SWAP: Sewing with a plan

Idea: Sew 11 garments that can be combined with each other:

· 4 bottoms, e.g. 2 pants and 2 skirts
· 6 tops, e.g. two blouses and 4 shirts
· 1 jacket

Planning steps:

1.) what is the wardrobe for?

I want the clothes to wear at work. At my work the dress code is casual and sporty. The challenge is then not to look like an internship student. I will make casual corduroy pants and more official looking pants, a sporty and a more festive skirt. By combining them with blouses or shirts, I will get a range of styles.

2.) choose the basic colors with help of a printed fabric

The inspiration for the color scheme came from a striped herringbone fabric for pants. The black, beige and rusty red let me think of red grouse.

3.) To join the SWAP contest from timmelfabrics.com, three garments must be from one wardrobe pattern.

I choose New Look 6712, because I like the mandarin collar and the shoulder princess seams of the jacket. The pants are relatively slim; I have a wide TNT pattern already. I’ll make them from corduroy, so this “suit” will not look too overdressed. I like the Asiatic style of the blouse, but do not intend to make a whole Asiatic inspired wardrobe.

More aspects in my decisions:

I like natural fibers and use silk, cotton, linen, wool and rayon. I’ll make short and long sleeved blouses and shirts, a pullover and a top, so this will be a three seasons wardrobe (in winter I would need only pullovers).

I like breaks in style. To avoid that it looks chaotic, the colours should be the same if the style differs much. So the sporty shirt should be the same colour as the festive skirt.