Sewing with a plan!

I don’t do many things haphazardly. I’m an orderly person in my approach to life. Even as a creative, I still organize my thoughts, inspiration, timeline and production schedule when I tackle a project. Once I’m organized, then I feel free to release my imagination and let it run wild…because I took care of the functional details first.

So for sewing projects, I NEVER have UFO’s…unfinished objects. That’s like chaos to me. I like committing myself fully to a project to get the most out of it. But I what I haven’t done is sew with a sewing plan or a complete collection in mind. I will line up a few projects in the queue, match pattern to fabric, bag it and call it a day, but it’s all informal. Sort of like when I get to it, I’ll get to it. What gets sewn, gets sewn. But I’ve been motivated by some great inspiration boards and sewing plans I’ve seen lately. A few of my favorite bloggers and sew-sisters have posted their sewing approach and they have gotten me motivated. 

Sewing/blogger powerhouse MimiGStyle has posted some great recaps of her sewing collections. You can see her yellow collection and denim blue collection to get an idea of her cohesive approach. Likewise, Emily Hallman seems to sew entirely by theme. She has a very strategic and well thought-out method to her sewing. You can view her royal blue collection here to get the idea.

Or we can take a look at Tipstitched  who has a great post about her summer sewing plans and gives you a great tutorial on how to create a vision board. She includes a few basic techniques, all PC focused. I’m a Mac girl, so I’m fine whirling around in the Adobe world of Photoshop and copy-n-paste.

You can see from the layout above that I have 15 garments on my “to-sew” list. I tend to focus on work wear since the bulk of my day, like all other able-bodied’s, is spent in business or business casual attire. But I’ve got a week-long girl va-cay at Martha’s Vineyard that 1.) I’m super excited about it and 2.) I am determined to sew my entire vacation wardrobe.

There is a combination of Big 4 and Indie patterns. As you can see, I have a color theme of yellow, pink and green. All cheery, happy, summer vibes. My selection of fabric is mostly breathable cottons and cotton blends. Gingham, strips and florals; all on trend. Each line sketch has both its pattern number and fabric labeled beneath so that I keep track of my selection.

As an organizer, this keeps me focused and actually acts like a little sewing goal setting. Especially when I want to sew some of my favorites looks of the season.

I’m a LiketoKnow.it junky. I use Evernote to keep track of what caught my eye and here’s the gist of my style inspiration. I’m not aiming to recreate anything exactly, but just use some of the looks as a basis for ideas. All very girly and flirty fashion. I’m may have to tone down some of the looks to fit my style and age, but the very feminine appeal of these is speaking to me.

Now that I have my game plan, it’s on to sewing!