My spring/summer capsule wardrobe

So here it is, the culmination of the Wardrobe Architect.  A capsule collection of clothes that fit my style, my needs, and that I can reach for again and again.

I ended up with what was a fairly long list, so we may not see all of these pieces this season.  But when it comes to needs, wants, and budgets, I think this is a really good compromise.

So, for spring, I chose a few silhouettes to keep in mind.  full skirts, slimmer skirts, cardigans, skinny pants, and blousey tops were all featured.  And ballet flats with every outfit.  Which is fitting since I have about a bazillion of them.

So I made a list of each item, how many I had (and love wearing) and how many I would need to have a mixable wardrobe.

In the end I decided on my needs

• 3 blousey tops with short or mid length sleeves
• 2 full skirted dresses
• 2 slimmer dresses
• 1 easy knit dress
• 2 full skirts
• 1 slimmer skirt
• 1 knit blazer
• 1 terry sweatshirt

So, make or buy?  The only thing on the list I'm buying is the blazer, because I'm not confident enough in my skills yet to try a structured knit.  I actually already bought it, and really love it.

Next, color.

I thought a lot about this one, and tried not to just go with my first instincts.  I thought about the colors I've been wearing a lot, the fabrics that I've bought and love, and what is flattering on me.  And this is what I came up with.

It's arranged with bolder colors at the tops, nearly neutrals in the middle, and neutrals at the bottom.  At first this image gave me a little pause.  Shouldn't I be choosing crazy bright colors?  It's spring!  But this is colorful without being over the top, and I think entirely mixable/matchable.  I'm also including cream/white even thought it's not shown here.

So from here, I was able to plan specific pieces.  12 pieces to make (and one already bought) that I think will really work for me.

So back to the list above

• 3 blousey tops with short or mid length sleeves
• A loose fitting tee shirt in blush colored silk
• A silk georgette blouse with a neck tie in ochre
• a short sleeved blouse with peter pan collar in a charcoal and white stripe
• 2 full skirted dresses
• A white seersucker dress with tiny embroidered crabs in a poppy red
• An eyelet dress, color TBD but would love it to be poppy or coral
• 2 slimmer dresses
• Button front sleeveless dress in a cat print - aubergine with pink and poppy accents
• A shirtdress (I think) in a different cat print - very light putty and white
• 1 easy knit dress
• Black knit dress with a full skirt and elbow length sleeves
• 2 full skirts
• pleated flowy skirt in a dark olive silk georgette
• print skirt in black and gold - done!
• 1 slimmer skirt
• Slim skirt in a bright coral floral
• 1 knit blazer
• black and white striped blazer - bought!
• 1 terry sweatshirt
• cream terrycloth sweatshirt for lounging

So, that's a lot of colors/prints.  But when I put them together, I think it really works. This combination feels very "me." So I think this exercise was definitely a success. Now I just have to put this into practice!

Being my Wardrobe Architect

Anyone else been following the Wardrobe Architect on Coletterie?  I thought it was cool at first, but wasn't really following until my great closet purge of '14.  I realized I want to be waaaaay more intentional about my clothes, both purchased and made.

So, although there have been ten "assignments" so far, I would break it down into 4 categories (excluding the beauty post, because I don't think that one really helped me).

Defining your style, Identifying silhouettes, Identifying your colors and prints, and creating a capsule wardrobe.

Defining my style

I'll be honest.  Reading the first questionnaire (Making Style Personal) is what turned me off this whole thing in the first place.  It just seemed...over the top?  I didn't think my family or culture really had an affect on my style.  And while I'm still not sure they do, I think this step helped inform the weeks to come.

But while my style is very, very different from my family and friends, I do think my personality, which is what draws me to certain items, is informed by them.  I come from a big extended family.  There are a lot of us, we are loud, we like to have fun.  Our last Christmas celebration was a night of karaoke, booze, food, and love.  I love us.  Between that, and growing up in the performing arts, I am not afraid to be expressive with my clothes.

I have also found that my mental health affects the way I dress in a huge way.  Dark, neutral, knits = low.  Bright, structured clothes that take a bit more effort = high.

Some other things that I think affect my style

• Climate.  It's hot, y'all.  I think the biggest effect this has is the lack of seasonal changes.  I don't have seasonal clothes.  The addition of tights, cardigans, and light jackets is really enough to handle our winters.
• Comfort.  I don't wear heels.  I won't wear heels.  I don't really like to wear pants.  I like to be comfortable.
• Animals.  I really, really, really love animals.  A lot of the prints I choose reflect this in a big way (this is also evident in my house.  LOTS of animal themed art).
• Philosophy.  This is something that is relatively new, but I'm trying to focus a lot on limiting my consumerism and being an intentional consumer.

For the second week, we had to choose style icons and words that described clothes we like, clothes we hate, how we want to feel, etc.

My icons had a lot in common.  Feminine, comfortable, easy.

Zooey Deschanel, Taylor Swift, Alexa Chung, Dianna Agron

I had a lot of words, but these are the five I eventually narrowed it down to.  This is how I'd like my style to be described.

Identifying Silhouettes

This section was really pretty simple for me.  I know what shapes I like.  Fuller skirts with slim tops and cardigans.  Skinny pants with slouchier tops.  Slim dresses with cardigan.

And sometimes boots, but nearly always - ballet flats.

Here are a couple of mine, but there were no surprises for me.

Identifying Colors and Prints

The most fun part of this whole thing has been the colors.  I love color, I love coloring, I just loved this.  I made my color chart on my iPad using the Paper app, which makes it really fun and easy to mix colors.

I have three of those colors on today (poppy, royal, and putty).  So I think it's a pretty good indication

Now, I love bright colors, but I also love prints.  Like most beginning sewers, I went crazy buying a bunch of novelty prints when I first started sewing.  Some of these were really great purchases, and things I'll get a ton of wear out of.  But it makes putting separates together a real challenge.  Still, I love a good novelty print and I'm not giving them up (I actually bought two more yesterday, and am psyched to put them to use!).

So I put these together to illustrate the types of prints I love.  Yes, novelty prints, especially involving animals (and especially especially involving cats).  But I also love florals, stripes, and abstracted geometric shapes.

What I'd like to focus on soon is what I call "effective solids."  So, not a solid, but something I can mix with other prints easily.  Keep in mind, one of my words is loud, so this may not be everyone's cup of tea.  But I would consider the stripe, the polka dots, and probably the watercolor floral in this group to be effective solids.

And talking percentages, I would say at least 50% of my wardrobe is prints, and that's how I would like to keep it.  I wear prints almost every day.  They make me happy, and the clothes I reach for over and over again are prints.  The sheep print in the bottom right, that makes up my very favorite dress, that I grab as soon as it comes out of the wash.  I have another novelty print coming that I'm going to make into the same pattern (which is very similar to the yellow dress above).  I just love it.

Creating your Capsule Wardrobe

So this is the next step.  It came up while I was on vacation, so I haven't really started yet.  but I do have a lot of plans for clothes to make this spring/summer.  Too many really.

I'll probably do another post with those plans, but I'm starting this weekend with a dark olive green silk pleated skirt that I'm SO psyched about.  I think, now that I'm nearing the end of this process, it is really cool how all of the steps came together to help plan a wardrobe.  It's really helping me to think about things in an intentional way.

I have 16 pieces in the planning stages.  All are perfectly suited to our weather (including a cream terry sweatshirt that will be great for the air conditioned tundra that is the Southern movie theater).  5 are solids, 5 are effective solids, and 6 are prints that range from the novelty-est of novelty (the cat portraits above) to a small scale floral that's not quite so bold.  And many of them can work well together and work with things I already have.  I'm really excited about the plan coming together like this!

It's a new year!

And it's going to be a tough one for me.  Work wise, mostly.  I am still commuting to Houston each week, and will be doing that for a few months.  At which point, we are hoping to sell our house, find a new house in New Orleans, and move down there.  Then I'll be working half time outside of New Orleans and half time outside of Baton Rouge.  I don't know why I can't pick a role that just keeps me in one place...

On top of that, I'm transitioning into a new job with a lot more responsibility and leadership.  It is exciting, but it will be hard.

So, with all of that in mind, my goal for 2014 is to remain focused on what is important.  My job is really important to me.  I love it and it brings me a lot of satisfaction.  So that's on the list, but it's not the most important thing.  I also need to keep focusing on my health and my family.

One of the things I want to do that I think will really help in this area is to eliminate clutter.  Both physically and mentally.

I started this year with a huge clean out of my closet.  As my husband pointed out, I do this occasionally, get rid of a couple of bags full, and then go shopping and cram it all in again.  Which is totally true.

But as I went through my clothes I was really thinking about focusing in on what I need.  I got rid of SO MUCH.  I used to have my side of the closet completely crammed full.  Zero room (and I use the huggable hangers so I'm already maxed on usable space.  I should have counted my items before I started!  But I had about 6 feet of linear feet, plus another hanging bar with another 3-4 feet.  Just full, and full of things I never touched.

Now, I've eliminated the second bar, put in a little hanging shelf unit for my sweaters and workout clothes, and have TONS of additional space.  It's absolutely no trouble finding stuff.  It's so much easier now!  I would estimate that I probably got rid of 100+ items.

A couple of things I noticed as I was going through.  The vast majority of things I was getting rid of fell into the "fast fashion" category.  Target, Old Navy, Gap, H&M.  LOTS of Target stuff.  I liked things and bought them, wore them a couple of times and moved on to the next thing.  Most of my higher quality clothes (Anthro and J. Crew purchases mostly) were held onto.  The ones that I did let go of, I'm going to try to sell online, because they're still in great condition.

Also, I got rid of barely any shoes.  2 pairs of worn out house shoes and a lone black ballet flat that didn't have a match.  I made a decision a couple of years ago that I would spend the money on quality shoes that would last.  I think that shows that I need to extend that thought to the rest of my wardrobe.

The only real gap I noticed was the lack of basic solids.  I wear a lot of prints.  I love prints and I don't see that as an issue, but I do need some more basic pieces to mix in.  I think this was a really good exercise because now I know exactly where to focus my efforts in my sewing projects.  The problem is, I have 12 projects planned (and have material bought) and all of them, every one, are with prints.  I know I need to mix some solids in there, and I am definitely going to make that happen.

Taking the giant (seriously GIANT!) box to goodwill was such a good feeling, just to be rid of it all.  I am excited to extend that feeling to all of the areas of our house, as well as my life.  I think this will be a good year. :)

The plan

I'm quickly closing in on two+ weeks of time off from work, and I'm trying hard not to make unreasonable plans.

There will be at least some relaxation time, of course.  And I'll spend a few days at my parents' house.  Plus cleaning, there's always that.

But I also have a lot of sewing projects in the works, and I'd like to knock some of the biggies out.

This is not even all of the fabric I have washed and ready to go!

My first priority are Christmas gifts and resizing some pajama pants I made for us (waaaaay too big).

But that should take like a day max.  And then I'll be free to work on things for ME.

I have so many things in the works.  But here are my thoughts on priorities.

1. navy skirt with scallop hem - I wear a lot of prints, and I need some solid basics to mix in with my separates.  I'm starting here.
2. alligator tee shirt - I have a couple of yards of some amazing fabric from spoonflower, but it is loud, and I think I need a really basic shape so I'm doing a woven tee
3. taupe egg blouse - I'll be using that taupe fabric near the bottom of the pile in the picture above to make a button down blouse.  This is a (hopefully) wearable muslin for the next project, since I've already made the skirt from that pattern before.
4. sheep dress - This light mauve fabric with herds of sheep (and a few little sheep dogs) is probably my favorite fabric in the queue.  I'm going to make a knee length dress with a button front bodice and a little collar.  

I've got a ton of other projects up my sleeve, but I'm thinking that if I give myself room to take my time with these and not stress, then things will go really smoothly, and I'll have some great stuff to wear when I go back to work in January!

New Notebook

There are some things that I completely, unreasonably geek out about.  The weirdest one is probably notebooks.  I had a large red moleskine that I carried with me for the longest time, and I was so sad when it was done.  I now have a little paperback notebook that matches my phone case.  And the cutest little notepad I obsess over at work.  I like writing in cute, useful things.

So, when I started sewing a lot, and mainly when I started planning lots of projects, I got frustrated pretty quickly with pages of notebook paper folder and stuffed in my purse.  I really wanted to have something durable, useful, that I could throw in my purse and go.

Googling immediately brought me to Beth Byrge's book, 110 Creations, which you can buy here.  I was planning on grabbing a copy myself, but I really wanted hardback so I could not worry about it getting banged up in my purse.  And by the time I added the things I wanted and made so many changes, I knew I should just have something printed up myself.

 

 The book came with a dust jacket (I just threw up a picture of some buttons I took), but I knew I wasn't to use it.  So I chose a nice green linen-ish cover with a simple embossed title.  This thing is lovely and I'm so psyched to have it in my possession!

Up front, I have a place for measurements (and plenty of them).  I'll add my and my husband's measurements here for now, and then whoever else I needed later.

I also have a couple of reference chart.  First for normal ease allowances (which will help to make sense of finished measurements on patterns), and a conversion chart for different fabric widths.

From here, it jumps right in to the projects.  I really wanted to make a custom croquis for this book.  You can find tons of directions online for how to do it with photoshop or similar programs.  But because I am lazy, I just took a picture of myself in underpants, pulled it up on my ipad and cranked the brightness up (actually two pictures, one with each arm straight).  Then I laid a piece of copy paper on top of the screen and traced it.  I went over it with a sharpie so the lines were nice and defined, and took a photo in the sunlight.  Then I converted that to monochrome, cleaned it up, and voila.  A line drawing of myself sans pants.

 I also drew my tattoos on here.  Partly because I love them, and partly for a legit reason.  I work in an office about half the time that is much more conservative than my home base.  So I need to have options for covering my tattoos.  Having them on here gives me a good indication of whether I can expect them to be covered, and how I'll need to wear the garment.

So here's a peek at two projects I have lined up.  I am really excited about both of them.  The scallop skirt is actually going to be made with some fabric that was misprinted from spoonflower.  It was supposed to coordinate with a print I bought, but the coloring is off.  Since I have it though, I'm going to do a solid skirt with a cute hem detail.  The orange top is going to be made of a fabric that is SO CUTE but also SO in your face that it needs a really simple silhouette, I think.

I was so excited to get my hands on this that I've already drawn up 8 projects (which is not even all of the ones that I have the fabric bought and washed for!  Whew!).  One of them is a Christmas present, so it will be kept under wraps, but here's a look at some of the others.

That green sweater will probably be the next thing I make for myself.

Each page has a spot for a sketch, list of materials, notes and changes, and just overall planning for the project.  I also left a spot where I can attach swatches if I need to match for notions, etc.  I have some pages also that are just like this without the croquis, to use for projects for other people or accessories.

And a quick note here.  I would definitely be writing in pencil if I didn't have these amazing erasable pens.  Pilot Frixion, I got mine at work (in my job we mark up a lot of drawings and we need to be able to write in lots of colors and ERASE it), but they are seriously so cool.  They erase BETTER than pencil.  It's incredible.  I'm obsessed with these.

In the back, I have a spot to keep track of all of my patterns, as well as some wish lists for future purchases.

The main reason I opted to make this myself was because I just didn't think there was enough room in the ready made book.  I mean really, half a page for a fabric wishlist?  That's not going to work for me.

I made all of the pages in Word and then printed them to pdfs, where I then resized.  They're super simple, but that's exactly what I need.  The book is about 6x9, so it's small but not too small.  Overall, I'm in love with this book.  I would definitely recommend the one from Beth if you would rather have a lay flat notebook that you don't need to throw in your purse and go.  I just know it's going to be a great resource for me, instead of having numbers and projects and lists just floating around everywhere.

Now I will just get to...

Hopefully I'll have a project complete for next week!