August Wardrobe Plan pt. 2

A little more 'bout this plan...

My original plan was to do some various colors with black. Because I live in black. Hey, I'm a former semi-goth from DC. Black is life. Other colors are for accessorizing. But digging through my stash I realized that I've only got a few lengths of black fabric and all of them are pretty specific. There's the workout-type black knit, the cutesy lightweight black knit with little flowers in the fabric (hey, it was $1 a yard), the black stretch velvet, the black lace ... no plain ol' black wool, suiting, or denim. I clearly need to go shopping. What I did find was brown. Lots of brown. Lots and lots and lots of brown. And a beautiful peacock blue that just lit up when it got near that brown. Hm. Maybe my stash is trying to tell me something. So I decided to listen and start pairing up fabrics with patterns. Here's what came out.

Button-Up Shirt - The pattern's an old 50s shirt that I picked up for some absurdly low price at Half-Price Books. Love that place. The fabric comes from my mom's stash and is really wonderful stuff - while I suspect she bought it in the quilting cotton section it's so soft and drapey that it deserves to be made into a nice shirt. The only problem is that it, like many fabrics from my mom's stash, didn't survive my childhood sewing attempts unscathed. A good half of the 2 yards has various shapes cut out of it along the selvages, limiting how much I can use. I THINK I can get a short-sleeve blouse out of it but we'll have to see. Oh, well. I have a cambridge blue solid shirting fabric (actually Symphony Brocade from Joann's, but I use it as shirting) that will work if the pink won't. If I must take that rout I'll probably do some cream top stitching along the collar to get my 3 colors in for the contest.

Knit Shirt - I'm so in love with this vibrant peacock blue fabric. Sadly by the time I found it there was only a yard and a little bit more left on the bolt. Sob! I brought it all home to love and care for and I think this pattern will do it justice. I want to add some elbow-length bishop sleeves (still looking for a pattern to swipe them from) but not certain I can get all that from the fabric I have. I plan on making up a wearable muslin in some purple knit that's been aging in my stash for half a decade and that'll help me see if I can do it. I'll make it work one way or another. :)

Jumper - I'm usually not a jumper fan but I figure it's time to try. Besides, I haven't found anything else to do with this odd but beautiful knit corderoy. I found it back in the sales room at Golden D'Or at something like $1 a yard and so I HAD to bring it home ... but what do you do with fabric like this? I thought maybe a skirt but the sad truth is that your average knit skirt pattern requires too much gathering at the waist to look good. Pants might have worked but that requires finding a pants pattern that doesn't look horrible on me. So when Simplicity came out with this pattern I figured I'd finally found a purpose for this fabric. Sure, they're not a perfect match - the gathers will have to be eliminated and I'm not sure how I'll do that front collar, though eliminating it and replacing it with a narrow band appeals to me at the moment. But overall it's the best fit I've found. I have some black knit to test out the fit with and hope to make that up this coming week.

Skirt - I adore the current high waist look and just have to have my own. I plan on using the top from the first Vogue (the high waisted one) and then add in the back vents from the second. That'll actually just mean making a few adjustments on the first Vogue since it's got the back princess seams already and vents are simple additions. I have a beautiful faux suede that shows up every fall at Joann's and is surprisingly easy to work with. It's got more drape than I'd really want for this look so I'll have to add a lining to smooth it out over the thighs and some underlining for the high waist to keep it up. I did just make an elven archer costume out of a green version of this fabric and it draped far better (like real suede) than I expected so I have high hopes for this one as well. And I must remember to pick up more - I have so many ideas of different suede skirts I want to make. You don't think that would label me, do you?