Planning a New Wardrobe

We are finally settled into our house enough that I can start thinking about other things than cleaning and unpacking boxes, although there is plenty of cleaning and boxes to unpack yet. I’ve been losing weight, my clothes are getting old and baggy and it is time for some new ones. While my sewing machine and supplies were packed away, I'd done lots of reading about wardrobes and wardrobe planning and decided it is time to put that knowledge into practice, with Sewing With A Plan (SWAP) as mentioned in Timmel Fabrics website.


Today I set a goal of what I wanted to accomplish. I need an easy-to-make, comfortable wardrobe of casual clothes. I can't have back zippers, no buttons, no excess stuff that makes wearing or caring for the clothes difficult. My life is complicated enough by arthritis that I don't want to make something that I can't get on or off by myself. According to the SWAP rules, I needed 6 tops, 4 bottoms, and a jacket. With those pieces, if made in coordinating fabrics, I should be able to have many outfits to wear. Well, we are on a budget and so I have to use the fabric in my stash so that will put some limits on the coordinating factor. However, as some stuff in my closet still fits me and I have nothing that works with it, I need to be solving that problem also.

My life is very casual. A big day out is going to church, the grocery store, a doctor appointment (way too many of those) or an occasional dinner out with hubby. When my uncle died about a month ago, though, I realized I didn't have a decent outfit to wear to a funeral and had to wear a heavy black winter skirt on a very hot day. I've had a bad habit of just making something whenever it catches my fancy so poor planning has been a problem when trying to get outfits together for those non-routine things.

I went through my own pattern stash, remarkably small considering how many patterns we have up for sale, but I try to leave some Plus sized patterns for our customers. So many patterns at first glance looked like good prospects, but I managed to narrow them down. Then I made a scan of the technical drawings from the pattern instructions. Here's where my lovely hubby came in handy. I showed him the technical drawings (no distracting model or colors) and discussed them with him. He has better taste than me and also is the one who gets stuck seeing me, so I value his input. After discussing with him the various patterns, I clipped out the different garments I wanted to sew and attached them to my storyboard. I then made notes about yardage and whether or not the garment used knit or woven fabrics.

This has been fun thinking about what I want and planning so that I have a nice variety of outfits. Now the fun part: picking out the fabrics to go with each pattern. To be continued...

Yard Sale Bonanza!

Do you ever dream of the perfect yard sale? It has all those sorts of things you have been looking for. Well I got to go to one last week. The lady, due to health reasons, was selling off many of her machine embroidery magazines, quilting books, and Burda World of Fashion magazines. Well I went a bit crazy and bought two boxfuls. I had a wonderful weekend going through the things I bought. I ended up with quite a few magazines to round out my own personal collection and those that were duplicates, I now have up for auction, so here is your chance to fill in the gaps of your own machine embroidery project collection. I even have some spare Jenny Haskins magazines up for sale. Check out the auctions at my store.

The Burda World of Fashion magazines, I'm still having fun going through and the thought of selling them kind of wrenches at my heart, so I may just keep those in my sewing room. I have heard of these magazines, but had never seen any in person before. Boy am I impressed. It is like looking through a fashion magazine, seeing all these great outfits on models, and knowing with the right attitude you can make everything in the magazine! There are even instructions on knitting the sweaters and fashion accessories that are shown. Each pattern in the magazine comes in at least 5 sizes, with a nice collection of Plus size patterns, men's and children's patterns also. You have to trace off your pattern pieces which seems to be the only difficult thing to do. My question is, does anyone have any handy dandy hints for tracing off the patterns pieces? Comments greatly appreciated.

I even got a large stack of quilting books, but haven't had time to even look through them yet. That will be for another day.

Vintage Butterick Patterns for Sale

Great news! We have new items up for auction on EBay. We have been listing some great vintage Butterick sewing patterns and thought you might be interested in checking them out. We have listed the appropriate measurements on each listing, so you don't have to be scared about what a size 12 in 1950 meant.

By the way, from what I can figure by comparing current standard measurements with those from the 50's and 60's, a size 14 now would have been a size 16 then. Even though the artwork on some of the pattern envelopes looks like the model only has a ten inch waist, the pattern will sew up to the listed measurement.

Factory folded in the listing means that the pattern has never been unfolded or used. The only way they could have been opened would have been by an expert map folder. Remember how when you used to open those old maps and could never again get them right, well pattern tissues are the same way, once they are open, they never can be folded to look the same.

Enjoy the auctions or purchasing vintage patterns straight from our store. We will be listing more vintage patterns as time allows, as vintage patterns take much more time to list due to researching their age and checking thoroughly into their condition.

Shop with us any time! Moonwishes Sewing and Crafts

The Joy of Sewing!

What a fun afternoon I spent in my air-conditioned tree house sewing room! I dug through my box of UFOs (unfinished objects) and found 4 quilt blocks in similar, though not matching colors to make some throw pillows. They will go with some older valances I made years ago that just went up in our entry room. And since I made them, I also have more fabric as I need to make one more valance. Only someone who sews can really understand being able to move into a new house, use older curtains, etc. and still have fabric to coordinate to make more things as the need arises.

I also plan on making a cushion to go over a storage box that will be nice for sitting on to put on shoes and dare I say it? -- Winter boots! It is horribly hot out now, but we have had so little summer, I hate to jinx things and have winter roaring in again.

I missed getting to sew for many months, but spent my time profitably reading many sewing books and magazines, so that now when it is time to sew, I can whip out projects without really having to think them through as I have been filing ideas away in my head for a long time.

Well back to the ironing board and sewing machine for me.