Well, I did it, sort of! I sewed my own skirted leggings!

Not to bore you to death again with sewing, but this is a big accomplishment for me, as my beloved Eileen Fisher skirted leggings are starting to develop holes and I can only iron on so many heart-shaped black patches before it starts to look like leg measles.

To make my own, I used a leggings pattern that I know fits me great (the free Patterns for Pirates Peg Legs) and then I carefully traced the skirt portion of my existing Eileen Fisher skirted leggings along with a waistband to connect them both.

My goal was to:

1) make skirted leggings out of a very thick ponte knit to wear to Norway and

2) re-use the pattern for the rest of my life to make approximately eleventy hundred pairs in all colors of knit fabric.

Instead of making a mockup, I decided to cut right into the thick ponte knit and get going. I’m wild that way, plus time is running out for my butt to be sufficiently covered for the arctic winter.

This fabric is from Joann and I believe it is their “Refined Ponte” which is so HEAVY, it weighs as much as kevlar. Hence why it has been on my stash shelf for over a year along with some jersey-backed scuba and another mystery ponte knit because it is regularly 100 degrees here and only after purchasing said fabrics did I realize I don’t want to die of swamp crotch. Ergo, perfect weight fabrics for Norway!

The leggings fit pretty well, although they are a smidge tight. I think I got a little overzealous with the seam allowances. And they are super thick. The skirt sewed up easily and fits well. To attach these two, however, would require me sewing through 1 pants layer + 1 skirt layer + 2 waistband layers, which would require some kind of industrial strength machine I do not have.

I puzzled over this for much longer than I want to admit, and finally I decided to attach the skirt directly to the leggings like a long tube and then fold it back over itself to make a waistband casing. While that description makes ZERO SENSE, I am not even going to try to illustrate it because I don’t have confidence I can actually replicate it lol. Just know that this weird trickery actually worked. Tonight I need to add elastic to the waist, and I now have the world’s thickest skirted leggings.

Next up, I had planned to use the scuba material for a version of the Mimi G pants I made over the weekend (Simplicity # 8655). But looking at the weather forecast now in Tromsø, the temperatures are climbing into the toasty mid 30s and I’m not sure I need special neoprene pants. Did I mention time is running out and no one at my workplace is exactly laying off the special projects just so I can sew more? Plus I still have two more shirts to complete.

Why I suddenly decide to sew an entire capsule wardrobe for me + matching boyfriend shirts before EVERY DAMN TRIP is beyond me, but there you have it. Luckily I have realized this is now becoming a habit, and I am already working on my ideas for a summer suitcase wardrobe for a mid-year trip to Thailand. Interestingly enough, I’m not nearly as worried about dressing for the frozen tundra as I am for the heat. In the cold weather, I can probably wear all my layers at once if need be and still fit in my coat but there are only so many layers you can remove before you get arrested. Also, I am a be-sleeved person. I need sleeves. I am introverted and so are my shoulders. Last week in a meeting I started surreptitiously drawing up ideas for loose flowy tops that can go over sleeveless things. And I may actually finish those culottes I cut out 47 years ago.

But first, the cold. Think snowy thoughts for me, because part of the reason for this much-anticipated trip is for me to see real, live, actual SNOW. I think snow is magical and I’ve only seen it snow maybe four? five? times in my life and I have been fantasizing about having snow flakes fall on my head since April of 2017 when we were in Stockholm and I lost my shit over SNOWDROPS and many Swedes were amused and probably still tell the tale of the ridiculous American who danced in joy over seeing fourteen flakes on a Saturday.

That’s all for today!

Hey, I forgot to tell you! A few months ago I got rid of my car.

It was the first and only really nice car I have ever had and it was a lease and (to me) it was expensive but man did I love that vehicle. In 2015, having that car was really exciting. I loved it, loved riding in it and putting the top down and feeling free. Of course I wasn’t really free because it was a solid car payment every month and I was locked into it for three years. Anyway, at the time it meant something to me and I ADORED that car.

I am glad I had a season of Fancy Wheels and don’t regret leasing it, but by the time my contract was set to expire at the end of last year, my life had … evolved? Changed? Something was different. I still loved the car, but I was absolutely aware (again) that I am not a car person. I put less than 20,000 miles on it in three years. I hate driving. I know some people feel that a car is a necessary extension of their inner being — especially here in Los Angeles! — but I am not living my best life in a car.

So I decided to walk away from the lease. However, this is LA and I do live alone and have two cats and we still need an escape vehicle should the zombie apocalypse arrive, so I turned my attention to finding the cheapest-but-best car available to me and that was how I came to pay cash for a secondhand Fiat Pop. It’s small and fits in my (tiny) parking spot and has low mileage and lower insurance. The best thing about that car is that I have NO car payments! I love it. No Ragrets.

Who knows, maybe in three years I will decide another fancypants car is just the ticket. There are no rules. We change, and not everyone is in the same place at the same time, and our needs and values change as we do. It felt good to make a decision based on what I value right now. I want go places, but not in a car! And the craziest thing was that at the same time I was going through my car decision tree, the Captain was coming up on the end of his lease, too, and he decided to also find a low-cost used car (in his case, a Camry) and we both took one giant step out of car culture.

It was a big step toward something, too: More airplane tickets! What used to be car payment money is now going to be travel money. It made me think about how many decisions we make in a day that help us achieve our personal goals. I wanted to start this year off as my year of NO SHOPPING! And I did a completely terrible job at it. I immediately failed, like on January 1st at 6 am or something I was clicking an amazon.com buy button.

And every day this month I kept asking myself WHAT THE F IS WRONG WITH YOU? each time I purchased a thing I didn’t absolutely need (cat treats, some Vitamin D gummies, Joann Doodles — my ultimate downfall.)

This morning it hit me like a lightning bolt: I was doing that thing you do before a particularly heinous diet, where you can’t for the life of you stop eating junk food. Because soon all the junk food will be taken away and you hate lettuce and life is not happy. (By “you” I mean “me.”) I’m not sure what to do with this information. I still like the idea of keeping my consumerism to an all-time-low. I enjoy feeling like I am working toward a goal. But maybe it was too strident, too all-or-nothing. Maybe my budget needs a little tiny room for cat treats and vitamins … and Doodles (only on sale though, let’s be real, that fabric is too expensive to shrink so much.)

The best part about still being upright is that we get to try again with every breath. Tomorrow is already February 1st can you believe it? I’m excited about February! We are going back to Norway, going to see the Northern Lights (I hope), something I have wanted to do forever. Aaaaand I’m finishing up a super tedious project at work that will be done for another year, and next weekend I will be sewing my first pair of snow pants. Not that I didn’t buy two pairs on amazon mind you (already going back for a refund) but I know I can make a pair and they will fit, as opposed to mass produced  snowveralls made for 83-foot tall people.

And thus ends January, my first one in six years with no car payment, my first one maybe EVER without a start-a-diet resolution, no ridiculous personal organizer full of massive to-do lists. Just me out here trying to enjoy being alive today, whatever today brings. WHO AM I???