Make Nine

A new year, so naturally time for resolutions, goals and plans, right?  There are a lot of year-long projects on social media and 2 sewing related projects that caught my eye are #MakeNine and Sew My Style. 

Make Nine involves choosing 9 items that you want to make (sew) with an eye towards coordinating items, or at least complementary items!  If you’re a sewer (or sewist) on Instagram, you’ll likely have seen collages galore under the hashtag #makenine or #makenine2017. This project isn’t new for 2017, but began in 2016, so there are some interesting posts about what people actually made of their intended nine – the Lucky Lucille link above is a good example (click on #MakeNine).

Sew My Style, hosted by Bluebird Fabrics, is a project aimed at encouraging people to make clothes, and embrace slow fashion.  12 sewing projects have been selected – and there are discounts available on some of the patterns.  As the site says, most of the patterns are relaxed fit and really not my style, so instead of following their projects, I have taken their ideas about what items would make up a cohesive wardrobe and come up with a Make Nine list:

Sew Over It Molly top – a long sleeve tee shirt for the weekends, holidays etc.  This is definitely too relaxed to wear to my work! This will be made up in some fluffy (likely entirely polyester) charcoal grey knit fabric.

The Groove Dress is my next attempt at a swingy summer dress.  I tried to replicate a Cos dress last summer (see my blog post about that here), but I feel that this may be a better fit – I think there needs to be negative ease over the bust for this shape to work on me without resembling a tent.  I have some grey marl viscose to make a wearable toile and some great printed jersey for the real deal.

Another Day Dress is on the cards – I need to work on the fit on the back by taking a small piece out of the back pattern neckline, and then I am making a work appropriate version in some black suiting and hot pink silk lining. I also need to find really good instruction on how to set in the sleeve as the instructions on this pattern are next to useless (use lots of pins and be patient).

Super tote and the Caravan tote – I can always use a tote bag and these each have distinctive features – like the dropped zip, or the gusseted pockets. I have fabric for one, and need to get lining for the other (and associated hardware).

Renfrew tee – I have made this so many times, and I have 2 on the list.  Firstly is some blue fabric with white polka dots.  The second will have a woven fabric back (I have an amazing floral panel) and will be otherwise black viscose – fabric to be ordered!

Silk scarf – I bought a vintage silk panel which is printed with garlic bulbs.  The silk has an amazing woven texture to it, so I am simply going to sew a handrolled hem and be done with it. 

Finally, I have 1.5m of some amazing heavy crepe fabric (ostensibly a Stella McCartney fabric).  Dark green with a white/black animal or floral print, quite abstract.  Perhaps the Sew Over It Tulip skirt? 

Not on the list, but something I want to do as well is the Sew Over It Alexa skirt – both in a denim (light weight) and an African wax print.