New Year, Nearly New Season

 Last week I was talking about capsule wardrobes and colour matching. Many of you will probably have heard about seasons and warm or cool colours, you see this in many of the make-up ranges now. I first discovered this about 36 years ago when I was in my local department store and picked up a book called "Color Me Beautiful". This explained all about the seasons and how to tell whether you are warm or cool. I must say that from the outset I did discover that the hair colourings given for the different seasons weren't very accurate. My mother was a perfect autumn, yet she has (or had at the time) coal black hair and grey eyes. Equally my colouring was textbook winter, but it turns out that I am also autumn. Just as an aside, I purchased a dress that was the perfect autumn dress, ivory with leaves in shades of brown. When I brought it home mum looked at me as though I was mad, but she did agree to put the dress on, and it was a revelation. Mum looked fabulous in it, and the dress which had looked so-so on the hanger suddenly became alive.

From that moment on we were both converts. In my case it wasn't until I visited a Color Me Beautiful consultant - after I had moved to Dublin - that I discovered that by then the colour industry had advanced to 3 different groups within each season and that I was suddenly not winter but a deep autumn.

 This was a great excuse for throwing out all my old clothes and making new ones. As the years have gone my taste in clothing has changed, circumstances have changed (as things do over a thirty year period) and I have recently decided that it is time to start a new wardrobe all over again.

This time it is caused by reading about the phenomenon #2018makenine, which applied to crafts in general but is particularly prevalent among the sewing brigade. The idea is to make one new item a month and showcase it on Instagram.

 I understand that many work by finding an item of clothing from a fashion magazine or similar that they like and then copy/hack it to suit themselves, both in sizing, fabrics and changes in design to get rid of/add things they dislike/like.

 I have changed it slightly to suit me so it is now #2018maketwelve, which really is one item a month and guarantees that I will have one new item of clothing every month. Please note that in many cases this will include both top and trousers.

Luckily I already had much of the fabric I wanted as I am an avid purchaser of fabrics from the clearance section at Vibes and Scribes, where fabrics are as little as Euro5 per metre. As the majority of the fabrics are Rose and Hubble which are not just a good brand but usually have great colours and patterns I will probably be making much more than one a month.

In fact I have already finished one, have another 11 planned, with the fabrics already purchased in many cases, and of those 11 I have 2 cut out and partially sewn. I am sticking in general to the style of the outfit although the colours are different.

I have decided to stick with a limited palette so that the clothing will mix and match and I can be fairly certain that I can pull out a top and a pair of trousers and they will go together without having to look first.

The colours I have chose are: neutrals - navy, ivory, burgundy (dark red), brown
                                                 contrast - green, yellow, orange, teal, pink (mainly floral),
These colours are straight out of the autumn palette, especially the deep autumn and I am really pleased to have found them. I like the designs as well, being fond of flowery designs in general, especially as they remind me of summers past.

It helped that my daughter was able to get me 2 lengths (6m each) of cotton lace from Africa, one length in navy and the other in burgundy/deep red. They have a slight stretch (horizontal) and both have a different design. They will be used over other fabrics, either layered over a dress to create a whole new outfit or lined to make an outfit on their own.

The twelve pictures above are the ones I am copying, in one way or another, for my new wardrobe. I am sticking to the designs if not the colours and I must admit that I have a folder of at least twice as many still waiting to be made. Somehow I feel that I will be making much more than just 12 outfits, especially as it is just the beginning of February and already I have all the fabrics, one outfit finished, another 2 nearly finished and all the trousers cut out and waiting to be sewn as well. Next week I am hoping to have photos of the first 3 outfits (camera on loan to a friend on a weekend visit to the other side of the country), maybe even more. Who knows.
(ps: most of my daughter's holiday wardrobe already sewn as well, will try to include photos of that as well.)