Handmade Wardrobe

One of the things I want to be more intentional about this year is in developing a wardrobe that is useful, functional and that is my own personal style! I have too many clothes I don’t wear so I’ve been focusing on creating a capsule wardrobe (a smaller selection of clothes work together better) but I need a few key pieces.

What better way to create that than to make some of the pieces myself.

I don’t even know where I found this pattern. I think it might have been on eBay or Etsy.

I work in an environment where suits are the norm, or at least separates. But good suits are hard to find! I miss the days of picking up a beautiful Liz Claiborne suit from The Bay.

For a while Evan-Picone suits were a staple in my wardrobe but even those are hard to find. So when I saw this pattern, I thought, why not give making my own suit a try?

I decided to test out the skirt first. It would give me a good sense of fit and let me know whether the pattern instructions were clear and concise, or not.

As with most projects, I procrastinate the most on cutting out the pattern and the fabric pieces. Why is that??

I found this fabric in my basement. It’s a little wintery, but for some reason I have a lot of it and if I’ve learned anything, it’s that you should really test out patterns for sizing, fit and finish before cutting into the good fabric.

I love sewing darts into clothing. It gives it such a nice finish.

It’s hard to see in this dark, woven fabric but the zipper assembly was really easy. The opening is basted to hold everything in place and then the zipper is opened and basted to each side the seam allowance, and then finished with a topstitch on the right side of the fabric.

The pattern called for a hand sewn slipstitch for the skirt hem, but I decided I would use the blind stitch feature on my Janome Skyline S7 to give the same finish.

 

To do this, I used the Janome “G” foot attachment.

It has a little guide/marker on it.

And I set up my stitch.

Once I have my hem ironed and pinned in the desired place, the stitch and foot do all the work for me!

I’m super excited with the way this skirt turned out. I know there will be more in my future.

The zipper sits nice and flat and lines up perfectly.

I can see getting a lot of wear from this skirt pattern! Time to bring on the fancy fabrics!

Do you do any apparel sewing for yourself? What was the last piece of apparel sewing you did? Do you have a favourite item of clothing to sew?