Slow fashion.

A friend of mine got me thinking... I am totally up for the challenge!

The reasons I got into sewing:

#1 - It's fun

#2 - I get clothes that fit me AND are my style

#3 - I know under what conditions the seamstress work (no sleep, no pay, screaming kids around the legs...)

#4 - It saves money. Being a material snob, it really does save a lot.

But when I had sewn for a while it really got me thinking about the #3. We need to show this clothes making business SOME RESPECT!! It's totally insane to buy something and then barely use it. Somebody MADE it, with their hands (no - robots don't make clothes yet). And somebody made that fabric too! Harvesting those cotton plantations, all the chemical business of turning cotton balls into weavable fibres, dying it, all the transportation....

The respect goes further. When something isn't fit for wearing any longer (being too small, having holes, out of style etc) we should evaluate if the fabric in those discarded items are reusable in any way. Over the last months I have made stuff for my girls out of my own ill-fitting sad pieces - hence giving them a second round of life. Hurrah!

My friend Malin, read her blog here, is challenging the "shop til' you drop" mentality by making a commitment to make all the clothes she needs, except socks and bras I think. Count me in!! Read more about her brilliant thoughts here (in swedish) and here. We are now both part of a so called SWAP- group. SWAP as in "sewing with a plan". 6 items per season. Fun AND genius, if you ask me.

This page will mainly contain updates on my SWAP.

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Sewing With A Plan, winter 2013 - completed

This plan is made to fit together with the fall SWAP, presented below. My most urgent need is pants. I have one pair of jeans that I fit into (but they don't fit me well). I also fancy some nice dresses to work for winter party time, such as xmas, new year's etc. The cordova jacket is to challenge myself with another project I fear, but it has the lowest priority of the bunch. This SWAP is meant to be finished before christmas, but I doubt I'll make it this time.

Okay, the plan was a bit too ambitious considering xmas and a few trips happened during this period. I am pleased I took the time to really learn the pant making business, though. I completed both my Thurlows as well as the Hazel dress. I changed the vintage style blouse for a bat wing blouse, using the same fabric. The other three garments won't happen this time around. The black dress may come back in the game during next fall and the Cordova might as well. Gertie's blouse most certainly won't - I have decided I don't like it very much.

This is the result (all of them can be found in detail amongst older blog posts):

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Sewing With A Plan, fall 2013 - completed

Before I made the plan I did a thorough wardrobe inventory. Trying everything out to evaluate fit, style and what colors looked good on me. Everything that I was not sure about ended up in a big (BIG!) pile and to be frank, not that much actually got to stay in the closet. A lot of clothes needed in other words.

In a SWAP you plan for 6 garments that ideally should fit together and make a lot of outfits. Especially when combining with clothes you already have. To succeed in this is is crucial to limit the amount of colors used. The recommendation is 1-2 base colors and 1-2 accent colors.

To select my colors I did a color analysis by myself. There is tons of reading on the internet so it is totally doable without a pro. Remember though, that your colors change  - if you change the colors of your hair or get a tan, the colors that flatter your complexion changes to. Hence you may be a different "season" over the year. For example, I am usually "clear winter" during the darker part of the year because I get really pale skin and prefer my hair to be really dark brown, almost black and my eyes are fairly light blue/turquoise. During summer I turn into a "spring" since I tan quite easily and my hair gets natural highlights if I don't dye it.

So, that being said. I chose navy and gray do be my base colors and red and icey blue to be my accents. The garments I chose were pretty basic styles but with a little something to keep them from being boring.

This was my plan (all the gibberish is in swedish):

Patterns used: Sewaholic Alma Blouse, Colette Sorbetto Tank, Jenny Hellströn Ruas Coco skirt, Gertie's The Pencil skirt, and Eliza M's Connie dress. Inspirational images found in various places online.

And these were the results:

Which made the following outfits...