Planning: Mini-Wardrobe Contest 2014

As I think I've mentioned in previous posts, although I'm an active member of PatternReview, I rarely enter the monthly contests that run there. I have several reasons for this:

• The contests rarely align with my sewing goals at the time for a given month.
• When I do give it a go, I rarely feel like my finished garment is worth entering in the contest (see my Lekala wadder from the New To Me pattern contest).
• Most (but no, not all) of the contest winners tend to be young, slim, and are either masters of a tripod and a self-timer or have much more willing SO's than I do to do a semi-professional photo shoot.

However, the annual mini-wardrobe contest is running this July, and that does happen to align with my current sewing goals, so I think I'm in for this one. I'm also going to use this as motivation for knocking out another four garments that will be entries in my neglected-but-still-in-progress 12-piece capsule wardrobe.

The contest runs from July 1st-31st and has the following rules:

• Participants must sew 5 garments, one of which may be a "wearable accessory", such as a scarf, belt, or hat.
• The 5 garments should combine to create 6 different outfits or looks.
• You must take a photo of each of the 6 looks (my husband is going to love that one).

I've picked out the patterns that I'm planning to use, going with a theme of "Seattle Summer Style". These are the types of garments that I see being worn by a lot of women around Seattle right now:

• Colette Moneta dress (in a peacock blue or galaxy print jersey)
• Grainline Archer blouse (in white cotton shirting)
• HotPatterns Weekender Daytona hoodie (in white cotton jersey)
• McCall's 6966 maxi-skirt (in blue and white striped French terry)
• HotPatterns Weekender Boyfriend jeans (in turquoise denim or an Ikat-print twill)

Note that these are all fabrics and patterns that I already have on hand, so I don't need to worry about hunting any of these down for the contest. Many of them are already pre-washed and ready to go!

Here's how I'm planning to pair these garments to create my six looks:

1. Moneta dress (alone)
2. Moneta dress + Archer blouse (worn unbuttoned like an overblouse)
3. McCall's maxi skirt + Archer
4. Boyfriend jeans + Archer
5. McCall's maxi skirt + short-sleeved pullover Daytona hoodie
6. Boyfriend jeans + Daytona hoodie

I'm still on the fence with fabric choice for the dress and the jeans.  I was originally going to go with all blues and whites, but am a little worried that might be a bit boring, so I threw in the galaxy print as an option to make things a little more interesting. (Plus, isn't everyone in the blogosphere making a galaxy print skater-style dress this year?)

My main hesitation with the Ikat-print jeans is that I really love the fabric (and it was a little pricey, but not horribly so) is that I'm probably not going to have time to truly muslin the jeans (plus, I want to enter the jeans in the Pattern Stash contest), and I'm a little hesitant to cut that fabric without muslining first. On the other hand, HotPatterns pants have historically fit me pretty well with minimal pattern alterations, so it's not as big of a risk as it might sound like. I do want to make up those Ikat pants (and a galaxy Moneta) even if I don't make them for this contest.

I will need to muslin the body (at least) of the Archer blouse. I am hoping that a standard FBA with a bust dart (I will leave the dart in for shaping) should give me a decent fit.

I'm thinking that maybe I'll leave the jeans to be the last thing that I sew, so that I can see if I have the time to do a proper muslin or not. The turquoise denim is a really gorgeous color, but it was also fairly inexpensive, so if I don't have time to muslin, that might be the way to go.

Thoughts?

Update (28-June-2014)

After reading the comments here and on Pattern Review, I think I really want to concentrate on making the ikat print pants the "star" of this wardrobe, so I'm simplifying a bit to have more time for those. Here's the revised wardrobe mood board:

Revised mood board

This wardrobe plan will give me time to properly muslin the ikat pants and make fitting tweaks.

• If the jeans muslin is a disaster, depending on the amount of time that I have left, I'll either go with another pant pattern (the ikat fabric is a lighter bottom weight stretch twill--it's really perfect for summer pants) or will go with Debbie's suggestion of a skirt. I certainly have a few patterns in my stash that would work for a straight twill skirt. 
• The hoodie can still be worn over the dress, so the number of looks doesn't change.
• I'm debating between the Torque top (which looks better on a person on the ones I've seen made up than it does in the line drawing) and the La Strada top. The Torque (on a real person) appears to be similar to that draped asymmetric hem BurdaStyle top that everyone was making a few months ago. I really like the La Strada, but I'm not sure how well that will go with the maxi-skirt, although I could always belt it if I made it and it seemed like too much volume.