What I made and wore for 2 weeks in Paris!

This past November I spent 2 full weeks in Paris. (Much of this was documented on my Instagram feed- @siouxzeegirl)

 

One of my favorite parts about travel is planning my wardrobe. Once my destination is selected, dates nailed down and flights purchased I immediately start to think of my wardrobe. Paris was such a fun trip to plan for and I am glad that I started early since I knew that I wanted to make as much of the wardrobe that I could.

I selected a color palette of blue, red and white. A slightly different palette from my normal clothes. This gives me an opportunity to play with other colors AND come out with a great capsule wardrobe in the end.

 

Wardrobe sewing planning

With the color palette selected I started pulling all the fabrics from my fabric collection that fit into this palette. I don’t really think about what I will make with them at this point, I just pull the fabric and put it all on my couch, table and floor, wherever it all fits so that I can see all of it. With all of the fabric spread out it is easy to ‘see’ and you can quickly start removing fabrics that just don’t go. This can be because the color is a little off. For instance, I ended up going with deeper and true reds versus orangey reds. I removed many of the very dark navy blues and went with a brighter blue and brighter navy’s. After doing this first culling, which usually removes about half of the pulled fabrics, I start to look at the fabrics left against my list of clothes that I want to make. This then helps me to put the fabrics into 4 groups. Tops, bottoms, dresses and outerwear. 

 

I have a couple rules that I follow when creating a travel wardrobe.

1. All separates, bottoms (skirts and pants) and tops (knit and woven) need to go with multiple other items. For example, if I bring 3 bottoms then each top I made must go with at least 2 of the 3 bottoms. Ideally all 3! And vice versa. Each bottom needs to go with multiple tops.
2. Each dress needs to worn at least twice. Unless traveling for a special occasion like a wedding, I NEVER bring an item that will only get worm once.
3. I try to stick to 3 pairs of shoes. And NEVER bring new, untested shoes.
4. I always have a travel outfit that gets worn on plane to and from and then usually one other day on the trip that I consider a down day. (Crucial for longer trips)
5. Only bring undergarments that can be rinsed/hand washed and dry overnight. 
6. I almost never travel with jeans. They are heavy and if they get wet take forever to dry. (Unless I am staying in a ABNB with a dryer)

These rules help me to make sure that my wardrobe creation and packing for a longer trip are very thoughtful and deliberate. These are the rules that work for me and they may certainly not be what works for someone else! I guess my biggest thing is that if I am deliberate beforehand with my creating and selecting my wardrobe then when I am on my trip I don’t really have to think about it too much and just really enjoy my travels!

 

Yes, your eyes are correct... I packed a suitcase inside a bigger suitcase on the way there, so that I would have plenty of room on the way home for the FABRIC purchases!! It worked out perfectly!

For my Paris trip, I knew that I wanted to bring 3 or 4 bottoms, 5 or 6 tops and 2 dresses. Plus, outerwear.

 

What I made and what I bought.

Things I made:

Dresses: 2 blue floral matelassé corner dress from 2 coordinating fabrics and Chanel tweed dress with tucked knit sleeves and tweed cuffs.

Bottoms:3 (1 skirt & 2 pants) one midi length red corduroy straight skirt, one blue tweed lined slim ankle pants and one full length wool crepe lined pants with pleated hem. 

Tops: (6) red wool knit top, blue wool knit top (only item from my existing wardrobe) rayon/spandex knit tunic, blue floral ruched knit top and a woven Japanese cotton top. Plus one French style jacket and shell. 

 

I Only 4 purchased items that came with me! Both my outer wear pieces and my travel tunic and leggings. I just ran out of time and thought why not! Everything else I made :) Such a great feeling to travel with wonderful me made wardrobe.

I purchased both items of outerwear that I brought with me. A tunic length navy puffer vest and a burgundy London fog hooded rain/trench coat.

Shoes: I broke my rule and actually brought 5 pairs of shoes. 2 red shoes and 2 blue shoes and a pair of pool flip flops. All shoes were flats and every pair got worn. PLUS…. I purchased 2 more pairs of shoes while in Paris. I mean really, how could I not buy shoes in Paris!!

Day 1 (travel day)

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10 (with a very bad selfie!)

Day 11

Day 12 (forgot to take a selfie on the trip!)

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

 The last day, DAY 16, was our travel day home and I wore the exact same outfit as I wore traveling to Paris.

The page in the travel journal where I recorded how many times I wore each item.

 

For this trip, I knew I wanted to do a detailed trip journal. (On past trips I have done small journaling but I really wanted to do more and a bigger journal with everything that can be in one place once the trip is over) So, in this journal I made a list of each item of clothing that I brought plus the shoes and I marked them each time I wore them. Plus, I preplanned a daily 2-page spread in the journal that included one page for notes and another page for a sketch of my daily outfit. I loved doing this!! I also left open pages in the journal for sketching and note taking and for pasting in tickets and other memorabilia once I got home.

The croquis that I used were from My Body Model and I really enjoyed having them!

 

How do you plan your travel wardrobes?

In The Sketchbook- June 2017

Welcome to In the Sketchbook, a monthly look at fashion design sketches that we are working on for ourselves. Sketching garments on a personal croquis is a great way for the individual couture enthusiast to move beyond the use of commercial patterns and into a world of personalized design! It can be intimidating at first, but with a little bit of practice it becomes something you look forward to. Join us for a look of what we have going on In the Sketchbook! Brought to you by Wendy Grossman of Couture Counsellor and Steph King from Siouxzeegirl Designs.


Feels good to be getting back to a normal routine!

This month I have played with sketching both pants and colors.  In real life I am working on perfecting my master pants pattern. Sarah Veblen has been working with me on this and let me tell you, it has been one heck of a process! I have been learning so much about fit and crotch length and depth and how to make flat fabric mold around my body and look good. As well as how to not ignore the wrinkles!


I had a very good fitting master pants pattern back before all of the health issues. Fast Forward a year and a half, give or take a couple months, and a very big weight loss and now I am starting from scratch again.

As I look at these sketches, I realize that I need to adjust my croquis a bit for the hip size. I just need to take them in a bit in the width. 

I have been playing with pants ideas and with colors. My goal is to come up with a solid set of Master Patterns for pants. 

•  Regular woven pants master. to be used for both work and casual use.
•  Regular woven- stretch pants master for wovens with lycra.
•  A knit pants master.

From those I can come with any number of great styles and shapes!

Cotton sateen or lighter weight denim in summer wider leg cuffed cropped look.

Long flowy pants, out of a drapey crepe fabric or a soft washed linen.

Shorts. I realize in this sketch they look unproportionately large! Mostly due to me just trying to draw in the details and such. My intent is not to actually look that way!!

Slim fit capri's out of a stretch woven. denim/lycra or cotton sateen/lycra. 

Slim fitting pants with fun pockets. Can be any woven bottoms fabric. A great basic!!

Make sure to stop by Wendy Grossman of Couture Counsellor to see what lovely sketches and ideas she is working on. Please feel free to share your sketches and ideas, leave either of us a comment or just link back to one of our posts.

Happy Sketching!

In The Sketchbook- March 2017

Welcome to In the Sketchbook, a monthly look at fashion design sketches that we are working on for ourselves. Sketching garments on a personal croquis is a great way for the individual couture enthusiast to move beyond the use of commercial patterns and into a world of personalized design! It can be intimidating at first, but with a little bit of practice it becomes something you look forward to. Join us for a look of what we have going on In the Sketchbook! Brought to you by Wendy Grossman of Couture Counsellor and Steph King from Siouxzeegirl Designs.

This month I have 2 very different options for sketching that I often do. 
The first option is more of playing with an idea, quick sketching, adding notes, etc.. This can be done in pencil, marker, combinations.

The second option is more of a finalized sketch. It has gone through several iterations and this is is usually my final sketch of something that I really want to design and create. I almost always already have the fabric and am working in the colors that I will be using. This gets hung up on my cork board to keep the idea fresh in my head.

This is a mini notebook that Sarah Veblen gave to all of the attendees of her Design 1 class. I reduced the image of my croquis to fit in this little book and it is always in my purse. This lets me quickly pull it out and sketch some ideas if I see something that captures my interest. I often use this when I am on an airplane. I have my iPad with me and I keep a folder of inspiration photos and very often will go back through them and pick up new ideas that I want to try.

This idea for a pintuck panel at the bottom of a knit skirt came from inspiration photos that I took from the Mary Ray workshop I took in January. I think it will be a wonderful way to enhance a plain fabric. I also like the idea of a single side panel that incorporates a pocket.
Here you can see that I have jotted down several notes, including my thoughts on fabric type, construction ideas and general thoughts. this way when I go back to this at a later date it will jog my memory.

This one is also from inspiration from the Mary Ray workshop and it is a band at the bottom of the skirt with inset triangles. Again there are notes that include my ideas.
The same goes for the shirt sketch below- it is an idea to pair with the skirt and therefor making it a complete ensemble.
The really nice thing about all of these sketches is that they work right off of my master patterns and I can just add the details or make some minor changes without having to start from scratch.

This next set is playing with my markers and then into final sketches. Sometimes I just site and use the markers to play with ideas. I find that if I let my hands just go I can come up with quick ideas that capture the essence of the design I am thinking about... and sometimes it is just a mess! The thing about markers is that they are freeing, you can't go back and erase and change your mind. I just go quickly and see what happens.

Originally I was not even going to include this. However, I thought it might be nice to show that my first drafts are not always so nice at all! but they do capture the spirit of what I am going for.

The drawing on the left is the final iteration of the quick sketch on the previous marker drawing on the left. You can see here that I took my time refining it and adding in the details and the colors that I want to work in.
The dress on the right is just a line drawing with the design lines added in for a new iteration of a dress that I like. 

The dess on the right is an idea that I keep coming back to so I decided to really get the ideas and details added in and this will go on my to-do list. I have a beautiful chambray that will become this lovely summer shirtdress.
the dress on the left is playing with ideas for a sheath dress. I did not add in the marker yet because I have not decided on what fabrics I will like to use! 

Make sure to stop by Wendy Grossman of Couture Counsellor to see what lovely sketches and ideas she is working on. Please feel free to share your sketches and ideas, leave either of us a comment or just link back to one of our posts.

Happy Sketching!

In The Sketchbook- February 2017

Welcome to In the Sketchbook, a monthly look at fashion design sketches that we are working on for ourselves. Sketching garments on a personal croquis is a great way for the individual couture enthusiast to move beyond the use of commercial patterns and into a world of personalized design! It can be intimidating at first, but with a little bit of practice it becomes something you look forward to. Join us for a look of what we have going on In the Sketchbook! Brought to you by Wendy Grossman of Couture Counsellor and Steph King from Siouxzeegirl Designs.

As usual February always seems to fly by for me!I have several blog posts in the draft stage that will hopefully be coming out soon. These include my fabulous Sewcial retreat weekend in Novi, Michigan as well as some finished garment reviews.

This month I have mostly been working on sketching out a garment collection for my summer trip to Norway and the Netherlands. I have identified the color palette and have pulled a generous selection of fabrics from my collection to choose from. Now I am onto the sketching and planning phase. Most of these garments are going to be knits and should be easier projects. This will be nice to intersperse with my heavy duty HCCC fashion show projects, give my brain a place to relax and still get some fun sewing done!

So far these are the 2 pages of sketches that I have done for my summer wardrobe. One for some tops and one for some dresses. These were all done with combinations of regular pencil, colored pencil and markers.  I have these hanging on a board right next to my sewing station. Having these close at hand keeps it fresh in my mind and excited to see the final outcomes!

Tops

Dresses

I am looking at an overall color palette of blues/greens with blacks and small portions of white accents. I have enough fabrics to make a garment collection to travel with for probably 3 or more months! never mind just the 2 weeks that I need. So I will be making more than I need and then deciding on what to bring once I get closer to the trip.

For the base layer tops I have 3 distinct silhouettes in mind.

1. Button down both short and long sleeved. In this example I would like to do a long sleeve and am thinking of drafting a tab and button so that I can roll the sleeves up to just below the elbow and secure. This is a real U shaped neckline that I really have been wanting to play with. The fabric is a lovely cotton print shirting from Fishmans in Chicago. As you can see I only drew the fabric detailing on the shirt fronts and left the rest a solid so that I can see details.

2. Jen Stern The Tee pattern. In various sleeve lengths, neckline variations and fabric pairings. This is a nice versatile pattern that adds a little more interest than just a plain tee.
The first one is a solid blue bamboo/lycra knit from Mood. I want to make this 3/4 length sleeve and a crossover neck. Great for layering or on it's own.

The second one below is a mix of a poly/lycra ITY and a poly/lycra netting. The sleeves will be long and the neckline will be the regular boatneck but finished with either foldover elastic or stretch piping. The upper back piece will also be the netting... I think! The original fabric pairings that I was thinking of using and what is depicted in the sketch just did not gel and sort of stuck out like a sore thumb from the rest of the fabrics I am thinking of using. SO, I decided to go with the fabric pictured below, both were purchased from Fabrications in Richland, MI.

The fourth base layer top I have in mind is a simpler style. Something like the Cashmerette Concord Tee. A very simple base layer that can be made in different lengths and variations of both sleeve lengths and shapes and neckline shape. Once you have a base pattern it is so easy to make modifications and changes to the look.  This one is shown with an amazingly soft rayon scubish fabric. It has a lovely drape, the colors are perfect and the rayon knit means it won't be quite so hot as a regular scuba knit.! I acquired this fabric from Emmaonesock.

The dresses I have planned on consist of one knit wrap dress and  one button up shirt dress. The wrap dress will be an easy make since I have a perfected Cashmerette Appleton pattern with variations of sleeves and skirt shape all ready to go! Even though I am only going to bring one of these on vacation I will probably make 2 and then decide which I like better. I have the fabric on the left which is a black/dark blue blobby lines which I tried to depict in the sketch! This fabric is from Marcy Tilton. The second fabric is a lighter weight scuba in a much lighter color palette of off whites/blues and blacks, this is from Habermans in Royal Oak , Michigan. Both are quite lovely. I do suspect that the scuba will be warmer than the dark blue/black fabric which may or may not work to my advantage depending on the weather forecast.

The second dress is one of my own design. A shirt dress using my button down shirt pattern with my a-line flippy skirt added to it. I have 2 lovely fabrics that I think I may want to try this out on. Both are rayon. One is a chambray denim rayon from Mood and the other is a lovely Cotton and Steele Japanese rayon that I purchased from a local shop that closed up. I will have to do some wrinkle testing on both of these fabrics to see which I want to use. Or maybe I'll make both!

One other project that I am working on is a top for my long zipper pencil skirt that I made in the fall. I have one top that goes well with it and nothing else! I want to be able to pair it with something else to make it a more versatile item of clothing in my closet. My idea is to make a peplum type shirt to go over it in this beautiful Liberty cotton lawn and then to pair a menswear inspired vest or waistcoat in the same fabric as the skirt and of course add some zipper detail as a pocket and maybe as the closure. It is not the easiest to picture, so I did the sketching layers. I think what is throwing me off is that my croqui is from a heavier me and my hips are not quote that wide proportionately as I currently am. I will have to play with the vest idea some more. I'm not entirely in love with the pointed fronts, although it does give some interest instead of just cutting across me with a straight line.

Make sure to stop by Wendy Grossman of Couture Counsellor to see what lovely sketches and ideas she is working on. I happen to know that she has been exploring ways to do digital sketching, it is very cool!  Please feel free to share your sketches and ideas, leave either of us a comment or just link back to one of our posts.

Happy Sketching!