Sewing With A Plan

A magazine article titled The Perfect Wardrobe was published a while back in Australian Stitches. It laid out the method behind creating a wardrobe that coordinated (unlike mine). With summer currently scorching South Wales (erm ... Wales, not Australia) I've already run out of clothes to wear that aren't vest tops or too small t-shirts. So I have decided to get myself a plan!

I am going to clear out everything I don't like/ don't wear/ don't want. I'll eBay everything that's new/ never been worn/ still got loads of life, including accessories, jewellery and shoes. Anything that doesn't sell will go to the charity shops.

As I'm sick of buying clothes that don't go with my wardrobe/ are impulse buys/ don't fit properly* from now on I'm only allowed to buy items I can't make, such as jumpers and shoes, everything else I will have to sew myself. And if I do buy, I must buy second hand only (like I need an excuse to eBay!).

The Perfect Wardrobe plan calls for only 10 items to be made. These are: 2 pairs of trousers; 2 skirts, one in a solid colour, one in a print or check; 2 simple tops, one solid, one in the above print; 1 dress; 2 tops, in colours which coordinate with the solids; 1 simple jacket in a solid colour.

To begin, choose 2 basic colors that suit your skin tone. Most people fall into a 'season', be it Summer, Spring, Autumn or Winter, and this will help determine what shades of colours to wear. I'm still trying to decide whether I'm an Autumn or a Winter so for the moment I've gone for more Autumn shades and have chosen brown and blue as my basic colours, mostly because I already have a lot of clothes in these colours and - more importantly - shoes and handbags in these colours!

You then add a third complementary color (I'm greedy and am adding two). Any prints you use should include the two basic colours in it. So, for example: brown and blue might be your basic colours too. Add a skirt in yellow, a print in blue/ brown, and let the 4 tops be the fun colours that spice up the wardrobe. You could add rust or ivory to this colour selection. And you can't lose with black and white, in fact if you wanted you can make an entirely monochrome wardrobe quite successfully!

I've put together a table below, illustrating The Plan. I'll change the icons to patterns and then the finished garments once I've completed them. I already know that one pair of trousers will be my 40's style jeans I'm planning on making (reproduced pattern from Eva Dress) and the dress will be the new Frock by Friday project Kathleen of Grosgrain is running next week. The jeans are going to be in a dark blue denim. The dress is going to be in yellow (inspired by the Freelancers Fashion Blog, who has fabulous fashion taste), I'm trying to wear more colour and she made yellow look so stylish!

* I can see I'm going to be seriously abusing the forward slash symbol in this post! 

Thanks for stopping by,