The 100 Day Project

Since the start date is tomorrow, I figured I’d better actually post about this! I heard about and then did this project last year, to work on improving my digital scrapbooking skills. I didn’t quite manage to do it consecutively because life, but I did do all 100 days of the project, and it was helpful! (You can see my project pages here, if you’re interested.)

Since one of my overarching goals this year is to rekindle my love of sewing, I wanted to do something involving that this time. After debating for awhile, I settled on what I’m calling 100 Days of Consistent Sewing. My plan is to aim for 15 minutes of sewing every day. If I manage more, great! But I figure that 15 minutes is a short enough time that I should be able to do it, even on the nights that the kids fight bedtime and all that.

So tidy!

My new project basket

To try and get ready this week, I (mostly) finished getting my fabric stash reorganized, folded, and put away. (I still have some quilt cotton that a friend recently gave me that needs prewashing first.) I pulled the fabrics and patterns for the next few likely pieces in my chain reaction into the basket, so they’d be ready to go. And I did a little extra sewing in the evenings this week as a warmup of sorts.

I’ve been working through a second iteration of the Itch to Stitch Mountain View jeans this month. So for my official project beginning, I’m starting with the fronts and backs all sewn together, and the pocket topstitching done. So I need to attach the back pockets, sew the sides and inseams, put on the waistband, and hem them.

As far as blogging goes, I won’t be posting here daily, but I will probably do a weeklyish roundup. I do think that it might be interesting to track the total time from start to finish of these projects, though I’d have to wait on recording that until I start the next one.

Sewing with a (tentative) plan

I didn’t have any particular project- based goals in mind for this year, but I think I may be stumbling into something.

A more cohesive wardrobe has been a wish of mine for years, but I’ve also found it difficult to get inspired since I also love brighter colors and prints. I’m also finding it hard to put outfits together lately, period, due to having to get rid of so many clothes last year.

So I started off this year with some badly needed pants, a second version of the Itch to Stitch Mountain View pull-on jeans. These are still in progress due to having to do some serious fit- checking, which I’ll talk about more when I actually finish them.

Meanwhile, in the Sewing Sphere community, we’ve been discussing something we could work on together as an open sew-along. Many of us have had jackets and blazers on the brain, so I decided that for my first Year of the Jacket project, I’m going to tackle a classic jeans jacket pattern that I’ve had queued for a year or so. The fabric that I have to test it with is a black denim, and the pants I’m working on are a black and blue print, and I realized that this is the beginning of a complete outfit project.  All I need is a shirt.

So this led to the idea of centering my sewing this year around chain reactions. I’ve struggled in the past with planning capsule wardrobes that actually work together in the end, and successfully completing one is still a long term goal of mine. But if I start with a jacket that works with the pants, and then a shirt that works with the jacket and pants, and then, say, move to a skirt that works with the shirt and jacket, that’s basically six outfits right there depending on whether I wear the jacket or not.

I feel like this approach just might be the ideal thing for now. It’s not so big of a project that I’ll be overwhelmed at trying to fit in an entire capsule in a reasonable amount of time, but will hopefully curb the closet orphan problem. I could also use a garment (or even two) that I already have as a starting point, or center them around community challenges like the jackets. If I keep the chains relatively small, like 3-4 garments, I’m less likely to get bored of sewing all the same colors. Plus then I can still take time for side projects as needed. (My oldest already has quite the creative costume mashup in mind for Halloween this year!) And this could be a good way to build up to a larger capsule project in time, as I rebuild my TNT stash.

My plan for blogging this is to still do the individual projects, but then I’d also like to do a roundup post to mix and match the pieces as I feel that the chains are complete for now. So stay tuned!