SWAP 2009

One good thing about moving to France is that it is seasonal which means more clothes! And in particular winter clothes which after three years of summer clothes I do miss.

Once we decided to move I decided to review my wardrobe. Virtually none of my clothes here are practical for an Alpine adventure. The new winter things I brought in London last year are in storage at my dad’s and as those are really just a couple of knit dresses they are not going to be practical for breastfeeding. So I really do need to think about new clothes.

I started with an inventory of my wardrobe.
After photographing all my clothes, at least the ones that aren’t jeans, t-shirts or maternity wear, it is clear that I have lots of pretty evening type tops and not much else. What a friend of mine describes as “Thelma and Louise tops” because you wear them with jeans and heels and look as if you are on some kind of glam, slightly sleazy, road trip.
Aside from being impractical for everyday wear, most of these tops were made or bought in my pre-baby life and so fail to accommodate Dolly and Pammy. (why can’t my new frontage have names?)
As well as the tops, I have some lovely linen skirts, a knit dress and some cosy cardigans.
None of the tops match the skirts and one of the cardi’s doesn’t go with anything apart from jeans.

The last part of the cataloguing was to line up all my t-shirt tops and photograph them to identify the colours I wear and so make a colour wheel. The idea being that if I use colours from this selection in my new wardrobe they will match into my existing wardrobe.

To plan my new wardrobe I have to identify what is missing from my current wardrobe for my daily life. My daily life in the Alps will be looking after Baby C, much the same as it is here but with snow, mountains and lots of French folk.

So what is my wardrobe missing? Warm tops that are adaptable for breastfeeding, winter skirts and any trousers that aren’t jeans.

I also need a new coat. Even though I do have a lovely coat I made waiting for me at the French-in-laws it is a very slim cut so I am not sure that it will allow for woolly layers underneath and fasten up over my new shape.

After deciding all this I was mooching around my sewing forum and found that the Sewing With a Plan 2009 competition has been launched. I wanted to do it again this year and now it fits perfectly with my wardrobe re-imagining.

As per last year there have to be four bottoms, six tops and one coat or jacket, giving you 24 outfit variations before you add the jacket into the mix. The twist this year was that the wardrobe had to reflect a week in our life and our current shape. In other words sewing for now rather than the future, in this way all the pieces would get worn.

For myself I have also decided to base the wardrobe on the colours of the non-matching cardigan so that it gets worn more and doesn’t get left in the wardrobe feeling lonely and left out.

I have stuck to patterns I already own, apart from the coat which is yet to be decided. From my storyboard you can spot that I have an extra skirt and an extra top, this is because I can’t decide on what to go for.



















For the bottoms, I need to decide between the two denim skirts.
The vogue skirt is a tried and tested pattern but I think the Burda one is a bit more funky, mind you Mr. C hates it, especially the pockets.
For the tops I am in two minds on the orange tee. The camisole might replace it as I don’t have any nursing camisoles.

So that’s my SWAP 2009 plan.
Now I just need to get the fabric and sew the plan.