Sewing with a Plan 2015 0.19

Let’s review my Sewing with a Plan. When this jacket is finished I will have the following completed garments towards my wardrobe of 11.

1. Pink jacket
2. Pink skirt
3. Grey beetle top
4. Grey jacket
5. Grey skirt
6. Green overblouse
7. Turquoise silk shirt
8. Recycled blouse

Leaving three, or just two more garments to make if I include one RTW. Nearly at the finishing line.

BUT. Big But.

I am unhappy with the plan. By substituting the Nina Ricci pattern I have a whole new dynamic going on, based around the dress-that-can-become-a-skirt. And this new dynamic rejects some of the items I have already made. Especially any items that require a waist band to tuck into. Or items that finish below the waist.

Come in number 3, 7 and 8 – your time is up. I want to go somewhere else and you are going to be thrown by the wayside.

These are the three tops – the grey beetle, the recycled top and the silk blouse. If you liked these garments please don’t worry. I will be wearing them (once it warms up). They are all valued members of my wardrobe community. But they don’t really fit into the new set.

At the start of this process (November 2014) I wrote:

This year I will be doing my planning, and my sewing, in public as it were. This will be a different experience for me. I will share the experience in case anyone finds it of interest, and to record my own progress for myself. I do worry that my mistakes, blind alleys and changes of plan might undermine the idea that the whole thing is first constructed in the imagination and then carefully executed. Others will have the skill, expertise and thinking style to work like that, but I cannot do it. I make it up as I go along and may well be madly sewing completely new and unplanned items in March 2015.

And here we are in March 2015, with “completely new and unplanned items”. How prophetic!

I may not be much of a planner, but I am superb at predicting the future!

Practically speaking this means I am now short of six garments, not just three.  To really support the new Nina Ricci direction I need a few new additions. And I think I have it.

I am going to make a second cami-skirt (I need a better name. Sewniptuck kindly suggested Tort and Skop.) This one will use the remaining green wool to make the skirt with a possibly-visible silk camisole top. I will make a white overblouse to wear with it.  The other decision I have made is to make a Squiggle jacket and skirt instead of a coat. This just gives me more options to mix and match. (Later I will make the Nina Ricci coat in a plain fabric). The other thing I have decided on is a silk dress. I am going to adapt the Skop pattern a little so that it becomes a silk dress. Lots of people – on this blog and IRL – have suggested I introduce more hand painted silk into clothes that can be seen rather than hiding it up my sleeve.

So in summary my six remaining items are

1. Green skop (with lace over skirt, if I can possibly make the time)
2. White overblouse
3. Squiggle skirt
4. Squiggle Kimono jacket
5. Silk dress
6. RTW top

The lace overskirt will not count as a garment as it cannot be worn on its own (far too revealing) – so it is the icing on the cake. Probably a bridge too far.

All in all it’s an intimidating list even though I wrote it myself! But finally, with six weeks to go, I have a plan that excites and motivates me hugely. I have a collection of items that I really want to wear. I know I will love them. I love the adaptability that I have now created in the plan.

I honestly don’t think I can do all this in the remaining time – one item a week is really tough going. I will give it a go because a deadline is a motivator for me. Does it matter if I don’t complete my SWAP this year? Not at all.