PatternReview.com has brought back the Wardrobe Sudoku contest that was popular in 2017. It’s a two-month contest (March and April) in which you have to sew at least 10 of 16 items that make up a four-by-four grid. You need to have four tops, bottoms, footwear, and “extras” (any accessory or over-layer) that combine to make at least 10 different outfits. The Sudoku works on this grid layout:
While I was focusing a lot on the Sewing Bee this year, now that I’m eliminated I can redouble my efforts to complete this Wardrobe Sudoku. I have always been REALLY great at generating plans for coordinated capsule wardrobes, and NOT so great at following through to make them. So this time, maybe the contest will keep me on track.
The theme I’m using for this capsule wardrobe is “Summer Adventures”: it’s a series of outfits that align with my favourite summertime activities… day hikes, beach walking, camping, and road-tripping. I wanted to combine daytime and nighttime outfits, and think about this as a collection I could take with me on my big 50th Birthday European Adventure (or possibly this fall’s trip to Asia! Hmmm, that might be cause to alter some of the items).
I wanted to use as much of my Discovery Fabrics stash as I could, since I invested a lot in those fabrics last year and I don’t want them to languish in boxes. Pulling out the Breathe Tek athletic prints, I started lining up fabrics for tops and bottoms, as well as other things I’ve been dying to use (like the Bamboo Fleece!). The fabrics came together first, and then some of the patterns were obvious — Pattern Adventure hiking shorts and pants, and some leggings. I saw where I had some holes in my grid and started shopping to fill them! But before that… I made a visual plan using Canva.com so I could keep track of everything I wanted to make and see how it would all go together.
The items with a pink sewing machine icon beside them are things I am sewing for this. If it has a blue icon, that means I sewed it but before the official contest starting date. 10 of the 16 items have to be sewn during the period of March 1 to April 30. Right now I’m at 11, and of course 4 of the items are shoes which I sadly cannot make. (Although, I have been trying to figure out if I can somehow do a pair of the Jalie Kivik quilted booties with Tough-Tek soles, because I have one of the kits from DF in a coordinating colour and I think it would be fun to make “campfire cozy” shoes, but getting it into the grid would be hard because it would have to go with at least two outfits). Anything with a green checkmark has been finished (everything on it is sewn, at least).
I’ve built a Trello board to help me manage the production line for all of these. My Trello board has lists for each stage of sewing (from ‘Fabric on Order’ to ‘Post PR Review’) and I have 16 cards – 1 for each item. As things get moved along in production, I update the Trello board so I can see what work still needs to be done at any given time.
I’m going to save my photography for one of the weekends towards the end of April, in hopes of getting some decent weather. It would be fun to do an on-location photo shoot, if we can maybe luck out and get a nice enough weekend to go camping!
That’s all for now… I’m intending to revive this blog but not making any promises.
