It’s time for another round of Design Your Wardrobe, and I’ve planned all of my sewing projects for this spring!

By the way, we’re hosting Design Your Wardrobe four times a year now (instead of just twice), so you can plan your sewing with every season.

Sign-ups for the spring session are open here right now.

So, today, I am showing you my entire design process step-by-step.

I use Design Your Wardrobe every season. Here are my fall plans, and here are my spring sewing plans from last year.

I also put together a round-up of all my projects I sewed—and knit—in 2023. You can see how my plans unfolded here.

Ok, so what’s new for this spring? Keep reading or watch my video.

Getting Set Up

I always start Design Your Wardrobe by printing out the Seamwork planner and putting it in a binder. You can get the planner for free here.

And I have a new ritual now that I’ve built my sewing studio (keep an eye on YouTube for a full tour soon). I made this corkboard to keep my mood boards and sketches. So, my new ritual is to clear off the corkboard of the previous season so I can get ready for the next.

I save my mood board images in case I want to use them again. It saves time when I make boards in the future.

Then I start putting together my plans.

Gathering My Initial Inspiration

I always start by looking through my Pinterest boards. If you haven’t read about my Pinterest strategy, you can learn about it here. In short, I maintain a core-style board, and then I pull inspiration from that board to create new boards for planning and individual projects.

So, I created a new board for spring 2024 and started moving images that felt relevant and inspiring to me right now.

Then, I moved on to filling out my planner.

Setting a Goal and Naming My Collection

The first step in the planner is a goal sheet, and I always set a goal for my wardrobe whenever I do this kind of planning.

This season, my goal is to: Create a handful of everyday pieces that feel special to me.

This is my goal because I want to make things that are beautiful and useful. It’s something that’s really been important to me in the last few years, and I want to keep working on it.

The words that describe the concept of my collection for this season are: Romantic, detailed, and chic. I pulled these words from all the inspiration I gathered on Pinterest.

I decided to name my collection: “Chic But Chill.”

Chicness is the aesthetic that I want to put forward, and the word chill means I just want things to be really wearable and comfortable.

I really want my clothes to be things that I actually put on day to day.

Sometimes it can be hard to pick the words you want to use for your collection, so I like to keep in mind that the words don’t have to mean anything to anybody else but me.

If the words evoke the mood and feeling you want when you get dressed this upcoming season, that’s all that matters.

Setting the Context for My Collection

Next, I filled out all the information in my planner to help me set contexts for my collection. These are the life contexts that I really want to focus on for the spring.

My first context is working from home. The criteria I have for my clothes when I am working from home is that they are:

Comfortable: So I can move throughout the day.
Walkable: I go outside on a walk with Lucy every day (check out the dog walking belt bag I made for our walks here).
Layerable: Because the weather can be unpredictable in spring.
Soft: To capture that romance I want in my wardrobe.

Do you see how setting a life context and making a list of constraints gives me a checklist to pick projects and fabric?

My next context is working from the studio, which has another criteria to meet. I want my clothes to look good on camera for when I make these videos for you!

My final context for this season is to go on friend dates because I want to spend more time with my friends when winter ends. My criteria for this context are that my clothes feel comfy and put-together.

Creating a New Mood Board

I like to work analog for Design Your Wardrobe. So next, I curated my main Pinterest board to create a physical mood board.

[ART] image-07

As I look through all these pictures that inspire me right now, I notice a lot of blue florals, toile, ruffles at the neck, dramatic sleeves, and classic stripes. I really like the juxtaposition of classic stripes with other romantic details.

Having a physical mood board, especially this big cork one on my wall, helps keep my plans at the forefront of my mind.

Building My Color Palette

Next, it’s time to build my color palette.

If you’ve taken Design Your Wardrobe before, the exercises in this section help you separate your colors into neutrals, basics, statements, and prints.

To find all my colors, I looked through my stash and started pulling out fabrics that matched my mood board.

I pulled out a lot of white and blue, including prints.

It's ok if you don't have the fabrics you need yet. You’re going to create a general idea and spot holes to fill.

My palette ended up being really simple. Some of my fabric highlights are a Breton striped knit and a smaller blue floral print called Petite Garden Lawn from Sevenberry.

Once I have my palette in my planner, I stack up all the fabrics I have in my stash so that I can see them every day.

Next, it’s time to sketch!

Sketching My Sewing Plans

I use Procreate and my iPad to sketch all of my sewing plans, and I recently made a video if you want to learn how to do it. It’s so easy.

I don’t focus on making my sketches perfect. I just want to get a general idea of the outfit to break them down into the garments I will sew.

Here are the outfits I decided on.

A-line Skirt + Ruffle Top

Striped sweater + A-line Skirt

A-line Skirt + Chemise Blouse

Print Dress + Espadrilles

And when I break down these outfits into individual projects, here’s the pieces I will be sewing this spring.

The Ginger skirt. You probably noticed this pattern in almost all of my outfits—it’s an oldie but goodie. I’m making version 3 to make a chevron with white or cream corduroy.

The Fifer tank. This is an upcoming pattern! I’m going to experiment with edge placement on eyelet.

The Callen sweater. I’m sewing it in those Breton stripes I mentioned.

The Chantelle dress. I want to sew this in a floral rayon from my stash.

The Dara chemise. This is also an upcoming Seamwork pattern. I’ll be sewing it in the cotton lawn I talked about.

The Sloan dress. This is another upcoming Seamwork pattern!

Now that I have all these projects planned, I pin them up on my mood board with all my inspiration. Then I like to add a few fabrics to give the mood board more color and texture.

And now I am feeling really inspired for spring! I really love the way all these projects fit together. It feels cohesive to me, and I have a good idea of what I want to make and how it will all come together. I also have a queue of projects, so I know exactly where to start and what I will end up with.

Have you started thinking about spring sewing yet? Or fall if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere.

Comment and let me know if you're excited to make anything in particular!

Oh, and don’t forget to sign up for Design Your Wardrobe before February 5th.