sewing plans: autumn 2019

I didn't intend to neglect my blog for the entire month of August, but I've just been completely uninspired to sew. Mostly that's due to the weather; it's been too dull and grey for me to want to make bright summer dresses, but also so sweaty and sticky that I've not wanted to make warmer clothes either. Plus it's really demotivating when you know you're going to have to put the brand new thing you just made in the wash after two hours of wearing it because it's sweatlogged. Eugh. I know a few people on Instagram who are doing Sew Every Day September, so I'm joining in with that to try and help get me going again.

For this season I want to work mainly from a palette of sunset colours; yellows, oranges, corals, blue-violets. Obviously if I see a nice bright green all bets are off, and I'll probably make the odd neutral/stashbusting piece, but I'm going to try to stick to that colour range. I still have a ton of leggings to finish from my last plan (and it's becoming increasingly urgent as my old RTW ones are starting to show signs of going threadbare round the thighs) so this plan is slightly shorter and doesn't have a massive challenging project on it. My original intention was to make black jeans this autumn, but I really think I might never sew again if I set myself that challenge right now. For winter, perhaps.

Bottoms

A pair of tapered-leg trousers

The thing I most often find myself missing in the autumn is a pair of trousers that won't drag through puddles. I made three pairs of the Papercut Palisades in the hopes of solving this problem, but I've found that the elastic gets really awkwardly twisted at the sides when I wear them and it puts me off taking them out of the drawer in the morning. I'm going to have a go at the Closet Case Patterns Pietra trousers, which look similar but have a much smaller elasticated section. I'm going to make a toile with a piece of slightly crappy denim I have in my stash (I ordered it when I was planning a red denim dress, and it arrived about as far away from red as it could be without becoming a completely different primary colour), and if they work I'm going to make my real pair from blue-violet cupro.

A pair of mustard cords

How many lists has this been on now? It's driving me mad. I MUST have my yellow trousers! I have the fabric but I still don't have the pattern. All the patterns I own seem to be designed for lighter or drapier fabric and I've so far not seen anything that looks right. Please give me your recommendations!

An autumn maxi skirt

This is something I keep going back and forth on. I really love the idea, but I'm just not sure if the visions in my head will work out in practical terms. For example, I really love the Deer&Doe Fumeterre skirt but there's a high chance of running into the aforementioned puddle issues. I've also considered an asymmetric skirt that gives the impression of being maxi without really being so, and the idea is great but in practice it could so easily look wrong on me. I went to Walthamstow last week looking for inspiration and found what I can only describe as orange leopard print hairy viscose, which I think would be a cool maxi skirt if I can find the right pattern. It'll need to be one I can easily add a lining to so the hairy viscose doesn't stick to my tights. What a sentence that is.

Tops

A yellow bodysuit

Several months ago I bought three pieces of viscose jersey in blue, yellow and grey to make bodysuits with. I only got as far as the blue one because the fabric was such a pain to work with, but if I arm myself with enough Wonder Tape I think I can do it. It's either going to be another Nettie or a Kommatia Patterns Ferri, depending on what my wardrobe demands. (Incidentally, I am so confused by Kommatia's rebrand. The old patterns apparently aren't coming under the new name and if you search the new name Google literally assumes you mistyped and shows you results for something else instead. This seems... not well thought out.) If I have time I'm also going to make a second black Nettie because I wear my first version constantly when it's cool enough to do so.

A hoodie

Last year (I think) I made a cropped Jalie hoodie, which I really like but don't tend to reach for when lounging because the neck is too restrictive. I want to make a second one using the same body pattern but the hood from the Burda men's pattern I used to make Patrick's velour one. We had a long discussion about matching Liberty sweatshirt fleece hoodies, but ultimately that's £80 I do not have, so it's going to be something a little more subdued.

A jacket

I considered putting my fourth attempt at a leather jacket on this list, but as soon as I wrote it down all my will to live spontaneously exited my body, so I took it back off. What I'm going to try instead is making the red fabric from my Walthamstow post into a lighter autumn jacket. I bought a Kwik Sew moto jacket pattern a little while ago which I think I'm going to try, even though it's unlined and I'm not sure that's a great idea. How easy is it to add a lining to a jacket pattern?

One pieces

An autumn dress

One of my main goals for this season's sewing is to make transitioning into darker days as easy as possible. I'm not great at autumn and winter despite SAD lamps and vitamin D and what have you, so it's often the case that I just curl up into an anxious little ball that can't leave the house. If I'm able to leap on the faintest whiff of energy or motivation things go a lot better for me, so I want to make several things that I would happily wear around the house if I wasn't planning to go anywhere, but also could conceivably wear on a walk round the block should I suddenly get a passing fancy to go outside. I'm going to try Butterick 6621, in one of the several pieces of printed sweater knit I have in my stash.

A hoodie dress

On a similar note, I really, really want a hoodie dress. I've kept putting it off because it's not really something that's "my style" so much, but on colder days I've been known to root through my drawers looking for the hoodie dress that I know isn't in there, so it must happen. I might need a couple of goes to get it right (I do want it to be a dress and not just an elongated hoodie), so I'm going to start with the Kommatia Patterns Mysig pattern and see how that goes.

A second Sirocco jumpsuit

I kept meaning to get round to making another Sirocco, but I hadn't put it on any lists and no fabric leapt out at me in particular. I still don't have any fabric, but I do think a solid colour Sirocco, probably blue, would be pretty useful. I'd like to have more autumnal jumpsuits in general, but my past attempts haven't gone very well and I'm not sure what I'd need to do to get the kind of fit and look that I want. I'll keep my eye out.

A wedding guest dress

Two of our friends are getting married next month in what I expect to be a full-scale princess extravaganza, and I want to make something to wear. I want something that will be suitably fancy but not so fancy that it precludes me wearing it to a restaurant on a random Thursday, and I want to challenge myself by NOT making an Anna dress this time. What will it be instead? I have no clue. I probably have some frustrating bust-fitting times ahead of me.

If I have time and the fabric I ordered is OK when it turns up, I'm going to have a go at making Patrick another shirt. I finally, finally finished the one I put on my spring plan, and you can read all about that next week, but I'd like to try out the fit of a different pattern and it's going to be the Sew Over It Hackney shirt. They did a thing last weekend where they waived the three-month minimum sign-up period for their Stitch School, so I paid £15 for one month and downloaded about a dozen patterns, which you really can't knock as far as value goes. Their men's shirt pattern is intended to be more of a day-to-day one and also comes with all the finished measurements easily accessible, so I think it might be helpful for me to have a go at. This is very much fabric contingent, though!

Up next: the finished shirt, at least three months late!