
Any year that includes that magical striped dress up there is a good sewing year, in my book. But I think this was easily my most successful — if most myopic — year as a sewer. I sewed 12 things, some of which were never blogged but all of which are pictured here. Every one of them was completed during my Linenpalooza of summer-into-fall, fueled by the actual and neurotic need for suitable clothes for my India trip. (Although not all of them went with me.)
I think I mentioned before that this came about because I didn’t own clothing that was appropriate. Essentially all of my hot-weather clothes are sleeveless; my dresses are sleeveless and knee-length. It was going to be in the 90s the whole time and we would be outside for most or all of every day — everything I owned that was sufficiently modest would have been suffocating. Buying a whole travel wardrobe was not an option, so I bought some linen to augment what I already had in my stash, and I pulled out some of my tried-and-true patterns and began cutting.
The six garments above are all made from the same two pattern pieces of the Fen top, just modified in various ways: the striped and blurple dresses, the yellow dress, the black top, toffee top and cyan top. The four pants below are all from the Robbie pants pattern I’ve also made (with my modifications) many times before: pomelo, striped, blurple, toffee. The striped and blurple ones were both made from the scraps of the dresses, and I cut both a top and pants in the toffee color. From the scraps of the pomelo pants, I also scraped together the little pomelo top, below, which is from the Hemlock tee pattern (modified along some of the the same lines as before) with the amount of fabric determining the length of the body and sleeves.

I had a lot of fun making the matching tops and pants, which can be worn together like faux jumpsuits but which also mix-and-match with the other pieces. And ultimately 10 of the above got packed for the trip, along with one RTW linen top (so I took 3 dresses, 4 tops and 4 pants) plus an 11th-hour surprise, the jacket below:

The Sunday before we left, as I was neatly rolling my clothes and laying them into one side of my suitcase, I began to get anxious about the flights. And I convinced myself I needed to sew a jacket. I have no fear of heights or flying, but I am a little claustrophobic and I always told myself I couldn’t be sealed in a plane for 14 hours. So naturally when it came time to do that, I decided it would be fine if only I had a linen Wiksten jacket (lightweight! but fends off a/c! doesn’t take up too much suitcase space while not in use!) with perfectly scaled secret pockets for my passport and kleenex and earbuds and phone … . So that’s what I made for myself. And it worked.
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PREVIOUSLY: 2019 Knitting year in review
Hey Karen. Thank you for sharing, I love your linen wardrobe. You did a lovely job!
Gotta love linen! So versatile!
Have a happy and blessed New Year!
Thank you, happy new year to you too!
Impressive!
What I really admire here is a clarity of style. Congratulations on an excellent sewing year!
Thanks, Claudia!
Oh I love your last-minute jacket story. I can relate 100%, I’ve done so much last-minute, anxiety-quelling sewing. Three days before the trip I decided I absolutely needed a waterproof, cross-body bag and then of course I decided to make it complicated with as many pockets as possible! But it served me well.
That’s an awesomely productive year of sewing!
Kindred spirits!
great collection! love the color term blurple :) Happy New Year.
You too!
All the props for taking just three patterns and creating such versatile, compatible pieces.
And YES to color!
Baby steps. ;)
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Amazing collection you made! And that magical striped dress is just that – magic. I bookmarked the post about that dress as it is a thing of beauty…
Thank you, it’s definitely a proud moment for me!
that little orange linen top is just cute as hell! they ALL look great! congrats-
Thank you!
Thank you so much for the inspiring post! I just bought the Fen pattern and can’t wait to make it. I love linen too and wear it all the time in Arizona!