SWAP 2008 - the 4 pattern plan

My plans are stabilising now, and look like using 4 patterns for the whole SWAP.

Butterick B4295 for the jacket, skirt and pants, plus a morph of the skirt in lace.
NewLook 6943 OOP for the vest (waistcoat) and high waisted pants.
Butterick 3344 for knit tops in mock wrap, scoop and V neck styles
New Look 6513 blouse one view plain, one view with frills.

Berry Tones - ideas?

As you can see from the last post I picked up the wool mix fabric to try to come up with some coordinating ideas for the other fabrics shown with it.

A is the wool mix. It is more purple one side and more burgundy the other side. I bought 2 metres of 150cm wide.
B is a wool jacket fabric - only 1 m
C is same wool in different colour - just under 1m
D is a stretch wool mix suiting again only just over 1m
E - is a mixed fabric, I think some sort of upholstery fabric which I initially planned on making into a coat, but not sure anymore.

The problem with B, C and D is that there is not enough of any of it to make pants or a jacket.
C and D are beautiful together colourwise. B and C could sew up into the same garment as its the same fabric.
A has tones of all but does it work with them?

Latest thoughts are
Jacket in A, Skirt in B, Waistcoat (Vest) in C and cropped pants in D. C and D would be quite fashion forward for me but I reckon I could pull it off.

Fabric Organisation

I nipped into my local fabric store on Saturday morning on the way to the post office and picked up some fabric which I thought I'd post here.
A - Wool mix in purples (2m)
B - burnt orange mystery fabric (5m)
C - rust cotton knit (1m)
D - khaki wool suiting (5m) plan to make tailored pants for work first

Well I decided that I could organise my fabric stash a whole lot better if the spare room closet contained only fabric, and was on shelves and not in huge moving boxes.
To this end I measured up the closet, decided on what I needed and went off to Ikea on Saturday evening.
Usual problem at Ikea when you want to buy stuff together is that you can't get all the bits in one trip.
So I bought the upright and the small shelves but will have to go back for the big shelves and the back braces. I'm using the Ivar system from Ikea - and basically building a free-standing shelving unit which will sit in the closet but will not be fixed.
There's a small gap on one side where I will store the few rolls I have.
DH is fab at assembling Ikea units and has offered to assemble them for me as things I assemble have been known to fall down!

I also picked up a clip on lamp at Ikea which I am hoping will free up table space (I currently have a lovely based Anglepoise but it takes up a lot of room.)

Pattern Company jacket Muslin V2

Which is better?
Left (without hemlime trim) or Right (with hemline trim?)

Update:
I retraced the pattern as a 42, and whilst I kept the back and sleeves as is, I altered everything else.
First I recut the side fronts so they are straighter, I think they need to come around further and I will alter that in the next version.
Second I redrafted the hood and front panels piece so that it is a collar cut on the fold and not a hood at the back, the whole thing is narrower across the shoulders and down the front and straighter.
It now does not go around the bottom which is instead a narrower applied piece (not sure about this). Left is without, Right is with - which is better?
I replaced the deep fluted cuffs with smaller less curved ones which I do prefer.
I left the seam open on the cuffs, which again I'm not sure about.

I do much prefer this version to my first attempt, although I wonder if its a bad length now, finishing at my widest part. s the left better for this?

Sequin Cord in Burnt Orange ordered

Sequin Cord in Burnt Orange ordered, so anyone who likes it can put their order in now!!!

Fabric from Timmels

I think I will buy 2 metres of this gorgeous fabric from Timmel fabrics.
It's described as Sequin Cord in Burnt Orange - yummy!

http://www.timmelfabrics.com/whatsnew.htm

Chocolate Orange Autumn Wardrobe Plan

Here's my Chocolate Orange Autumn Wardrobe Plan, which depending on how it works out may well morph into the Timmel SWAP in January.
Chocolate brown is my favourite neutral colour, so the wardrobe is all based around a chocolate stretch suiting I bought which has orange, cream and gold stripes running through it. This will hopefully form a 5 piece suit (jacket, pants, skirt, culottes and waistcoat (vest)) with other chocolate brown bottoms and cream, gold and orange plain and print tops.
As you can see there are a lot of pieces and I have more fabrics in the same colourways which I love to wear already, so this is basically my sewing for the next 6 or 7 months!
I'm an Autumn colouring and love to wear this all year round, which given the English summer weather means I'll be able to wear these clothes for about 10 months of the year!

Lightened pic of Stoff & Stil jacket

Lightened pic of Stoff & Stil jacket

Stoff & Stil Jacket 800951

This jacket from Stoff & Stil has a similar rolled collar but less flouncing which I think I might prefer.

Pattern Company Jacket Muslin

Pattern Company Jacket Muslin - obviously needs a LOT of work before it would be wearable.

Butterick 4295 Skirt started

I cut out and started to sew up the skirt from the Wardrobe pattern I like the most right now. Butterick B4295 which I bought when it was featured a couple of years ago in the magazine.

I reckon it can either become one of the SWAP advance pieces or just an 'extra' if I find I want to include other things as the advance pieces instead.

Changes so far:-
Cutting it 3 inches shorter than the long length skirt, adding a waist facing instead of their ribbon treatment and having three slim darts in the back instead of one large one.

The plan is to construct it as per the threads article on sewing for losing weight, so I can take the side seams in as I get slimmer.

Pattern Company Jacket

Here's a version of the Pattern Company jacket 04-265 made up by the owner of STOFF Atelier in Kiel and displayed in the store.
She had made lots of variations which we all loved.

I bought the chocolate brown boiled wool to make up this design, the most I have every spent on a single length of fabric, so there are going to be some muslins before I cut into it!

Pattern Company Website
http://patterncompany.eu/schnittmuster.html

Also available at Tipp Tapp Stoffe
http://web41.s2-mbitmedia.de/shop_content.php?coID=5

or Kreativ Stoffe

http://www.kreativ-stoffe.de/index.html

Fabrics from PR weekend (Europe)

Here are my fabrics from the European PR weekend - see a common theme?


Top row (l-> r): Chocolate boiled wool with mother of pearl giant button, burnt orange satin, chocolate lace, orange fleece
Bottom row (l->r): Orange with woven check/spirals and wool for rag doll hair, chocolate flock fabric, orange crinkle fabric, black cotton with lurex dot with orange beads for necklace.

Current Wardrobe Pattern Thoughts

My latest idea with the Wardrobe Pattern is Butterick B4295 but keeping all my Chocolate/orange/cream colour ways from before.
http://www.butterick.com/item/B4295.htm.
I am not massively in love with the jacket, but all 3 pieces have the seams where advised in the Threads article to make altering for weight loss easier (centre back zips in the skirt and pants, shoulder princess seams in the jacket). My thoughts are to shorten the jacket slightly to make it more wearable with a long skirt and maybe remove or reshape the shawl collar (soft lines are not good near the face for me).
If I left the collar as is I could try to make a removable faux-fur over collar - its a good shape for that, and maybe I can copy an RTW item which has that feature.

I have just got back from the PR European Weekend and had a lovely time there (Hamburg/Kiel in Germany). Most of the fabrics I bought there were also in Chocolate and Orange colour ways. I have enough fabric now to sew 2 SWAPs at least..... so I think I will buy patterns from Julie for my entry!