Tag Archives: wardrobe planning

My first plan of what two sew over the course of two weeks has gone well, somewhat to my surprise. Historically, I've not been great at making a plan and executing it, as I get distracted along the way. By breaking it up into only a two week plan, it's a lot easier to stay focused as I can tell myself that I'll get to decide on my next project very soon.

 Updates

1. Made a muslin version of the Sunny dress. Good thing, too! It was very badly fitting, so I ended up doing some surgery on it to get it to fit. I made an IG story of the process, which you can check out on my story highlights here (http://instagram.com/ladyreed84).

Hacked but wearable Sunny Dress muslin
Hacked but wearable Sunny Dress muslin

2. Design Sunny Dress hack. Done! Although I confess that I didn't finish this till Wednesday, but I'm counting it close enough. :)

3. Design a 3D capsule wardrobe. I spend over an hour on this one, so I'm calling it complete. However, I realized after that hour that I had no idea what it meant to design it. Was I wanting to pick patterns? Was I working through shapes, silhouettes, etc.? I finally ended with a pile of sketches of things I want to make and I picked a few patterns that I'd probably start with to make those. I'm not limiting myself to these, as I want to make what I want, assuming it fits in one of the style categories. So, in the end, I'm calling it complete, but I'm not really sure how or what I accomplished. Effort for the win!

4. Pick 3D capsule wardrobe color palette. Done! I did this and I'm in love with it! I have lots of fabric in the blue, black, white, gray. However, my accent colors I have less of. Now I can do focused shopping and feel less wasteful about me purchases. Win, win!

5. Made two pairs of PJs for my hubby. He wears them all the time now, which is the best possible compliment!

Next Up

For the next two week, (which has already started and I'm just now getting to this) I'm going to have to go light on what I want to sew. Work is insane until the 24th, so I won't have a lot of time for bliss projects. I'll pick two things to work on and a couple things for if I have time.

1. Sew the Sunny Hack. It's designed and the pattern is ready, just cut and sew now!

2. Cut out the Seamwork Shelly leggings. I really like the gusset (panel?) for shaping and am hoping to get a great fit! I'm going to make these out of light gray poly jersey.

3. (IF TIME) Tape together the Ames jeans patterns. Due to have absolutely no time lately, I may bite the bullet and do PDF plotting for this one. We'll see...

 

2 Comments

One thing that I've felt I struggle with is deciding what shapes will look good on me. I am essentially a column with extra out front, so I don't feel like most models get anywhere close to helping me visualize what it looks like on me. I finally realized this feeling of not knowing what it would look like was hampering my ability to start sewing because I didn't want to waste fabric on a shape that would end up making me look dumpy.

In order to solve this, I decided to make a croquis of myself to be able to try to sketch shapes or ideas to see if it will help me to get a better visualization of a shape and then be more willing to sew it.

I took several pictures of myself in "standard" croquis poses so I could turn them into line drawings. I use Photoshop and I followed a YouTube tutorial for it. If you don't do photo editing like this, you can always buy sketch books. Two popular ones are: Fashionary and the Curvy Sketchbook by Cashmerette. I've not tried either one personally (also not affiliate links, just ones I've seen around), so if you do go with one of those, I'd love to hear how it works for you.

Here's what I ended up with for me. (I took more poses than this, but I haven't taken the time to turn the other ones into outlines yet.)

Croquis - Front View
Croquis - Front View
Croquis - Side View
Croquis - Side View

It's been kind of interesting to see that when I sketch a shape on me, so far it's matched my preferences that I already know. For example, I don't like sleeveless that comes in too far or is super narrow strapped. When I drew that shape on this outline, I didn't like it there either. That makes me feel better about knowing that if I like it on the croquis, I'll have a good chance of liking it on me for real.

Another way it's helping me so far is that it is narrowing my focus on what I want to sew/draft next. I need some solid staples in my wardrobe and it's easy to find the shape I like for those staples.

Here's my favorite basic shirt and skirt combo so far. I'm going to start with these for my next attempt at pattern drafting.

V-Neck Shirt and Straight Skirt
V-Neck Shirt and Straight Skirt
Skirt and Shirt Base - Side View
Skirt and Shirt Base - Side View

Do you have a favorite way of trying ideas or do you just jump in and sew?