Wardrobe Sudoku – Spring 2017

I have a bit of an obsession with planning. Following through is another matter, but I’m all about planning! When Pattern Review announced the Wardrobe Sudoku contest I knew this was exactly the motivation I needed to follow through with my sewing plans. I love the idea of a capsule wardrobe but find that planning it is difficult and overwhelming.

The idea with this contest is to create a “sudoku” board with each row containing one top, bottom, accessory, and shoe to create an outfit. You should end up with 10 outfits using 16 pieces (10 of which you have to make).

Here’s what I came up with:

My color scheme is basically the same as last year’s Cruise Wardrobe which (I never fully completed). That works out well for me now because I had a lot of these fabrics still in my stash.

I decided on Navy, White/Off White, and Gray as the neutrals with Coral/Pink as the main accent color. I found an awesome bird pattern fabric at JoAnn’s (top left corner) which includes lots of colors but matches well with everything.

Even the shoes?

Since I only have to make 10 of the items I don’t have to make the shoes and chose to use an existing skirt I have (bottom right corner). But, I would really like to try making the Espadrilles in the bottom left square. This photo is actually of a Marc Jacobs shoe that retails in the ~$300s but with a Dritz shoe kit I should be able to recreate for about $20 all in. Awesome!

I have all the fabrics in my possession (after a few extra trips to JoAnn’s) and have even started on cutting and pattern tracing (dates for the contest are Feb. 1 – Mar. 31) but still need to find good fabric for the “Nettie” bodysuit and an infinity scarf. I may end up having to order something online.

I started sorting everything in my WIP bins so I can keep all the pieces together and have some kind of order as I work through everything.

But I needed it!!!

And, I bought a second sewing machine. It was a steal in the local online classifieds but didn’t have a foot pedal and was missing the entire bobbin shuttle race assembly (what the bobbin sits in). Not sure how someone loses that but, whatever. So I ordered those online and am waiting not so patiently for them to arrive. With a bit of work this will be like a brand new machine for 1/3 the price! I think that’s a good deal. And then I won’t have to thread and re-thread to top-stitch. It is great that they are both the same brand (Singer) so the presser feet are interchangeable.

As I work on each piece I’ll be sure to post a review of the pattern and explain the process. At the end I have to compile one composite review with all the pieces together. And maybe by the time I’m done with all the sewing it will be warm enough to wear the pieces. A girl can dream. 🙂