Made Up Initiative progress

How’s everyone getting on with their Made Up Initiative makes? I’m avoiding mine a little. Why? Well, I made a muslin of the Simplicity 1696 Amazing Fit trousers, made several adjustments to the pattern pieces, cut out my main fabric and have gotten as far as sewing all the inner and outer leg seams, and attaching the waistband. But when I tried them on, they didn’t fit. They were still too big. 😦 It’ll be the fabric I suspect, since the muslin was made in curtain lining and this fabric appears to have more stretch.

On a positive note, I’m pretty happy with how my first ever fly has turned out. I’m also keeping the photos black and white to save the colour for the final reveal.

The faux welts aren’t amazing but pretty good for my first pair, although now they might be weirdly close together depending on how much I take in the centre back seam. I’ve pinned the trousers and need to baste, try on and sew but just haven’t been able to bring myself to do it yet.

I did also ran out of thread on Sunday evening but I bought more yesterday morning on my day off and yet, still didn’t pick things back up. I get rather put off with fitting issues like this, and I’m just not loving them… But I will pick them back up. Tonight!!

Wardrobe Architect: The capsule wardrobe, palette, pieces and accessories

My participation in the Wardrobe Architect (WA) project was initially so I could create a Spring/Summer and Autumn/Winter wardrobe for myself. Since we’re already in August, I suppose you could say I failed miserably at creating a Spring/Summer wardrobe (at least for 2015) but there’s still time for Autumn/Winter 2015. My last post finished with week 8 so let’s move on to weeks 9-12: creating a capsule wardrobe.

The capsule wardrobe

In week 9, Sarai explains:

A capsule wardrobe is a small, manageable subset of your wardrobe, and it usually is something you can plan seasonally (twice a year, or perhaps 4 times a year). A typical capsule wardrobe consists of between 20 and 33 items … it is the foundation for the rest of your wardrobe.

Wardrobe Architect 2015: colour, print and beauty

Somewhat later than planned but better late than never; it’s time for another installment of Wardrobe Architect. This time, looking at the colours and prints that make up my wardrobe, and my hair and beauty style.

My colour story

Week 5 introduces you to colour: those you like wearing, are drawn to, have a large amount of, etc. To analyse my colour preferences, I pulled everything out of my wardrobe and like La Dulsa Tina, I used my phone and software (in my case Inkscape) to identify colours. Below are the main 20 colours in my wardrobe.

Wardrobe Architect 2015: style, shape and silhouettes

Wow, 2015 is moving so fast! How is it March tomorrow?! Arriving late to the Wardrobe Architect party hosted by Coletterie meant I had to pretty swiftly work my way through the posts and exercises for January and February, weeks 1-8. Today’s post looks at January: defining my core style by exploring shapes and silhouettes.

My core style

After catching up with weeks 1 and 2, and following the suggested exercises, I outlined how my history, activities and body have shaped my core style. And then chose 3-5 words that I thought described me and my style. It turns out, choosing so few words is difficult but in the end I narrowed it down to: classic, simple, tailored, tessellate, monochrome. They’re pretty self-explanatory really apart from, perhaps, the last two. Some of my favourite styles involve tessellated patterns but I also very much like monochrome elements. I considered monochrome by itself to be quite restrictive, especially as people often take this to mean black and/or white. It doesn’t; monochrome simply means one colour.

Wardrobe Architect 2015 Challenge

When I started following sewing blogs back at the start of my dressmaking journey in early 2014, I’d seen Colette Patterns’ Wardrobe Architect and was very intrigued. At that stage, I wasn’t of a suitable skill level to take part: still learning new techniques and selecting patterns based on what caught my eye. But when Colette Patterns launched the Wardrobe Architect 2015 Challenge in January, with Kristen at the helm, I recognised that I might now be ready to get involved. So I am!