sewing plan: summer 2022

Hello! Things are a little bit tough at the moment. The current phase of the clinical trial I'm in has me taking something with a side effect of extreme fatigue (and an added bonus of needing the loo more frequently so not being able to sleep through the night), so it's a much harder slog to do things than it has been for the past few months. I have an appointment tomorrow and I'm hoping they might cut this phase short. My spring projects are all finished bar evening out and hemming the skirt on my dress for the wedding, but boy am I glad I only committed to five.

My plan for summer is slightly longer, though still not the dozen projects I used to come up with. It's based largely on things I discovered during Me Made May (which I ended up really enjoying this year, despite the change in the Instagram algorithm), which were as follows:

1. I need more tops in a greater variety of colours and styles
2. I would like to try some different silhouettes for my clothes
3. I get extremely grumpy when the weather won't let me dress in a way I consider seasonally appropriate

I've grouped my planned projects into these categories, and I'm also hoping to bear them in mind when it comes to my impulse projects too. If there's any season my wardrobe is already well-equipped for it's summer, so I can afford to have a little more fun and think a bit more out of the box this time. 

This is what I'm thinking:

Tops

For years now I have chosen to make almost exclusively brightly-coloured skirts and trousers, and my preference has always been to style them with very simple close-fitting jersey tops in black or grey. I still enjoy this combination, but I'm also getting increasingly bored with the fact that I'm not able to switch it up when I have an impulse to do so. What I would like to do is to make a couple of tops that will each work with at least two bottoms I already have, are not black or grey, and in at least one case is a pattern I'm not currently wearing regularly. 

A cami top

I've never made a woven cami before but all the 1m cuts of silk in my sewing room are suggesting to me that this might be the time. I'm not sure which pattern to use - I definitely want thinner straps and the Ogden cami is the closest I've seen so far, but I don't quite like the shape of the front. 

A bodysuit

A couple of weeks ago I bought some bright yellow tiger print jersey and I would like to make a short-sleeved Nettie bodysuit with it. I fully intended to start off the non-neutral tops thing with, like, a tasteful shell pink or something, but nope. Yellow tiger print. 

A wrap top

I'm going back and forth on this one. I really like the Named Sisko top - I prefer my tops close-fitting and it's very rare to see something genuinely interesting and different in that category - but I've not yet worked out whether I'm likely to actually wear it. I have a bunch of wrap cardigans that were my favourite things five years but barely get worn at all now. I would like to give it a try if I can find the right kind of toile-price jersey. I will not be trying the dress version, which I fully understand as maternity wear but looks really strange on the non-pregnant model. 

Experiments

Technically about 50% of my planned projects could fit into this category, so these are just the ones that aren't also a top or a Not Summer Summer outfit. I'm particularly interested in changing up my dress silhouettes a little - almost everything I make is fitted but not tight-fitting, nipped in at the waist, skirts neither full nor bodycon, with a very limited range of different necklines and sleeves. I'm fully expecting to find that's still what I like best and want to wear most of the time, but the opportunity to change things up occasionally would be very welcome and I want to know what that would look like. 

A slip dress

I've been talking about this for ages and I'm really going to do it this time. I've bought the Closet Core Simone pattern, I'm going to do a test run with the lilac silk (if there's enough of it, I'll use the blue if not) before I move on to the green I really want to use. I have a full plan now and it is going to happen. 

A vaguely 1920s dress

Several years ago I bought Vogue 8814 and I've never touched it, probably because it has a very high chance of not suiting me. I estimate there's a 95% chance I won't like the silhouette on me. But there's also a 5% chance that it works, and I would like to know for sure, so I've decided to go for it and use up some weird blue fabric I can't work out what to do with. 

Clothes for a potential Rubbish Summer

As I write this it's grey and about to rain. For over a month now my weather app has been predicting summer weather in a week's time and revising it down to "cloudy and damp" as the days approach. Last summer was terrible and it really got to me - there was the odd nice day but you couldn't make plans for outdoor events in advance, it was rarely warm enough to wear my actual summer clothes, and I spent most of the time wearing winter clothes and being grumpy. So this year I'd like to prepare for the worst and make a couple of things that feel like summer but aren't super impractical for the cloudy and damp times I'm expecting. 

A pair of summer trousers

I have a couple of different options in mind here, and I'm not sure if I'll pick one or try both. The easier option is wide leg floaty trousers in a viscose-type fabric, either a lighter solid colour or a pattern that's vibrant but not explicitly summer themed (ie no tropical island prints). The harder option is a pair of more fitted trousers in a bright stretch denim, probably bright blue or bright yellow. If I can manage that, it'll count for the experimental category too. I'm considering having a go at the Charm Patterns Marilyn jeans if I get into the right kind of groove. 

A more subdued maxi dress

Last year I made a short-sleeved maxi for this exact situation, and I wear it a lot despite my utter loathing for the fabric because I simply don't have anything else that works as well for days which are grey but not actively cold. So I would like to make a similar thing in a fabric I hate less. I haven't completely decided on the fabric yet but my local shop has some navy William Morris print that I'm tempted by. 

That's seven or eight projects depending on what I decide about the trousers. I do have a couple more projects vaguely in mind; there are a few pieces of fabric that I really want to get out of my stash and into my wardrobe, but I'm not prepared to put them on a plan until I have ideas firmer than "some sort of dress". I do hope I can get at least some of these vague extra projects done, because my stash is currently much bigger than I'd like. I'm a small-stash person and my preference is to have one shelf in my sewing cupboard for fabric and one for overspill, but my overspill shelf is currently also full and that stresses me out. I will need to buy fabric for my Rubbish Summer projects, so ideally I'd like to institute a "two out, one in" rule until autumn. Which may or may not work. 

We're off to the wedding this weekend, and when I'm back I'll start posting the rest of my spring projects!