Global wanderings

I mentioned before that I'm planning to participate in the Pattern Review wardrobe contest. To recap, the requirements are:

- 4 tops
- 4 bottoms
- 1 dress or 1 coat
- 1 accessory

While I love to wear bright colors, I find myself gravitating towards earth tones every summer. Give me a pair of gladiator sandals and some safari-tone garments and I'm set. With that in mind, I decided to base my wardrobe on a neutral brown/ivory/olive palette.

I’m going for a relaxed, resort style wardrobe. (I think technically resort collections come out in the middle of winter for the people who escape dreary weather at home by traveling to sunny resorts, but I just like the sound of it.)

Once I started gathering my fabrics, I settled on the theme "Global Wanderings". I chose this because:

(1) The gorgeous fabric that I'll use for the dress came all the way from Ghana. It was a gift from Cidell, I’m excited to finally use this.

(2) The brown print on ivory gauze (for 5-2007-111) reminds me of Berry's pictures from Morocco.

(3) The metallic-coated linen (for 5-2007-113) is from Joann, made in China naturally.

(4) Not shown, but I'm going to do a little paisley fabric stamping on one of the blouses (7-2007-101) that will conjure up images of India (if it turns out the way I'm imagining! I'm still waiting for the inkpad to arrive for some testing.)


One of the fabrics I have didn’t make it onto the storyboard yet - an olive stretch twill that I'll use for the skirt with pockets.

You will notice that I have 5 tops, not 4. I used to have 7! I keep whittling it down. One of them will be auf'ed from the final collection.

Also, the storyboard is missing my accessory. I haven’t decided yet, but I'm thinking something along the lines of a simple shoulder/sling bag using leftover fabrics.

Of course everything you see here is subject to change.