Early Fall Coordinates from The Sewing Workshop - Here's How I Wore It

End of September brings pretty and cool days here.   The leaves on some trees and ornamentals are already shades of red and purple.   It's my favorite time of year and I can wear a third layer with everything.

This is what I wore to do a few things in town and out and about today.  Everything in this outfit is from The Sewing Workshop coordinates I've sewn.  This is an 8th Avenue skirt in a textured rayon with an Ann's Tank in metallic knit and the Pearl jacket I made out of a microfiber raincoat fabric.  I belted the jacket and ruched up the collar.    I wore it with textured hose and flat White Mountain ankle boots made in the USA (like my clothes) that I've owned for many years before their production left the US.    They are the softest calfskin leather with leather soles - not the garbage coming in from Asia these days.  

Fall colors and coordinates

You wanted to see fabrics and read about planning so here they are.

Earlier this month Linda Lee blogged about their Marvelous Mulberrys, or as she says, "magenta, mulberry, burgundy, plum, cranberry - whatever the season's color flavor is called, this color category is always in fashion, one way or another. "   

The same colors I had pulled together out of my stash a month earlier.  I just love these deep warm colors that work with browns and golds. 

Seeing this plaid knit on their site, then seeing this photo of Linda's daughter, Alex, wearing a Eureka top in the same plaid knit with an eDress skirt, confirmed it would would work with my fall color choices so I asked them to wrap it up and send it with the new Siena & Cortona Shirts pattern.   I love how the aqua just pops.     So here it is with my fabric choices.

So from left to right, clockwise, here's what I'm planning (Click on photos to enlarge and see detail)

• The crinkled purple knit is the same weight as the plaid so I will combine the plaid as an accent - Not sure if it will be a top or bottom.
• The plaid knit with the aqua has to be a simple top like the Eureka
• The cotton shirting with a textured woven stripe is from Michael's Fabrics in Baltimore when I was in the area for the ASG - he said it's Hugo Boss.  It's crisp and the same on both sides so I'm thinking it would be a marvelous Cortona shirt with that peplum in the back.  I could wear it over the plaid
• The mauve with mulberry is a wool/rayon brocade that I have just about a yard.    I've been saving it for facings and accents.
• The dark raspberry linen is really quite dark.   It's from Louise Cutting and I have it earmarked for some slim MSS pants and a third layer
• The embossed knit is from Fabric Mart and I already have a Loes Hinse Tank Dress (shown in first photo)  and two of the tank tops from that pattern with both neckline treatments in that fabric.   I have plenty left and may make a skirt using the e-Dress pattern
• The mulberry plaid is a wonderful stretch novelty knit from Fabric Mart.  It's got a neutral beige running through it and the back side looks like stretch lace.  I have a simple drapy/artistic skirt in the works, a cowl neck top on the bias and maybe more pieces.   Once I get working with a fabric like this, it starts talking to me.

Here's another photo of the solid linen and the shirting with a printed linen and a sheer textured knit with mulberry and olive colors.   The printed linen is actually a wrap skirt with several wide bias panels that I feel like cutting apart and making a top from and using the rest as accents.   The knit is semi-sheer and you see the color underneath - so it has to be a drapy third layer.

These fabrics and new coordinates will work with things I already own.  This sheer black mohair knit over a fuschia jersey is one because, together it reads "black raspberry" and looks great with the mulberry group.

The good news is that I can just thread my machines and go, not having to change the thread.   Jacquianne in New Zealand posted on her Demented Kiwi Diaries blog how she used the many capabilities of her Babylock Cover Stitch machine to make a number of great looking tops.  After reading about her successes, I rewatched the instruction DVD that came with my Evolve this evening and will be testing a number of stitches on the knit fabrics.

BTW if anyone has the actual coordinating plaid to this embossed knit and doesn't want or need it, I'd like to buy it from you.  Here's a good photo of the tank top and the coordinate that FM ran out of when I ordered probably in '03 or '04.

What a Difference 2 Years Makes

I apologize for not posting for many months.  I have posted photos on Flickr of the garments I've sewn but  I'm not one to post "selfies" of me doing all sorts of ridiculous things and don't think people need, or want to know about my every acquisition or activity.   I have been wearing the garments I've made while enjoying life and doing simple things like walking in my neighborhood in the hills surrounding Asheville NC.   The weather here over the last month since I got back from the ASG conference and my trip to the DC/Baltimore area in early August has been wonderful.    I enjoyed seeing all my friends from Expos and ASGs past, and meeting new ones.  

Check out the Flickr Set for details on these 2 Snap To It jackets using the latest pattern by Louise Cutting that I sewed and wore to the conference.   You can really work this jacket style that seems to go with everything.  And if you've made one of these,  turn the cuffs back, especially if you've used a contrast fabric for the under cuff.   Both these jackets coordinate well with the colors in the fabrics I used, to include the black accents.    You will get tons of complements on this jacket - I sure do.

October 24, 2011

The weather here has cooled so today I layered two of the A Cute Angle (ACA) tops I made in October 2011 over some black stretch poplin RTW pants.   

While re-organizing the ACA Flickr Set,  I saw the photo (L) taken of me wearing the same sleeveless ACA top the end of October 2011 in MD when I went back to Johns Hopkins Medical Center following the 3 months of plasmapheresis to have the catheter removed and thought OMG!  By that time my blood pressure was so low that I was passing out and I was very weak.  I look pretty bad.   Here's another photo of me two months later in December 2011 wearing the ACA silk pinstripe top -  looking a lot better.   Then compare those to the one taken today, almost 2 years later and wow, I look a lot healthier, and I am.   

December 22, 2011

September 14, 2013