I'm not going to have a lot of time to sew this autumn, so I've been really thinking about doing some kind of SWAP (Sewing With A Plan) program so that I don't do as I normally do, which is make completely random items that coordinate only in the sense that they all fit me (more or less).
However, I want to base my planned sewing around a new dress template (don't worry, I still want to make a Duro or two) and I can't decide which one. This is very distressing, especially to someone as decisive (not to say impetuous) as I am. Seriously, I feel most things are Not That Complicated: the important thing is to pick something reasonable and DO IT.
That said, the something I'm going to Pick and Do will have something like this kind of bodice: a center seam with a faced collar. They're very easy to sew, they look nice with cardigans over them (a problem for the Duro), and they do well with prints. I need to make one up and see how it does with a little jacket over it, too. I'm just not OBSESSED with them yet!
Unfortunately, this one, from Turtle Bay Trading Company, is just *slightly* too big for me.
And — aren't the psychodynamics of this pattern envelope amazing? The woman on the left (who looks a bit like Téa Leoni, I think) is obviously being confronted with some entitled upstart (look at that nose in the air!) and is on the point of delivering a well-deserved set-down. Either that or the All-Beige Wonder has just said something so staggeringly inane that Ms. Leoni is looking at her and wondering just exactly how much brain activity is required for standing upright, and revising her previous estimate downward.
A Dress A Day 
Thanks, Erin! It’s mine! Marie
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You are so funny. I love the way you make up stories about the people on the pattern envelopes.
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I think the two women are kind of eyeing one other, doing a dance like cats. The woman on the right is pretending to glance over as if she’s *not* subtly sizing up the woman on the left, but the woman on the left is clearly checking her out with an insecure and vulnerable awkwardness, although hostile and flustered for feeling as such (she knows that we know that she knows that we know…). Wearing her feelings on her *capped* sleeve, she is triggered completely nonetheless by the other woman’s, yes, entitled but organic poise, she is the beauty school savant despite herself, with a diminishing sadness about the perfection that ultimately renders her so ordinary.
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I think Ms. Leoni is about to remove those gloves and slap Ms. Beige across the face with one.
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She is SO Ta Leoni!
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Thanks for the link to Turtle Bay – what a great selection and some larger sizes. I think there are two there that I’d like to make. Good luck deciding on your new obsession!
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I think the dish on the right has definitely infuriated Ta, but I think it’s because she made a smart remark about the gardening gloves.Sorry to be a wet blanket, but I’m glad you’re potentially moving away from the Duro dress. I don’t think it does much for anybody once the fun of picking the fabric combo is over. For example, Erin, in the Google Books clip, you looked like you might have been wearing a soccer jersey. *ducking and running*
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The pattern review website recently sponsored a variation of the “sewing with a plan” wardrobe. It was a great motivator for me to start on my own work wardrobe.My wardrobes always include dresses and skirts, but I haven’t planned a wardrobe around a particular dress pattern yet. That could be interesting.Of course, making my own dresses and skirts means I have POCKETS in every one of them.
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I love that dress, but unfortunately not my size.I’ve been working on planning a SWAP for myself. I have the patterns picked. Now I have to decide which fabrics from my stash go with which pattern. All garments to be made out of stash fabrics. Probably not as much fun as buying all new fabric, but something the budget won’t accomodate currently.
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Neither ‘girl’ matches the sizes shown on the pattern… bust 38, hip 41No wonder the nose is in the air, anorexics were invented by the fashion industry.Like your site
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The SWAP thing sounds like a good idea…but then I look at the photos of the “fabulous wardrobe” they use as an example and I think where is the leopard print? The orange? The lime green? Where’s the fun stuff??? I’d rather have a bunch of dresses that have nothing in common except their own spark of personality.–Lydia
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I love the psychodynamics of pattern envelopes! Your comments made me think of how many chuckles I have gotten over at the Threadbared site on your sidebar. So, I go there today and–sob!–they have posted their farewell post! Waaaa!
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Tea is pissed that the beige girl looks as though she has a smaller waist.
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Has anyone ever managed to Sew With A Plan? Sounds ghastly to me. I think a wardrobe should grow as it were organically.Simple patterns? Basic material? Will that be enough to motivate me to even think of sewing, let alone do it?Moreover, I’m so choosy when it comes to fabric that I could never ever manage to find more than 3 coordinating fabrics in one go.In short, I cannot imagine that SWAPing is conducive to dressing with joy.
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One of my last pattern obsessions were the 1950s “half” dresses. Each half wraps to the side, either with sleeves or without. I think I have 3 or 4 versions of that dress now. Not that I have had time to make any of them from the numerous eligable fabrics in my stash. I don’t know whether they would fit into a SWAP scheme, except that perhaps a person could pick one pattern and make about a dozen mix and match halves.Amy
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The only time the ” Sewing with a plan” wardrobe make since for most people is a vacation wardrobe like the “Florida” page of that old sewing magazine you posted not long ago. If you wear mostly dresses they don’t have to coordinate. I would kill my self if I had to wear an elastic waist skirt or an unstructured jacket or a simple “top”. Very unflattering (even to the model in the article).I love vintage patterns precisely because the fit is so much better and more stuctured (darts and seams) than most of the patterns that are on the market today. You might try taking your duros into fall by wearing a very tight fitting turtleneck or long sleeve jewel neck top under them.
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Okay, you guys have talked me out of SWAP. 🙂 Wasn’t that hard, was it?I think instead what I will do is sew lots of dresses and just make sure all my accessories/coat/shoes/bag etc. go with everything. So much easier!And Sewing Siren, I did do the long-sleeved shirt under Duros last year — I loved it.
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If you go to the Timmel Fabric site and see the winners of the 2007 SWAP, you will see it wasn’t a boring, ghastly time by those who entered. Since we moved, I have a closet most girls would give their whole shoe collection for and it it hangs a lot of drab worn out clothes. I don’t have the budget or physical energy for shopping and as most of the clothes I do make are the easy, comfy, elastic waistline, etc. type; I decided that SWAP sewing was for me. I would love to be able to have enough clothes without extended sewing sessions so I at least have tops and bottoms coordinate–that is until I get into a shape that is conducive to wearing dresses which will be awhile yet. After getting myself a decent workable wardrobe, THEN I want to spend the time making the fun time consuming stuff.
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Sewing? With a PLAN? Wha…? What the…? You…can..have a…PLAN? And SEW? At the same TIME?[falls over at this colossal epiphany]
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The Plan is to go to the fabric store, walk around feeling up the fabrics, find what speaks to you, have it measured (four yards minimum, no… make that five) pay for it,(It’s on sale? Ah, the Cosmos is in on this Plan) take it home and tuck it in your stash. Then when inspiration, need, and time all converge, you sew. That’s my Plan, and I always follow it.
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I know this is quite late, but I did a SWAP back in 2008 and I still make capsules for it to fill in wardrobe holes even now. If youre not a minimalist, I can see where it might not have much attraction, but I like have a bunch of coordinating garments that I can put together to suit almost any but the most formal of occasions without actually having to own a huge wardrobe.
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