Mini-Wardrobe Done!

Yay! Two skirts + two tops = happy camper!

Waiting for final photos...

... but aside from documentation, the Mini-Wardrobe Challenge is done!

Whew. Didn't think I'd make it for a while there.

If there's an honorable mention for number of changes to plan along the way, I'm confident I'm a contender for that prize. I was on the verge of calling it quits Saturday, when I realized there was no way pants (planned garment #4) were going to happen.

Then I realized the black stretch cotton twill in the stash, which I've planned to make jeans from, was ample enough to get a simple skirt, from, too. I think. If I'm wrong those jeans I have planned will have to be capris, cause the skirt is a done deal now.

Wasn't sure I had a suitable pattern until I took another look at Vogue 2854, an OOP Oscar de la Renta that I purchased for the jacket only. But hey, that skirt's got possibilities...

[I also feel a weird compulsion to make those pants, based on an irrational hope that I will be as skinny in them as that model is. Let's stick with the skirt, for now.]

I dumbed it down a lot -- left out the center front seam and vent, and skipped pockets and lining -- to make a quickie casual version. [I'll add a link here to my review as soon as that's done]. Tweaked a couple of seams, but gotta love Vogue: they are the only patterns that come close to fitting me right out of the envelope. If I make this again (and I think I will, someday), I'll fuss with the yoke curve and hip dart a bit more, but didn't have time to get it perfect yesterday. We're in close-enough-is-good-enough mode here.

Best part: I faced the yoke and hem with a piece of 2nd-hand Amy Butler quilting cotton that was sun-faded along the folds, so useless for anything visible. Other than a flash of hem-facing as I walk around, maybe, no one will see this but me, but it makes me happy to know it's there [you're looking at the inside; those are my basting lines BTW, in blue thread, not contrast topstitching]:

The wide bias strip hem facing is now officially my favorite hem treatment. I'm gonna use it on EVERYTHING! Well, probably not, but on lots of things, for sure. I'd wanted to do this on the white denim skirt, but although the fabric is medium weight, it's quite transparent, and I had to settle for using the cotton to finish the waist edge:

Now, if I can just drag Mr. Wonderful away from processing customer orders, so he can take some pics, I'll be able to finish up my online reviews and hold my breath until someone votes for me.

Another Linen Top

I'm slogging slowly forward on this Mini-Wardrobe Challenge over at PatternReview.com, and was all set to finally make something from some gorgeous stretch rayon in my stash. Until I realized that there was just enough -- maybe -- of the turquoise linen left over from making MWC garment #1 to make a simple tank top.

Inspiration credit goes to this top, with which I am much enamored, although I'm past the age where spaghetti straps in public are a good idea. Isn't that ruffled hem adorable?

Unfortunately, the Japanese pattern book it's made from is not among those on my shelf, and I don't have time to order a copy of it. Plus, I'm supposed to be making this challenge from stash, fabric and patterns.

Once bitten by this image, making a linen tank for my second MWC top seemed essential. Plus, it would use up that fabric. Which is a lot more appealing to me this week than putting a scant yard-ish size piece back in the stash. This is supposed to be the year of sewing from stash (and finishing UFOs, not that I'm doing spectacularly in either department, yet, but it's only April, I've got time). Plus, a sleeveless tank would be a nice counterpart to the long-sleeved Patricia tunic, and maybe even fit into a THEME for the challenge, which has so far been lacking. (More on theme later.)

I rummaged through the pattern stash, which yielded a couple of items that could be easliy altered into sleeveless tank-ish tops, but alas, not from the limited piece of fabric I had left. So I self-drafted one, very loosely based on a linen pull-on (no buttons or zip, yay) JJill top that fits well through the bust thanks to armscye darts.

So I copied that, sort of, adding to the length (aiming for lower hip area) and whipped up a quick muslin. Yikes. Okay on the top part, but wow, did I underestimate what would go around my hips with any kind of ease. So now it's more trapeze-ish in shape.

Then I trimmed the neck (very slightly gathered at center front) and arm edges with bias strips cut from the Anna Maria Horner "Guest of Honor" fabric left over from making my office curtains. So far so good. On to the ruffle. Which turned out not to be such a good idea. The cotton print is huge scale, and I planned a deeper ruffle to show just a bit more of it. But a gathered length of wider cotton, even quilting weight, was too heavy for the very lightweight linen. (Took a pic, but it was a dud.) So I cut the ruffle off drafted a straight lower border and went with that. Super-narrow double-turned hem, top-stitched at the seam.

It's okay, but not quite as super-delicious spectacular as I'd hoped. Which is about normal for my semi-experimental sewing. I'm happy with the fabric combo, though, and although there is still a yard-ish size length of the GofH fabric back in the stash, it was fun to use some of it for a garment purpose. Probably I'll make a simple skirt from the rest, but no tackling that until I've completed (or given up on completing) this mini-wardobe thing.

Finishing the white denim skirt is next. It's been hanging in the sewing room closet for a week, waiting for me to give it a waistband and a hem...

I'll post photos of me wearing this stuff when I have complete outfits to show off. Which will be sometime within the week if I'm going to make the challenge deadline.

Patricia Tunic #1

Finally, one garment done for the Pattern Review Mini-Wardrobe Challenge. Which means I'm behind schedule, but I'm probably delusional to think I have any chance of finishing four garments in a month. It's nice to have gotten something done, even if garments 4,3, and/or 2 don't happen on time.

That pink spot at the neck is a fake tag made from a random print from the scrap bin, because it's fun and bit silly, both of which are good things in my world:

Pattern is the "Patricia Tunic":

Thanks to Angie for bringing this one to my attention not long ago!

I made the same option as shown on the pattern cover, with long, contrast-faced, bell sleeves and contrast facing at the neck. I've been wanting to make a tunic for some time, and the princess seaming on the front of this pattern appealed to me, along with the design possibilities implied by the sleeve and neckline facings. Here's a line drawing I extracted from the PDF file:

As you can see, I took some liberties with the facing line. This pattern overal seems to be designed with ease of use for a beginning sewist in mind, hence the nothing-challenging neckline facing line. There are a number of "I made this!" photos online which encouraged me to go with this pattern, but I gotta say the facing looks too bib-like in many renditions. So I redrew it with some nice curves.

I like Jennifer's fabrics but my main purpose for making a tunic (any tunic) was to use the blouse-weight turquoise linen that's been in my stash for several years now. It was one of the first fabics I purchased when I decided to try sewing my own clothes, and I still hadn't done anything with it.

Funny how I didn't remember, until I was cutting the fabric out, that I've never sewn linen before. Fortunately, although tricky to cut perfectly (it's lightweight, and a bit wriggly to handle; a good candidate for rotary cutting, but I don't have a large enough matt for that), it is a dream to sew.

The contrast facings are a Kaffe Fassett print. You can't imagine (or maybe you can) how many fabrics I've pulled from the stash as I pondered, repeatedly, over many months, what would go best with this linen. I'd have gone with this one from the get-go, and saved myself a lot of pondering time, if I'd realized I had enough of it. I thought I had only the one scrap, which was plenty for the sleeve facings and back neck, but not the front. Serendipity came to the rescue: while I was looking for something else I came across a second largish scrap, just enough for the front facing! Yay!  (Erm, yes, my stash is a little untidy. I'll tidy it up one of these days months years.)

I called this post "Patricia Tunic #1" because I'm quite sure I'll make it again. I have some cotton lawn to use up, and more Kaffe Fassett prints.

But first I need to do some more sewing on this mini-challenge (it would be nice to get at least two garments done), and write up a review of this pattern, which is mostly good but man, have I got one HUGE (or very small) peeve to snipe about...

Almost beginning

So the Pattern Review Mini-Wardrobe thing starts today, and I've finally accomplished enough from the non-sewing list to feel I've earned some project time. I'm poised to start cutting the white denim skirt. But I haven't begun.

Why?

Because it's almost 4pm, an hour when my body can move around fine if I don't expect too much from it (like a vigorous workout) but would rather be lounging on a deck chair, and when my brain has called a time-out. A little light reading might happen, but staring into space from said deck chair for a half hour or so is the more likely option.

If I go with the flow of my enthusiasm for starting a new sewing project right now, this minute, the chance that I'll make some utterly irredeemable and thoroughly avoidable mistake is around, oh, 96%.

I've learned from experience to STOP SEWING immediately as soon as I make two consecutive small errors, or one largish one. An even better idea is to not even attempt anything involving fabric and scissors at what my internal clock thinks is naptime.

Just typing up this confession of why I have not begun has used up what little remains of my brainpower. I could make this post more interesting with a hyperlink or two, or a photo of some kind, or a clever naptime image, but that's just too much work.

I'm going to go lounge now. Will return when something closer to progress has been made.

Mini-Wardrobe Storyboard #1

Sewing thoughts this week have centered around what I could make for the upcoming "mini-wardrobe" challenge over at Pattern Review. It requires sewing 4 coordinating garments (for 4 "looks") in a month, which might or might not happen, but I'm looking at this as motivation to get crackin' on using up some stash. Here's what I've got in mind so far:

For tops, at least one knit, maybe two. If I do the McCalls, I'll shorten it to tunic length, use the solid as contrast trim. The McCalls isn't designed for stretch knits, so I don't know if it will work, but I know how I can find out:

For bottoms, I'd love to make a pair of "summer-weight" pants from my teal chambray (which I'm more likely to wear in the winter here, when a chilly day is 72 degrees; given my sewing speed it's not too soon to start them now for wear in the fall). The Vogue skirt from white denim is the kind of thing I wear every day for errands-runs to the Post Office and health food store. The knit tops will go nicely with both:

That's today's plan. It's subject to change (hence "storyboard #1"). I also have a blouse-weight turquoise linen that would play nicely with this group, so I might make the McCall tunic, if I can cut the contrast neck band from what's left of the chambray.

I know I already said this, but hey, look: it's ALL from stash! (fabric, patterns, I even have thread/zippers, etc. on hand)

How awesome is that?