As the weather has grown colder and I’ve started dressing warmer a feeling has crept over me.

I’m SO over my winter clothes.

Not with individual pieces. There are garments I love in there. It’s more the general look. Cotton tops and skivvies under hand knits because I can’t wear wool against my skin. Skirt or pants. It feels like a uniform.

How to change that? Adding other kinds of clothing to the mix seems the obvious answer. But before I got too carried away, I took stock of what I had in case I’d forgotten something or saw new potential in the old. I’ve been making clothes more lately and that inevitably leads to too-tightly-packed wardrobe, too. I decided to be ruthless and remove anything ‘faded, jaded, worn, torn, smelly or pilled’. Which was… a lot more than I expected.

Then I updated Stylebook so I had an overview at my fingertips. It had already occurred to me that I have one good outside-the-usual winter garment that I love: a black wool knitted dress with a big cowl collar. I wear it with leggings and the combo is different enough to be refreshing. The only down side was that if I get too warm, there’s no taking it off. Leggings are definitely NOT pants.

Still… a dress. A winter dress. I don’t have many dresses, and only this one is winter-weight. A lighter dress could still be part of a layered outfit, though. Looking in Stylebook, I noted that I have a black, jersey sleeveless dress that might suit.

So I gave that a try, layering over a skivvy and leggings and throwing a loose handknit cardigan on top. Comfy. Cosy. Looked good. A bit snug around the waist with two layers beneath, however. Still, it proved the theory right, and I’m now thinking about making more winter dresses to my wardrobe.

I swear every time I sew a garment, three more add themselves to my to-do list.