'Sewing With a Plan' - winter completed, spring starting

In my slow fashion section I post the summary on my SWAP efforts over the year.

The winter period is now up (or actually it was up already before xmas). I had a very ambitious plan for winter - 7 garments of which I had tried non of the patterns before. No real quick projects either. And there was THE PANTS that I feared so much (and still do, to some extent).

The winter plan contained 2 dresses, 2 pants, 2 blouses and 1 jacket. I managed to finish both pants, one dress and exchanged one blouse for another:

The Thurlow #1 was blogged about here, Thurlow #2 here, and here. The bat wing blouse was blogged about here,  and Hazel dress here.

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Now, let's move on to the new plan - the SWAP of spring 2014!

Learning from my overly ambitions planning last time - and realising I'll have even less sewing time at hand during this next period I decided to aim for less. The SWAP states you should do 6 garments every season, so I feel totally rebellious showing a plan of only 4! Ha, ha.

I'll be going back to work soon, after almost a year on maternity leave, so I need to add some smartish outfits my wardrobe. The item I'm most excited about is the Anise jacket from Colette Patterns. I have never sewn a jacket before and I aim to make this one perfect! Gotta put the bar up high, right?

As any observant reader may notice, the fabric chosen for Anise is quite far from the samples I showed the other day (here). The reason is that I finally got around to check how much fabric I needed, which turned out to be a lot! Nearly 3y! So with the Harris Tweed costing a small fortune I chickened out and got some no name wool tweed from Sweden instead. It'll do just fine and has a spring feeling about it, I think. Besides, it is my first jacket and who nows how it'll turn out!


/Alexandra

Introducing: Sew for a change - the 2014 challenge!

  This challenge is run by myself and my partner in crime, Malin. 

If you prefer to follow this challenge in Swedish, 

please turn to Malin's blog Oh, my green darling! 

To be kind to nature (environmentally and ethically) should not give you a headache. In fact, it should be easier than not to. To be more environmentally friendly is not only about shopping more organic or fair-trade, but also to actually shop a whole lot less - and make sure you make good use of what you already have. 

Sew for a change is a consumerism challenge with focus on clothes and textiles. How many clothes do you really need in a year, and how many can you do just as well without? With inspiration from the awesome british challenge Wartime Wardrobe Challenge, that finished 2013, we now launch our own version. The Wartime Wardrobe rationing challenged you to not consume more clothes during one year than the real wartime rationing (starting 1941) of 66 coupons. The wartime wardrobe challenge was run by Nik and Meg, be sure to check out their awesome blogs here and here!! They have done an astonishing amount of great research we all can use!

Their challenge must have been an extremely tough one for most people and, despite very eye-opening, likely not easily maintained for any subsequent years. We want this challenge to change our ways permanently and find a level of consumerism that would be doable for the long run. Whilst using a value chart for coupons (or in our case 'points'), that Nik kindly let us recycle, we give you 75 points instead of 66 - and with a chance to earn more if you change other parts of your life too.

THE CHALLENGE

Between February 1 and December 31, 2014, you are given 75 points to use on clothes, fabric and yarn. The cost of points is stated in the Point chart. For crafty people you'll be pleased to know that sewing or knitting your own wardrobe will cost less than buying ready to wear (hence, "sew for a change"). 

All the Sew for a change information and material will be stored for your convenience under the Sew for a change page, found at the top of the blog. There you can download the different documents in various formats.

The star challenges

During Feb-Nov you are also given a monthly "star challenge" that can earn you 10 more points each month.  The star challenge is launched on the 1st of every month along with tips and tricks that will help you through it. The star challenges are by no means mandatory but hopefully you'll be encoureged or intrigued enough to give it a go.

The challenges will have different themes - not all sewing/clothes related. The point is to get us to try changing our ways during a short period of time. Hopefully some of it will work well and become something we'll take with us in our daily lives even after the month is up.

Reporting

At the end of each month we will report our current point status. There is a scorecard available to help tracking all the points. Find it here.

It would be super fun to have a lot of you joining in and doing this together with us! If you do, it would also be very cool if you let us know! And if you're a blogger, there is a badge for you to put on your page. Find it here.

We are so excited and can't wait to get started!!!! Let's stop shopping - yay! :-)

/Alexandra and Malin 

No grease ball!

So, for my fellow "no poo":ers and all the sceptics out there, I will now show you what my hair looks like after more than a week of washing with nothing but water. It's been 9 days, in fact. Still no haircut though (gosh, it's been a year now!) or hairstyle... or makeup... just pure me, ha!

This is working so well with my hair that I think I might be ready to drop hair washing altogether soon. Usually I'm a 'conditioner only' kind of gal, but it needs to be said: water rules!

/Alexandra

Anise Jacket - MadMen Style

During the December sales I bought the Anise Jacket pattern from Colette. I like it because it is both stylish and classic but at the same time modern with the short sleeves and cropped design.

https://www.colettepatterns.com/shop/anise

My true inspiration to how I want my Anise to look is a child's wardrobe (yes, it's true!) namely the one of the MadMen character Sally Draper. I know she's like 10y old, but I can't help but love her style...

This is roughly what I am envisioning, although shorter:

Sally Draper, MadMen season 5/episode 12

I like the teddy/faux fur collar, particularly since I am sensitive to itchy wool - and wool tweed is itchy like hell. No way I can have that towards my neck without wearing a scarf.

Anyway... I have now ordered samples of wool tweed fabric from Harris Tweed UK. And now I don't have a clue which one I like more!!! Blue may be more sober and easier to combine, but I am a sucker for bright red too. Help!

Tweed samples.

/Alexandra

Taking on something BIG!

In the recent year I have thought a lot about how I live my life and how what I do affect the world around me. This has lead to changing a lot of things, which I am happy about. But the more you learn, the more you realize there is more to do...

Malin and I have a similar outlook on these things, as well as a joint passion for sewing, which has now lead us to cook up a brilliant challenge for 2014. It will not be easy, but hopefully a lot of fun!

The challenge will be presented in full at the end of January and the official kickoff is February 1. This is all I'm going to say about this now - stay tuned for more info.  Hopefully you will take on the challenge too!!! I promise you won't be sorry!

/Alexandra