Project 333

Sewing a capsule wardrobe for project 333- shorts 1

Sewing a capsule wardrobe for project 333- shorts 1

Craftie Jellie

Project 333 uses the idea of having a 33 item capsule wardrobe which you swap out every 3 month. I’ve found this a great challenge to do. I like the fact that every 3 months I get to shop my wardrobe to put together a new 33 capsule wardrobe for the next season. Then I find it very freeing only having 33 items in the bedroom closet to choose from. It makes life so much easier. I don’t tend to include accessories, underwear and shoes- I don’t often wear accessories or loads of different shoes anyway.

Over the last couple of years I have been teaching myself to sew with books and You Tube videos. I’ve finally got to the stage where I can sew clothes I’ll be happy to go out in! This means I can now start to sew my capsule wardrobe. Since starting the project 333 experiment I decided to only buy clothes and fabrics in specific colours which coordinate well together and I like. I decided to start sewing my summer wardrobe using quilting cottons- nice and cool for summer and the fabrics are designed to coordinate.

They contain several of the colours I had decided to focus on in my wardrobe- I like brights! Aqua, teal, pink, purple and berry are all colours I like to wear and you can see from these facrics that they feature in this range.

I wanted to start by concentrating on the pinks and purples with a few neutrals. I already have some pieces in my wardrobe which will fit into this scheme. The idea is that I’m sewing items I need to fill in the gaps. I’ll be trying to tweak my patterns so I get a good fit and can remake in different fabrics for autumn/winter.

Since this is a summer wardrobe I wanted to start with some shorts. I wanted to have an elasticated waist so they will last should I gain or lose any weight! I decided to adapt the trousers from Butterick B4238.

I traced the trouser pattern onto brown paper- shortening to the length I wanted for shorts. I used pink medallion material.

At the moment they can be worn with a pink t-shirt I already have.

 Tomorrow I will hopefully be posting another top to wear with the shorts.

Other posts in my sewing for my summer project 333

Top 1
Skirt 1
Top 2

Skirt 4

Project 333 for work

Project 333 for work

Craftie Jellie

In the last couple of years I’ve been gradually cutting down the clothes I have. I have done lots of reading on capsule wardrobes including reading about project 333. This is the kind of challenge I find helpful. The aim is to create a capsule wardrobe of 33 items to use for 3 months.

This would be a bit too drastic for me at the moment but it has inspired me to do a similar challenge to help me identify key items in my wardrobe and to simplify it. I decided to do project 333 x 2! Last week I selected 33 items for a work wardrobe and 33 for a casual wardrobe!

This was quite fun and very helpful.

Stage 1
I checked out the predictions for Spring fashion colours and had a look round the shops to identify the trends over Easter. The Pantone web site is great for this and this image from the web site summarises their Spring colours.

Stage 2
I then decided which colours I would use in my capsule wardrobes. Since I have some basics in starfish I thought this would make a good neutral to base the wardrobe on. I tend to favour brights and have several items in caberet and cockatoo. I also have a couple of pieces with the orange, dark blue and green in.

Stage 3
I then thought about the type of clothes I wear most to work and what would be the most versatile in a capsule wardrobe. I tend to wear dresses the most and usually team them with a cardigan or jacket. I wear separates less option but do like wearing trousers on chilly days when I’m tired and sometimes I wear a skirt.
In terms of versatility I decided to focus on the following

  • Pick dresses with more than one colour from my pallete (3 if possible allowing alternative neutrals such as black as one!)
  • Pick a jacket or cardigan for each key colour which will match with both dresses and separates
  • Pick a couple of skirts and trousers in neutrals (I look better with brights near my face rather than neutrals.
  • Pick a few tops with more than one colour in (at least 1 colour of which is bright!

Stage 4
Shopping my wardrobe. I took all my clothes out and put them on clothes rails I have (I took the opportunity to clean the wardrobe). I sorted them into clothes types. I then went through each clothes group and picked out clothes that matched the colour pallette and versatility rules I’d made. I then whittled them down to 33 and put them in my wardrobe.

Stage 5
Each time I wear clothes I turn the hanger round- this way every few months I can check if I have any clothes in my wardrobe I haven’t worn. 

I’ve stored the rest of the clothes and if all goes well I will decrease their number a bit. However I am aiming to have 4 capsule wardrobes, one for each season and I want to create it from clothes I have or can make if possible.