Mini-wardrobe 2014 summary and lessons learned

Okay, I promise this will be my last mini-wardrobe post. I'm sick of writing them, and I'm sure that you're sick of reading them. Plus, the challenge/contest ended on July 31st, and it's now August 6th. But in the interest of documenting what I've sewn, both for myself and anyone who happens across this blog in the future, I do want to do a wrap-up post.

The premise

Way back in June, I started planning for the Pattern Review mini-wardrobe contest. With no illusions of winning, I looked at it as a personal challenge, much in the same way many marathon runner are simply looking to beat a personal best time or break the 4-hour mark. The challenge was to sew five different garments during the month of July. The five garments had to be able to be combined in such a way as to create six different looks. While paper patterns could be cut out and patterns could be muslined before July 1st, cutting fashion fabric and sewing could only take place between July 1st and 31st.

I knew that we'd be heading out of town for a mini-break from July 30-August 1st, so I'd need to have everything done and submitted by late morning on the 30th.

The planned pieces

I initially set out to create a lightweight layering wardrobe for Seattle's varying summer weather. This has been my first full summer in Seattle, and it's been a change from San Diego's summers, which are simply, hot, hotter, and hottest.

I love the blue and white combinations that have been so popular in recent months, so I used that color combination as my initial inspiration. I knew that I wanted to make another Moneta dress, and that I wanted a knit maxi skirt, so those were the first two pieces that I scribbled into my plan. I built a few other possibilities around them, winding up with an initial plan (with several pieces still undecided) that looked like the following mood board:

Initial moodboard for mini-wardrobe

Yeah, so that plan was a little ambitious. Because of laundry accidents, time limitations, and simple changes-of-mind, here's what I actually completed:

Final mini-wardrobe moodboard

The look-and-feel is still similar, but I wound up introducing two new colors (coral and radiant orchid) into the mix. Here's what changed from the initial plan:

• First out was the Archer blouse. I knew that I'd need to muslin that and wouldn't have time to properly fit and sew a button-down blouse on my figure. I initially planned to replace the Archer with one of two possible gray knit tops, but in the end, decided to introduce a bit more color into the wardrobe and went with the coral Mimosa blouse.
• About halfway through the month, I realized that I wouldn't have the fitting time to do those ikat-print jeans justice. I swapped those out in favor of the easier-fitting rayon challis trackpant.
• Finally, as you probably knew, I sewed a white hoodie. Said white hoodie was accidentally turned pink via a laundry cycle with a red t-shirt. Of course, this happened right before the final photo shoot for the hoodie. My husband and I tried a couple of rounds of Rit color remover on the pink hoodie but were only able to lighten the pinkness of it. After playing around with some fabrics that I had on hand and seeing how they'd coordinate with the other pieces, I opted to dye the pink hoodie "radiant orchid" (aka Pantone's "color of the year" for 2014).

The completed looks

It came down to the wire (particularly because of the hoodie-laundry-dye debacle), but I did manage to complete all five pieces in time and was able to get my husband to photograph all six looks.

Look 1 (Hoodie + maxi skirt):

Look 2 (Moneta dress):

Look 3 (Moneta + hoodie):

Look 4 (Mimosa blouse + maxi skirt):

 

Look 5 (Mimosa blouse + trackpant):

Look 6 (hoodie + trackpant):

Lessons learned

At the end of the month, I wound up having a few great new outfits to introduce into my summer wardrobe. Given that I work full time and have a 2-year-old, I definitely found it challenging to complete five pieces in a month, even if most of the pieces were fairly easy and didn't require extensive fitting. I also felt like a learned a few things about my "sewing self" in this process:

• Having an aggressive short-term sewing goal was a huge motivator for me. As I started to fall behind, I found myself setting my alarm to wake up an hour before everyone else in the house. (I usually get up 30 minutes early to have some me-time/sewing time.)
• Planning a mini-wardrobe like this helped keep me on track with creating a handful of wearable garments in a short period of time. There are no orphans here and no "frosting" pieces. While I've gotten off-track from the capsule wardrobe that I'd originally planned for 2014 (having sewn only 3 of 12 items at the end of July), a shorter version still fills wardrobe holes for me and doesn't seem so overwhelming.
• Setting out a plan at the beginning of the month and holding myself accountable really helped me stick to that plan. I am going to try to do this on a regular basis. Planning ~4 pieces/month will still give me the flexibility to jump right in and tackle whatever bright and shiny new pattern catches my eye right away.
• I have no desire to do anything like this more than once or maybe twice a year.

For those of you who did the mini-wardrobe challenge this year, how did it go? If not this challenge, have you done something similar, and did you find that it changed how you planned or executed your sewing projects afterward?

Finished Project: HotPatterns 1158 - Fast & Fabulous Tailored Trackpants

I finished these pants about a week ago, but in that time, we took a short family vacation to Mt. Rainier and have returned home, and it feels like I sewed these months ago instead of days ago. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to wear these since we took photographs because Seattle has been having yet another heatwave (with temperatures in the high 80's/low 90's), and it's just been too friggin hot for pants, even lightweight summer pants like these.

HotPatterns Fast & Fabulous Tailored Trackpants

Unless you've been living under a rock, I'm sure that you've noticed that lightweight/flowy pants with ethnic or tribal prints have been EVERYWHERE for the past few months. I wanted my own pair. I also thought that this would be a good choice for one of the five garments of my 2014 mini-wardrobe challenge. I would have loved to have made those ikat print pants that I had originally planned, but it became clear early on that I wasn't going to have the time to do them justice. I do still want to make them, but I want to take my time with them.

These pants were a good compromise. The pattern is the HotPatterns Fast & Fabulous Tailored Trackpants. I am amazed that I have not seen more versions of these pop up in the online sewing community. This pant style is very on-trend right now, and it didn't take me much longer to whip these up than a pair of pajama pants.

The back view is better than this, I promise:

HP Trackpants - rear view

The drag lines you are seeing are from my hands being jammed into the side seam pockets. These fall amazingly nicely from my ample rear end into the tapered leg shape that you see at the bottom.

For fabric, I used this silver dot print rayon challis from FabricMart. I'd ordered a second cut of challis in the same order; however, this cut was a little beefier. I thought that it would hold up a little better when made into a pair of pants. (Granted, these pants probably aren't going to last longer than a year of wearing and washing, but when you only pay $2.99 for the fabric, you can't really complain.)

Fitting/sizing and alterations

I found these pants to fit true-to-size for the measurements on the HotPatterns size chart. Per their size chart, I fell into a size 22, which is what I sewed. I know that sometimes their knit patterns can run a bit large, but I've not generally found this to be the case with their woven patterns. Note that these pants have a leg-skimming shape and are not a "skinny pant".

For alterations, I only shortened the inseam length by 2" (I'm 5'2"). I probably should have shortened them by another 1/2-1" if I wanted to be true to the envelope line drawing, but I'm fine with the length that their at now.

On a personal note...

On a personal note, when I was in Italy in 2009 for my honeymoon, I saw some of the Italian women wearing pants very similar to these in what looked like washed silks. They embodied the phrase "effortlessly chic". I coveted my own pair, but couldn't find a similar pattern. (At the time, Burda and European pattern magazines were bent on convincing us that harem pants were on their way back. Those were sort of close, but the pants I wanted definitely did NOT have a dropped crotch.)

Five years later, the trend seems to have finally made its way over to the US, and I am very happy to finally have my own pair.

Finished Project: SBCC 309 - Mimosa Blouse

Continuing on my personal quest to sew patterns from pattern companies that are friendly to my figure-type, I made up the SBCC Mimosa blouse last week:

SBCC Mimosa blouse

This is a great woven blouse for summer. It's easy-fitting without being boxy (it has bust darts for shaping), and the tie detail adds interest without being fussy. As you might be aware, SBCC specializes in petite sizes (both misses and plus sizes) with their patterns, but if you're taller, they all include lengthen-shorten lines so that you can easily lengthen at the right spots without guessing. I'm 5'2", and I've found the lengths of their patterns to be spot-on for me.

For this version, I used a coral colored cotton pique from Fashionista Fabrics that had been sitting in my stash for a few years. I loved the color, but wasn't sure that it's the best color for my complexion. Seeing the finished blouse, I do think that it brings out the ruddiness in my skin tone, but I don't really care. In any case, this fabric has a hand and drape similar to a blouse-weight linen. I actually feel that it was a little heavy for this blouse, now that it's finished. When I make this again, I will use a voile, lawn, or challis.

Mimosa + McCall's maxi-skirt

I have an older version of the pattern where, when you tape the PDF together, the pages need to butt right up to each other with no overlap. Betsy of SBCC has since released an updated, re-tiled version of the pattern that should be easier to lay out and tape together.

Fitting-wise, I made a size 1X at the shoulders/neckline then did a "cheater FBA" by grading to a 2X at the underarm. (My measurements match the SBCC 2X.) 

For the most part, I love the finished blouse, but there are some changes that I will make the next time around. First, I'm not crazy about the sleeve on this one. when the blouse is laid flat, the hem forms a big "C", and it's just sort of an odd shape. (I suspect that this is partially due to the plus sized draft/grading because I don't see it in the reviews posted by women clearly wearing smaller sizes than me.) You can see this a little bit in the pattern photo from the SBCC web site:

SBCC Mimosa sample photo

Also, the blouse rides up a little bit in front, so instead of doing a cheater FBA, I should have gone with a straight 1X and done an FBA. The dart itself is rather large, so I will likely need to rotate part of that dart elsewhere. (I'm thinking adding some gathers to the shoulder would be nice.) I would definitely like to make this blouse again and will probably use a lightweight woven print for my next version.

Bonus: If you're interested in making up your own Mimosa, this pattern (newly re-formatted for easier PDF printing) is on sale this week from SBCC. (Not at all affiliated, just passing the word along.)

Finished Project: Colette 1028 - Moneta dress (version 2 in blue)

Accidentally pink-dyed hoodies aside, I did get caught up on photographing some of my finished projects for the mini-wardrobe challenge this weekend. First up is this peacock blue Moneta, which I finished about two weeks ago:

Peacock blue Moneta

For this version, I used peacock blue cotton-spandex blend jersey from Girl Charlee. This fabric is a nice mid-weight, and I felt that it worked well for this dress. I used the same view as I did in my previous version. This time, however, instead of doing a self-bound neck opening, I just turned and stitched with my coverstitch. I'd been skeptical that a turn-and-stitch approach would work for a neckline, but seeing that others had had good luck with it, I decided to "follow the instructions" this time. I did also lower/scoop out the front neckline by 1.5" from the original pattern piece.

I think that because this fabric has a little more body/less drape than my previous version, you're seeing a little bit of "flippiness" on my short sleeves that wasn't there on the last version. It doesn't really bother me, but I've seen other people ask about this with the Moneta, so I have to conclude that fabric choice plays a big part in it, since I didn't change anything else with this version.

Love my pockets!

I am also going to use this dress to tick a box in my planned/in-process capsule wardrobe. I am swapping out the "solid-colored t-shirt dress" for this dress. I just don't think that a relaxed t-shirt dress is the best look for me, and this dress can serve the same purpose.

We got a pretty good/funny "out take" shot that afternoon as well:

Pawed.

Mini-Wardrobe Progress: Week 3

If you're sick of my mini-wardrobe posts, the month is almost over. I'm in the home stretch now!

mini-wardrobe status on 24-Jul-2014

Yup, I've completed four out of my five planned pieces. For the fifth (the HP trackpant), I've cut out and altered the paper pattern. I am really hoping to be done with everything (except documentation) by the end of the weekend. Unless there's some major unforeseen obstacle, I can't see the trackpants taking more than a half hour to cut out and more than two hours to sew.  (Famous last words, right?)

Plan update

A few more words about the planned trackpants. If you'll recall, last week I was undecided between a floral print or vaguely ethnic-ish dot/triangle print rayon challis, both of which were on their way from FabricMart. From the photos, I slightly preferred the dot/triangle print over the floral for this project, but FabricMart used the word "glitter" in the description. Yikes!  To me, glitter is worn by the types of women who wear pink tracksuits with the word "juicy" bedazzeled across their asses. In other words, not me.

Now, though having both fabrics in hand and having washed them both, the clear winner is the dot/triangle print. Yes, there is noticeable "glitter", but I don't find it too awful unless the fabric is moving. (Side note: This fabric would make a great swishy skirt or dress.) The dot/triangle print is clearly from a different lot than the floral and is much beefier than the floral, making it much more appropriate for pants.  Frankly, outside of the glitter, I really love the print of the dot/triangle fabric. The true test will be if my husband notices or says anything about the glitter.

Where are the Mimosa and Moneta?

Unfortunately, I still don't have photos of the new Moneta or Mimosa blouse yet. My husband has promised me that we'll do a photo shoot this weekend, so I will definitely get pictures of those then and then will finally be able to blog about them and do my pattern reviews. Hopefully, I'll have the pants done by then, and I can get everything photographed in one long session.

I've seen surprisingly few Mimosa reviews/blog posts, which is a shame because it's a neat little blouse. While my Moneta post will be a drive-by (I only made one minor change from my last version), I'll have an in-depth post of mostly raves and a few minor frustrations about the Mimosa.

Overall, the mini-wardrobe contest has been a good challenge for me. I wouldn't want to do this every month, but it's been a very good way for me to be very productive on working towards a plan in a short period of time--sort of like a "sprint", for those of you who are familiar with Agile software development.

Finished Project: McCall's 6966 knit maxi-skirt

You know those projects that you think will be a super quick and easy sew, but by the end of the project, you're pretty much ready to chuck the pattern tissue? McCall's 6966, a simple knit maxi-skirt, was one of those projects for me. Thankfully, I really love the finished skirt:

McCall's 6966 knit maxi-skirt

I wouldn't tell you not to make this skirt because I think that the pain and suffering is worth it in the end, but it would be irresponsible for me to not give you a heads up about a few things:

• This pattern is a huge fabric hog, if you make the pieced view with the zig-zag stripes like I did. Yes, you do need as much fabric as the back of the envelope says. Also, don't be a dummy like me; follow the recommended fabric layout for this one. My back bottom panel is actually pieced because I did my own thing with the fabric layout, and even doing the whole thing in a single layer, I couldn't get the bottom back panel on there without piecing. I did stripe-match that piece perfectly, though, and I don't think you can tell, especially with the drape of the fabric:
  

  

  Somewhere in that lower back panel, there's a seam from piecing.

• This pattern runs really, really long. Really. If you're 5'9" or 5'10" and are used to always lengthening everything, run out and buy this pattern because you won't need to lengthen this one. I had to shorten mine by a whopping 6 1/2". (For reference, I'm 5'2" and usually shorten skirt patterns by 2-4".) The top panel (the one below the waistband) has a lengthen-shorten line on it, so I initially shortened the top panel by 2" and the bottom panel by 2" (the bottom panel instructs you to just lengthen/shorten at the hem). The final skirt was still dragging on the ground by several inches, so I took another 2 1/2" off the hem. (There's no lengthen-shorten line on the middle panel, so that one looks disproportionately longer compared to the other two on my skirt.)
• The pattern runs large. Go down at least one size that your measurements would indicate by McCall's size chart. My hip measurement puts me in a Big 4 size 22 (an XXL for this skirt), but I was alerted to the sizing issue by another review of this skirt and initially cut an XL. I also wound up taking several inches off the hips and middle panel when I trued my petite alteration in the top panel. 
• The middle panel isn't on the true bias, so if you're looking to make chevrons with your stripes, you'll need to alter the grain that the middle panel is placed on. With the middle panel NOT being on the true bias, there's also no way to make your stripes match perfectly. I did as best as I could, but you can see even in the model photo that her stripes don't match:
  
  

  

  McCall's 6966 envelope picture
  

I did manage to match my stripes on my side seams, at least, though!

Stripe matching with dog.

As you can see, my husband loves getting the whole family involved when I ask him to take pictures of my projects.

On a positive note, I used a French terry from Girl Charlee for this skirt, and it was absolutely the most perfect fabric for this project. I hope that they get more of this stuff in because I loved both sewing with it and have been loving wearing it. And complaints aside, I do love the final skirt; I've worn it every wash cycle since finishing it.

This skirt was the second project in my mini-wardrobe plan for July. I do also have the Moneta finished, but not photographed yet. I am working on a coral-colored Mimosa blouse (to take the place of the second top), simply because I think that the Mimosa is a little more "interesting" for this wardrobe than the originally planned knit top. At my current pace, I'm going to come down to the wire, but I still think that I can get everything done and photographed by the end of the month.

Finished Project: HotPatterns Weekender Daytona Hoodie (version 2 - in white)

I'll keep this post short, since I'm primarily using it to document the first piece that I completed in my mini-wardrobe, another version of the HotPatterns Weekender Daytona Hoodie:

HotPatterns Weekender Daytona Hoodie

I made exactly the same view (elbow-length sleeves, pullover version) as I did the last time that I used this pattern. I didn't even make any fit changes, since I was happy with the fit on the last version (I had made a wearable muslin prior to that and worked out a few fit tweaks at that point.)

The fabric for this version came from my stash: a white cotton-lycra jersey from Fashionista Fabrics (now closed). It's a nice, mid-weight jersey with both good drape and good body. I'd held onto it for a few years because I felt that the "perfect t-shirt fabric" should be used by the "perfect t-shirt pattern", and while this isn't a t-shirt exactly, I know that I will wear it a ton. Thankfully, we keep a tub of oxyclean in our laundry room to help it maintain its whiteness when I spill things on it, or it gets toddlered.

I love this pattern--it has so many options for either a relaxed pullover top or lightweight layering piece. However, at this point, having made three versions of it in recent months (including the wearable muslin that I've worn a ton but never photographed), I am putting it away until Fall. (I do have a couple of fun knits already pulled out of my stash and earmarked for long-sleeved versions of it then, though!)

Mini-Wardrobe Progress: Week 2

We're just past the halfway point of the month of July, and I am just over halfway finished with my 5-piece mini-wardrobe for the Mini-Wardrobe Contest on Pattern Review:

Mini-wardrobe status as of July 17th

I've completed 3 out of the 5 planned pieces so far:

• White hoodie (HP Weekender Daytona Hoodie)
• Striped maxi-skirt (McCall's 6966)
• Solid blue knit dress (Colette Moneta)

I just finished the Moneta and haven't been able to take pictures yet. I did get my husband to take a few photos of my hoodie and maxi-skirt look a few days ago:

Hoodie + maxi-skirt

The skirt was a royal pain to cut out and sew, but I'll save the details about that for another post. I do love the finished skirt, though, and while I have no intention of sewing this view of this skirt again, I would like to add at least one more knit maxi-skirt to my wardrobe.

Here's the back view (with toddler photobomb):

It was 90 degrees out that day; Eva is the one dressed appropriately, not me.

Now, if you've followed my mini-wardrobe progress, you might have noticed a change in plans regarding my remaining two garments. First off, as I sort of expected, there's no way that I'll have time to properly muslin and do fitting justice for those ikat print pants/jeans that I wanted to make. I'm swapping them out with a set of rayon challis track pants. The look will still be very much on-trend for this summer, but will be a heck of a lot easier to fit and sew. I've got two cuts of rayon challis on the way from FabricMart (ordered over the weekend where everything was 40% off--these were $2.99/yard, I think). My options are either the gray-and-black rose print or the silver-and-black dots print. From the photos, I think that the "dots" print is more of what I'm looking for, but the fabric description contains "Small Dot Pattern with some Glitter," which has me worried that this fabric won't be suitable for anything other than a muslin. I think that the rose print makes a suitable backup.

The other change is that I just wasn't feeling a gray knit top (probably the HP La Strada) as part of this wardrobe. I have a shirting-weight coral cotton pique in my stash, and I'm thinking that I'd rather make the SBCC Minosa top to go with the trackpants and maxi-skirt. I've been wanting to make the Mimosa for a while and kept getting distracted by other projects, but now I think I'm finally going to do it.

Have you done a mini- or capsule wardrobe before? Did you find that you kept changing your mind about what you wanted to sew, or did you come up with a plan and stick to it?

Mini-Wardrobe progress: Week 1

Well, we're one week into the Pattern Review mini-wardrobe contest, and I have been steadily executing against my planned 5-piece wardrobe:

Planned 5-piece mini-wardrobe

 

At the end of my first week, I haven't made quite as much progress as I would have liked to at this point, but I've at least put a dent in my wardrobe plan.

Over the weekend, I did mange to finish my HP Daytona hoodie, made from a white cotton-lycra jersey:

HP Daytona Hoodie

As I've mentioned in previous posts, my dress form isn't padded to my current measurements, so that's why the hoodie looks big/baggy. Trust me, it fits as well as my last Daytona hoodie and will be a great addition to my summer wardrobe.

I've started work on my McCall's 6966 maxi-skirt, and wow, was that a pain to cut out. It's cut and pieced together now. I still need to sew the side seams and add the yoke/waistband. Here's the front half, draped over my dress form:

McCalls 6966 WIP

Now, you'll notice that much to my frustration, the stripes don't entirely line up. I'm not sure if this is by design or a drafting issue, but that's just how it is with this pattern. Check out the envelope photo--the stripes on the model's skirt don't match up exactly, either:

McCalls 6966 envelope picture

I think this is by design. If you lay your pattern pieces out on your fabric according to the pattern piece markings, the stripes will meet at different angles. This layout will give you the zig-zagging stripes that you see in my skirt and the envelope picture, but it won't give you nice, neat chevrons, if that's the effect that you're going for. The detail-oriented part of me is irritated by this, but in reality, I think it will be a nice, wearable skirt, and I doubt if my husband or any of my coworkers will care that it has zig-zagging stripes instead of chevrons.

I just haven't been able to put in the sewing time that I had hoped I'd be able to this past week. It's a lot easier to get up 30 minutes before everyone else in the house than it is to get up 60 minutes early. I am trying to grab 15 minutes here and there to pin or stitch a seam, and that seems to be helping. My big concern is not having enough time towards the end of the month to properly muslin, fit, and construct those ikat pants in my plan. My current game plan is to get my other four garments finished by the 20th, which will give me 10 days for the pants. If I don't have everything else completed by then, I'm switching to plan B for the pants, which is to do a drapey rayon challis track pant in a fun print. The backup pants will still be very on-trend for this summer, but should need much less time for fitting and construction. I'm keeping an eye out for the right challis, but if I don't find it and do need to fall back to that plan, I have a gray and black floral print that I can use.

From the looks of everyone else's blogs, it looks like everyone else's wardrobe plans are coming along nicely! I can't wait to see the final storyboards/photo shoots!

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.