Crafting A Rainbow

Parts of this post first appeared on the Cali Fabrics blog, and some of the fabric was received from them as part of their blogging team!

I’m so excited! I’ve been planning and wearing this little capsule for weeks months now, and it’s been really satisfying to pull it all together!

First off, the colours:

This is Pantone’s Fall 2017 colour palette for New York. I’ve done a lot of thinking about colour palettes, and, well, these are definitely not my colours! I usually wear jewel tones and always prefer cool colours – basically, the colours in my blog header. That just makes this a more enjoyable challenge though: Can I make a mini capsule wardrobe in these colours that is flattering and fun to wear? 

I had a few ground rules:

• incorporate clothes that are already in my wardrobe wherever possible
• keep it flattering so that it will get worn
• use my Cali Fabric order to add in colours that were lacking in my wardrobe

The whole goal was to revamp my wardrobe by adding a few things, not to sew everything from scratch!

Here are the three projects I made from Cali Fabrics, which I’ve posted about already:

From left to right: a rayon sweater knit cardigan; a double brushed poly tank; and a double brushed poly cosy tunic/top! 

Next, I started pulling items from my existing wardrobe that fit the colour scheme. I was excited that two of the pieces actually came from Cali Fabrics too, including this coral leopard jersey dress which I shortened into a tank, and another tank sewn from leftovers from this model jersey dress!

I also pulled in a simple grey cardigan, Old Navy grey jeggings, the Ginger jeans I’m wearing with the tank above, this spruce green shirt, and my new Style Arc Ginger twist top that included lime green and navy.

Here is how my plans looked when I sketched them out!

That’s a total of 18 options, plus a few more if I get creative!

You’ll notice I did totally ignore the orange shade – and that comes back to my self-imposed rule about keeping it flattering. Harsh orange is not my colour, and neither is that Buttercream… but at least the buttercream can be introduced more easily with camel-coloured shoes. The lime green is another difficult shade for me to wear, so I only used it in one print!

Ready to see my mini capsule wardrobe?

First, tanks and a tee with both navy and grey jeans…

… and layered with my grey sweater…

…or the burgundy one! For the photoshoot, I just used one pair of shoes, one necklace,and one scarf, but in reality I think accessories would add a lot of variety to these looks!

Long-sleeved tops with both jeans… the navy jeans are actually much darker and more distinct in real life, but I know in photos the two pants look very similar! These tops are actually both the same pattern, and can also be pulled down and worn as tunics with leggings.

And here you have the whole collection:

Overall, I had so much fun revamping my fall wardrobe with this capsule collection. It helped me combine existing pieces with different colours, and I got lots of very wearable outfits. In retrospect, I could have had more variation if I’d included at least one dress, or more dramatically-different jeans. That said, this is exactly how I dress for work and play, and I know everything will get worn!

Have you even made a capsule or mini-capsule wardrobe? And if you were going to add just three pieces to spice up your fall/winter wardrobe, what would you add?