No orphans

The sewing contest on Pattern Review that changed my sewing the most was the Endless Combinations Sewing Contest that I moderated last year. I've done SWAP, and it is good, but when I sew now, I sew with the thought: no orphans. What I sew has to go with something else in the closet. I'm trying to sew styles that I know will work with what I have (as in, have a waist shaping, are open and flattering around the neck, are plainer on the bottom half). I'm also limiting my colours along the line of the very small closet concept. I use black as my base (black, deep gray, medium gray, white), supplemented with the deeper colours: cranberry in all its variations (from deep to lighter rose) blues (teal, medium blue, airforce blue), and brown (a lovely red brown, which is the only brown I can wear). Colour wise, everything works together.

This week's sewing is brought to you by the colour cranberry. So far, I've sewn:
1--a cowl sweater, in polar fleece; I had to piece the sleeves together to get a three quarter sleeve.
2--a panel princess sleeveless top, in cranberry velour
3--a matching ankle length mermaid style gored skirt, in cranberry velour
4--a cowl sweater in rose embossed crushed panne stretch velvet (this one might get passed to the daughter, since it isn't quite exactly the right colour; it is also her fabric that was put onto my shelf in a tidy up, oops).
5--rayon poly lycra crepe hollywood waisted pull on pants, in cranberry
6--rayon poly lycra crepe 6 gore flippy skirt, in cranberry.

Those are the keepers. They are all textured, but they are all the same colour. I didn't buy them together, it just happened that they are all the same colour. None of them are 'speaking' fabrics, in spite of the textures, and they work really well together. They also go with about 15 other things in my closet, including my favourite black and brown pants, as well as the black stretch velvet pants I made last week, and the white velour cowl top. The more laundry I do, the more I realize how these pieces work with most of what I already have. What a good feeling. Sewing should give you more options in your closet, not fewer options.

To make it work as a 6 pack sewing, I need to have a topper that coordinates, but I don't have any more cranberry fabric. Yeah--stash sewing gone right.