I have some that are more day dressy, some that are more slightly fancier day dressy.  Do I put in each category, or do I pull into a separate section--day maxi vs formal maxi? 

Am I a super nerd to for thinking things through this far? Don't answer that.

I know I just said it was about caftans...

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 ...but damn if Boden isn't nailing it for summer with this dress right here:

 

it might be a little nightgown-y, but you say that like it's a BAD thing. Ignore the laundry in the background.

It's only missing pockets, and then it'd be perfect. And yes, I totally busted that shit out yesterday (with a cardigan. And sandals.) despite it only being 60ish degrees out.

And yes, i did just buy another one in navy. 

Another little project

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back in September, i bought a few skiens of Noro Silk Garden, theoretically to do mittens with.

Well, nearly seven months later, i finally started (and finished) them. 

 

matching not matching mittens

matching not matching mittens

These are two separate colorways of Noro, which has a built in long color change stripe. I knit two rows with each skein, carrying the unused yarn up as I went.

There are many mitten patterns around, and I generally use my fairly standard made up mittens recipe:

For heavy worsted, on size 5 double pointed needles, cast on 36 stitches, knit in 2x2 rub for a while. I like long cuffs, so i did a few stripe repeats here. 

Switch to knit, and knit about an inch or so. Then begin the thumb gusset by increasing one stitch on either side of the first stitch of the round every other round until you have 13 stitches for the thumb. (Here, I actually did a slower increase of every 4 rounds, which pushes the ribbing farther down the arm).

Put the thumb stitches on waste yarn, cast on one stitch over the gap and work until you're about half an inch from the tips of your fingers. Decrease at 6 points around (divide stitches evenly over three needles and put your decrease points at the middle and ends of each needle), every other row until half your stitches are gone. Then decrease every round until you're left with 6 stitches. Pull the yarn through the 6, and fasten off.

Finish your thumb. Put the held stitches on the dpns, and join yarn. Pick up three stitches over the gap and knit until just below the length of the thumb. K1, k2tog around. K plain. K2 tog around and pull yarn through and fasten of

A blue hoodie for the biggest little

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The biggest kiddo asked for a blue hoodie with a zipper and pockets as his next sweater, and so I obliged.  And of course finished just in time for the warm weather. Sigh. At least I made it big for him, cause that kid is due for a growth spurt any time now, and when it happens, he's going to be gigantic

Blocked, dried and ready for the zipper! Just in time for summer.

By the way, this picture is horrible in terms of color accuracy, even with me futzing with filters. The sleeve cap and last few pocket pictures are closer to reality. 

I'd picked up the yarn at Rhinebeck, Carolina Homespun Cormo wool, in Morgaine, a gorgeous bright cerulean blue.  The yarn was a bit fine, so I used it held double and it was a damn good thing I overbought based on my half assed guess of yardage, as I had literally TWO YARDS of yarn left after the final kitchnering of the hood.  Just made it.

That is all the yarn that is left from the entire thing. Two yards. A narrow miss of disaster!

After searching some through ravelry favorites, and general patterns, I settled on Doverfell, by Kristen Rengren, as published in Twist Collective.  I love the texture pattern and the design of the set in pockets, plus it was already written for a zip.

Of course, that didn't mean I wasn't going to tweak the shit out of the pattern. Because I am crazy and why follow patterns when you can rework them to suit your quirks? I mean, I almost always use a tubular cast on for anything with ribbing because it's firm but stretchy and looks fantastic.

Oh, look. Lint. And a long tail/Italian tubular cast on. 

But also, for example, the pockets.  As written, the pattern called for knitting the pocket lining separate from the body, and then working the body and pocket fronts in one, and then joining the two at the top edge of the pocket, sewing the three pocket seams later in finishing. 

I don't love seams in the body of knitting, as they never stretch the way the rest of the garment does. And they're a pain to do.  So instead, I knit the linings along with the body of the cardigan.

Before picking up pocket stitches. 

Then when I reached where the top of the pockets would join, I used double pointed needles to pick up the pocket front stitches along the top of the ribbing.  Then I picked up one stitch per row, vertically, on either side of the pocket edges (where the pocket "seams" would be).  I knit up the pocket front, in the texture pattern, knitting the first and last stitches of each row together with the picked up vertical "seam" stitches at each edge.  

The stitch markers on the verticals are to mark where the top of the pocket will be (and the start of the pocket shaping).

Pocket in progress.  Note the two layers. 

The harder part was figuring out the reworked decreases to do the shaping of the upper edge of the pockets.  I wound up just drawing it out, in a semi-shorthand, just so I could work out the numbers and the angle and lean of the decreases. 

Janky shorthand diagram, the original.

Janky shorthand diagram, the original.

 I moved the decreases in from the edge to give a cleaner line to the shaping, and I'd already decided to slip the first stitch of every row to give the nice chained edge (on both the pocket and the front edges)

Almost there.  Stay on target . . . stay on target . . . 

Then, I worked the pocket front stitches together with the body stitches, and the pockets were completely done.  

Finished pocket! Smooth sailing from here on out.  

I finished up the body of the sweater, shifting the armhole shaping in a few stitches as well to echo the shaping lines of the pockets and give a more full fashioned look. And instead of binding off stitches for the shoulders, which frankly, I never do, I used the German short row technique--which is AMAZING and INVISIBLE and I LOVE IT SO  MUCH.  That way I could also three-needle-bind-off the shoulder seams instead of seaming.

Once the body was complete, I reworked the sleeves from bottom-up in the round then sleeve cap worked flat and seamed in, to totally seamless top down sleeves with short row sleeve cap.

This is one of my favorite techniques, though I inevitably have to write out more diagrams to make sure I'm centering the cap right.  I first learned it, as many did, through Barbara Walker's Knitting from the Top.  (Did you know that not only is Barbara Walker a knitting guru, from the top down and the stitch dictionaries, but she also wrote the Little House on the Prairie Cookbook and a number of books on feminism, mythology and anthropology? God I fucking love her.)

I put the held underarm stitches on the needles, markers on either side for clarity, and then picked up stitches about 1 stitch every other row (not quite the 3 st to 4 row ideal ratio but it worked fine to make the numbers work),  around the armhole.  I divided the total number of stitches into thirds, with the beginning of the round at the center of the underarm stitches.

Oh hey, if you look hard enough, you could probably recreate my to-do list that's written on the back of this image.

I put markers in, because ain't no way I could keep the count right in my head as I began.  Beginning at the center of the underarm stitches, I worked up the first third of the front vertical stitches, and over the second third of the top of the cap.  Then I stopped, turned the work (again using the german short row method instead of the standard wrap and turn), worked back over that top third, PLUS ONE STITCH.  Wrap and turn, work across the top third PLUS ONE STITCH.

No to dos behind this one! Just shittily framed.

 I kept continuing along, eating up one additional stitch from the verticals every time, until I'd worked all of the verticals up and was at the underarm stitches.  Then I worked around the whole armhole as usual, working the short rowed stitches as per the german method. Voila, sleeve cap done!

Look at that perfect sleep cap! No tell tale anything of short rows! Damn it feels good to be a gangster!

Then I worked the sleeve from the top down, decreases instead of increases, ribbing, and tubular bind off to match the tubular cast on I'd done. Sleeves, done!

The hood was mainly the same as written.  Though I did add a bit more shaping to the center back line of the hood--4 more paired increases after those called for in the pattern.  A bit before wrapping up the hood, I decreased those back down again.  Then instead of three-needle-bind off for the hood itself, I kitchnered that shit. 

Now, that's some grafting of seed stitch right there!

 After all that work I wanted a nice seamless look to the hood, even it meant fudging the hell out of grafted seed stitch (figured out in part thanks to the Tricksy Knitter's tutorial).  

Thankfully texture hides most sins.  And still, a damn sight better than a visible ridge.

Now, I'm just waiting for the two zippers I ordered from ZipperSource--one red, one blue. We'll see which one looks best.  I'm debating using ribbon to cover the back of the zipper.  I think it'll look more finished and add some stabilization, but it also might be more of a pain in the ass than it's worth.  We shall see.