My goal for Me Made May this year was to challenge my ideas about re-wearing clothes and reducing my laundry. To do this, I created a mini-capsule of 9 garments each week that would get me through work, the weekend and beyond. Here’s what I learned:

-I have way more clothes than I need. I don’t have as many garments as some, but I have way more than are actually necessary. Nine garments got me through a whole week pretty easily.

-I know what my favourite are. I mean, I knew before, but this really confirmed it. The garments that made weekly appearances in my capsules were my True Bias Southport Dress, the Tessuti Fabrics Mandy Boat Tee I hacked to have a button shoulder, the Love Notions Ballad Blouse, a Notch Pony Tank and the True Bias Marlo Cardigan.

-I realized duplicates don’t make sense. My goal with each capsule was to cover my bases style-wise, so I tried to pack each with as different garments as possible. I have many, many Mandy Boat Tees and Pony Tanks, but found I chose the same ones for each capsule.

-I know now no one cares if I repeat garments. I used to have a weird rule about not wearing the same top or dress twice in a work week. I know now no one cares or notices.

-It’s okay to wash your clothes a lot less than you probably already are. You wouldn’t believe the number of messaged I got from people “confessing” how infrequently they wash their clothes. My rule now is I keep hanging clothes back up after wearing them until the smell or are visibly dirty. I’ve gone from doing three loads of laundry for my husband and me a week to only two.

-I’ve started caring for my clothes way more. I used to chuck stained garments in the laundry basket to deal with later, but would inevitably forget to treat them and just wash and dry that spot right into the fabric. Now, I’m much more likely to spot clean or hand wash a garment because I want to wear it again before my weekly laundry sesh. I’ve also started hanging select garments to dry because I feel much less overwhelmed with laundry.