Transitions

When you sew, transitions means something a little different than buying light-weight long-sleeved tops and hoping you can wear them in November. (Keep in mind this is Canada. Even in southern Canada, it does get cold.)

It means asking yourself when, in all practicality, you should stop sewing for the season you’re in and start sewing for the season you will be in soon. There’s no point to starting a four-week project when you’ll be wrapping it up just as the weather starts to shift. What’s the fun in finishing something you can’t wear for ten months?

And it is August, after all. We’ve got a good month left of summer heat, most likely, and then we’ll be looking for sweaters and cardigans to take the chill off, lightweight coats, and (if you’re me) pants instead of skirts. (I am a strictly fair-weather skirt wearer. I have winter skirts and I wear them if the weather will approach 0C and there won’t be any snow. Otherwise, it’s pants through to spring.) It would be nice if I had some new fall makes ready to wear around the end of September.

Which means I’d better get started.

I’ve had a good run so far this summer. Since the end of Me-Made May, I’ve made:

• a few t-shirts for Frances
• Frances’s grad dress
• a Renfrew
• a pleated yellow t-shirt
• a pair of denim shorts
• a scandalous faux-wrap dress
• a yellow wonder-dress
• a crocheted sweater
• a pair of Vogue shorts
• a second Moneta
• a button-up shirt
• most of a Belcarra (just needs hemming)
• pieces cut out for another Chardon, with some dyeing and embroidery planned
• and most of a Style Arc Emily shirt–hemming to be done and neckline to be altered.

There are things I’d like to make for myself and Frances over the fall/winter:

• some nice long-sleeved t-shirts for my girl
• some pants for her that aren’t jogging pants (which she always wears) and also aren’t jeans (which she hates) would be great. Except that patterns for girsl are usually so, so girly and Frances doesn’t go for that.
• She wants me to make her a denim jacket. I’ve had the pieces cut out for ages, so I really have no excuse.
• a nice I’m-here-to-kick-ass-at-my-new-school first day outfit for her, unless she’d rather buy one
• two or three pairs of heavier-weight work pants, for winter
• a crocheted sweater
• that suit
• a pair of jeans, or maybe two (my favourite jeans are becoming unwearabley holey)
• a couple of long-sleeved work-appropriate knit tops, and long-sleeved button-up woven tops, would be great too
• and somewhere in there will be a Special Christmas/Birthday Outfit for Frances, because that’s what we do

It’s a very, very practical list. You’ll notice not much cute or twee happening in there.

It’s also a very, very time-consuming list. It’ll keep me going over the winter, for sure. There are at least fifteen garments in that list, and I’m going to want to make things for people for christmas, too.

Anyway, not only should I prioritize and then shorten that list, but probably stopping with the summer sewing a little on the sooner end would also be helpful. I’ve decided that, once the Emily top is done, it’s on to fall sewing for me.  What do you do?