Ack!  Too much stuff in the house, too much stuff in my way, just stuff, stuff, stuff!  Where on earth does it all come from??  I’m honestly having a really hard time planning for the winter holidays because Christmas means gifts, and I have little to no desire to bring anything new into the house at the moment.  Maybe it’s just autumn and being indoors more?  I don’t know, but I’m in a mood.  A very minimalist mood.  This has carried over to the studio where I’ve been working my way through a big pile of things that need mending, darning, altering.  A big pile that I’m just sick and tired of looking at.

With our work in the studio lately, I found myself wondering how I could create more fabric storage.  At the moment I could slap myself for even considering such a thing.  Ridiculous!  Creating another thing to store all this stuff indefinitely?  I have storage.  And no, it’s not walls and walls worth of shelves or anything like that, but it’s enough for a tidy little stash.  Enough to keep me busy.  No, what I need is not more fabric storage.  It’s to turn the fabric I have into something of use so that everything fits in the storage I already have and quite possibly to chuck (well, give away) some of the stuff that I’m not really that interested in anyway.

Now that I actually have a set place to sew, it’s so, so, so much easier to get a bit of time in here and there.  I’m on a mission to reduce the amount of fabric I have kicking around here.  At the moment I’m going through some of my knits.  I have a dresser devoted to random crafty things, two drawers of which are full of jerseys and interlocks and the like.  It works quite well for storing them, but the drawers are getting a little hard to open and close.  So it’s time to reduce.  Maybe even to the point that I’ll be able to use one of those drawers for something else?

My first project was a pair of leggings for me.  I don’t know why, but I’ve been having a really hard time keeping warm this year.  Anyone remember way, way back when I bought a big box of someone else’s stashed fabrics?  We’re talking 2008 here folks!  Well, there was some wool jersey in there as well.  Several yards of red that went towards Christmas pajamas that year, purple that became a skirt for me and a dark brown that remained mostly untouched in the drawer (there were some little bits cut out of it, but I can’t for the life of me remember what I used them for!).

I used Amy Karol’s tutorial to make the pattern from a pair of leggings I already had.  I added some length because I wanted to make sure my ankles are always covered.  It took me about an hour, from fishing out the fabric to putting on the finished product.  Now that I have the pattern all made up, the next pair would come together much quicker.  I’m thinking a half hour or less.

Of them, you get to see approximately the knees, as everything else is covered up.  I told you, it’s cold out there!

I got the camera all set, exactly as it should be and handed it to Iain.  Just as he took the picture, the sun burst out from behind the clouds, hence the weird over-exposed photo above.

I absolutely love them.  They are unquestionably the best pair of leggings I’ve ever owned and I’m probably going to completely wear through them before the winter is out because I wear them all the time.  And despite my zeal about reducing my fabric stash, I will absolutely be buying more wool jersey the next time I come across a good deal on it and making another pair of these.  Or two.  Because they are just that fabulous.  My only regret is not giving them a high waist to keep my tummy warm as well.  Next time!