Prep Work

My parents were visiting for a few days the week before last, so I took a bit of a break in the sewing last week. This week I've been playing catch up and trying to get ready for the next round of things. April 28-May 3 is selfish sewing week - like Kids Clothes Week, except for me! Then this season of Project Sewn begins May 5, and I'll be attempting to link up to the sew along. We'll see if that goes any better than Project Run and Play, right? (Week 4 looks for the kids are actually complete, but never got photographed, so when they're clean again I'll get them photographed and actually put up the blog post, which is already written!) I also signed up for Me Made May '14! I pledged to try to wear a handmade garment at least 3 days a week for the month of May, but I'll have to get some sewing done to not wear the same things every week.

Just when I thought I had time to work, though, my lovely husband started drumming up more possible custom work for me to do for other people. It makes my plans to sew for myself and the kids a little harder, but hey, who am I to turn down work that might pay for the fabric for my next project?

I don't want to give everything away, and a lot of my selfish sewing week projects will have to wait for their Project Sewn reveal posts, but I'll be working on summer clothes for myself, things that can be layered for what's left of spring before the summer heat finally descends. I need to make a couple of quick and easy pieces for May, too, to fill out my wardrobe of handmade things. Right now I think I have two skirts, a top, and a cardigan that I've made for myself that actually fit. There probably won't be time, but there may be a new bag or two in the bunch! What can I say? I make ambitious plans. You don't get to hear exactly what what's in those plans (especially since I'm not sure what will get done and I don't need the pressure!) but here's some fabric peeks.

These are one outfit, for Project Sewn.

But I promise these are to be worn separately ;)

The goal with the weekly themes for Project Sewn is to take them and make things that are practical and comfortable for every day. My warm weather wardrobe is rather lacking in volume, and often feels equally lacking in style, but fixing that has required me to actually think about what "my style" might actually be. I'm still thinking about it, but I'm not sure if I really have one. That might make signature style week tough, but you'll have to check in to see what I come up with. For now I've been using up ink, paper, and tape at an alarming rate to print and put together patterns. It's probably not a huge shock to hear that printing adult sized patterns takes up more paper than kid patterns. It's pretty nuts. I actually went out of my way to look at printed patterns that I already have or can get on sale from the big 4 pattern companies. They aren't as good, but they require a ton less prep work. Unfortunately, I still like most of my PDFs better, so printing and taping and tracing it is! Excuse me while I go tape together every piece of paper in the house.