Autumn is giving way to winter so I wanted tops I could wear by themselves, or under a jacket. The pants I wanted to be suitable for winter wear. I also wanted the items to fit in with at least two of the jackets that I made last year, and all to work with the leather jacket as I wear it so often.
I started with a wishlist of possible choices from surfing Polyvore. If I found an item I liked, I looked at other sets using the same piece, slowly putting together a mix-and-match set of options. From there I went through my stash looking for fabrics that I could use to make one of the items. A few of these, like the black wool & rust cotton were high on the priority list. Unfortunately there was one in particular, a printed cotton sateen that did not go well with the rust cotton, that I couldn’t work into the mix.

The theme Waratahs & Wombats is a bit of an odd name but it comes from the KraftKolour dyes used on some of the silks. Waratah was a bright red; wombat a chocolate brown. The rust top is a 4:1 ratio of the two , and matches the colour in the rust & black pants. Wombat was used to dye the lining of the leather jacket and matches closely with the brown pants.
After weeding them down to 15 fabrics, I tried to match each one up with a pattern that was similar. For most of the patterns I didn’t decide on which one to use until I was ready to sew it up. This meant I wasn’t really locked into a plan and helped to keep the sewing fun.
To save time, I used TNT pant patterns. The Lekala patterns worked out well, not only in terms of style, but as the were custom sized I didn’t need any involved fitting sessions.
One of the items I wanted to make was a cream lace top. I made 3 attempts, but none really worked for me. Finally, I decided to ditch the idea of including it in the final set.

Pattern Reviews ( see them all here or click on the individual links below)

• Jackets
  1. Black wool jacket – Lekala 4167
  2. Leather jacket – Lekala 4305 (made last year) (Todo)
• Tops
  1. Rust top – Lekala 4425 hand-dyed silk noil
  2. Black peplum top – Lekala 4177
  3. Blue green top – Knipmode 03-2014-108 – hand dyed silk noil
  4. Print top – McCalls 5890 Fabric recycled from another top I’ve never worn (Todo)
• Bottoms
  1. Brown Grey Pants – Patrones Magazine 339-3
  2. Rust/Black pants – Patrones 293 #27 (ToDo)
  3. Heavy denim jeans – Knipmode Jan 2011 #13 (To Do)

Outfit ideas

How many possible combinations? 36 …. 4 tops x 3 bottoms x 3 (no jacket or one of the two jackets)

At a Glance: