Hi it's Sarai and welcome to week three of five weeks of wardrobe planning tips.
So have you ever felt like you wanted to add more color into your wardrobe or maybe more print? In
this week's video, Meg's gonna share five tips for doing exactly that. So this is something that we
found can be really, really intimidating for some people when they take our Design Your Wardrobe
class and we wanted to pull these tips out to help you out if you feel like you're in that boat.
So Design Your Wardrobe is a program that we have that's available for free to our members and it
walks you through the process of designing and planning out your own personalized collection of
sewing projects for a season. So it has worksheets, there are creative activities included with it,
you get a planner, and there's a private community to share your progress with other people as you go,
and a video lesson that you get to watch every day. So check out the description below if you want to
learn more about that, but designing with colors and prints can be, it's really fun and really
you know inspiring, but it's hard to know how to make them all work together sometimes.
So Meg's going to give you our favorite tips for making those work and building a cohesive plan.
Have you ever walked into a fabric store and been totally overwhelmed by all of the colors
and prints that you can choose? Sometimes it's hard not to be tempted to pick out an armful of
prints, bring them back home with you and realize that you actually don't want to wear any of them.
Hi I'm Meg, I'm the editor here at Seamwork. Creating a balanced color palette for your
wardrobe might require some tough decisions in order to arrive at the colors and prints
that are ultimately wearable for you, but the most powerful thing about choosing colors and prints
is that it is your choice. It's your personal style and you get to choose how you want
to express yourself to the world. There are no wrong answers when it comes to colors and prints,
you can totally wear whatever makes you feel good. So how do you actually bring these colors
and prints into your wardrobe? How do you find the ones that you really want to wear?
Here are five steps you can use to start auditioning fabric to turn into clothes that you
love to wear. Step number one: describe how you want to feel when you're wearing the garment. Remember
how you identified a goal for your wardrobe on the very first day of Design Your Wardrobe? You can use
the same idea to start a framework for finding your colors and prints. How do you want to feel
when you're wearing colors and prints? You know those articles that help you find the best colors
for your skin tone? You're welcome to browse those, we even have one in the Seamwork archives but
remember that so much of color is also emotional. You might look amazing in pink, but pink might not
be how you want to express your style. You might love to look at bright graphic colors but really
you feel best wearing muted textures. Jot down a few words, use your mood board if you have one and
if you need help making a mood board check out our video with 10 tips for making a mood board here in
the classroom. You can write these words down in your planner or you can even put them directly
onto your mood board. Sometimes it's fun to have little words scattered amongst your inspiration.
Do you want to feel bright? Earthy? Pick three to five words that describe the kinds of colors
and prints that you like to wear. Tip number two: think about your favorite silhouettes.
In order to do this, you might want to look at your mood board. Browse through your sewing or fashion
inspiration or step right into your wardrobe and look at the kinds of silhouettes that you wear.
Garments that have flowing silhouettes can affect how prints move on your body. Boxy, oversized
clothing is the perfect canvas for prints or bright colors. If you wear more fitted or tailored
clothes, these tailored details often offer fun opportunities for little bits of color amongst
neutrals like black or cream. If you wear a lot of layers, you will have so many opportunities to play
with monochromatic looks as well as print clashing. If you want some tips for print clashing check
out this issue of Seamwork and we have a great article. So what do your silhouettes look like? What
opportunities do they give you to show off prints and colors? Think about this while you're fabric
shopping. Tip number three is to create color and print palettes. In dispatch eight of Design Your
Wardrobe, we walk you through a process to create a balanced color palette. To create a balanced
palette you will organize your colors into three categories: neutrals, basics, and statement colors.
Along with these three categories, you will select a few prints that work with your wardrobe plans.
In this video, we're going to update the process from dispatch 8. You can approach this exercise
from two different starting points colors or prints. Which one do you struggle with the most?
If you just want to find some colors that work for your wardrobe, start with your favorite
solid colored swatch. If you want to bring new prints into your wardrobe, start with your favorite
printed swatch. Whether you start with a solid color or a print you will then add some neutrals,
basics, and statement colors. Neutrals are super versatile because you can wear them with anything.
Think about black, gray, cream, and camel. You don't get a super strong sense of color from
neutrals so they won't clash with other colors, but they will help complement other colors. Basics
are colors that tend to go with a bunch of things but they aren't quite as neutral as your neutrals.
Think about blues like denim, which some people may argue is a neutral because there really isn't
anything that doesn't look great with denim. You can also think about jewel tones. Pinks and earth
tones statement colors are those bright bold colors, the ones that get your attention. Think
about colors like bright coral, chartreuse, and magenta. Here I have a collection of swatches as
well as some prints from the Seamwork Spoonflower fabric collection. I'm going to put together
a sample palette starting with a solid color and then starting with a print. This exercise is really
fun whenever you want to get a group of colors together for sewing, if you want to put together
an outfit, or even a capsule wardrobe. This works best with fabric swatches since you can visualize
how they will translate into clothing, but you can use paint swatches, colored pencils, online swatches.
Just remember that these are going to be colors that you want to wear, not colors for home dec
projects, although this exercise does work really well for home dec projects. To get started, arrange
all of your swatches out in front of you. Having a neutral background like a table or the floor can
help. Take as many swatches as you can, it's better to have too many fabric choices and
edit them down than to limit yourself right away. Start with your favorite swatch or the one that
you're most curious about. From the rest of your swatches pick out two to three neutrals, one to
three basics, and one to three statement colors and put together some example palettes. These are just
guidelines, you can pick the amount of colors that make you happy, then pick an additional one or two
prints that you'd like to incorporate into your wardrobe. Don't only think about the type of print like a
stripe a floral or an abstract but think about the scale as well as the boldness of the print.
When you have everything laid out look at your prints and think about if they make you feel good
or if they match the words that you chose in step one. Then think about your silhouettes.
Can you envision them in these prints? Will some of these prints be too much or quite not enough?
These swatching exercises really are the best way to learn about color,
it's just no substitute for playing with color palettes online. If you want to start with your
favorite printed swatch the steps are exactly the same. Pull out the printed swatch that you're most
curious about, the one that you're having trouble incorporating into your wardrobe, or the one that
just really makes you feel good. When you take that swatch look for some colors in the solid color
swatches that you have see if you can complement the colors, match the colors, clash the colors.
Balance those neutrals and statement colors within the print itself. Once you've done that, you can
do all the same things that you did before, you just need to gather a group of statement colors,
basics, and neutrals that look nice with your print. But for the next step you need to see
if you're actually going to wear these colors and prints. Tip number four is the rule of three.
There's an exercise called the rule of three outfits that you can use for this color exercise.
If you aren't familiar episode 35 of the Seamwork Radio podcast explores this concept. The rule of
three helps you plan sewing projects that work with at least three other pieces in your wardrobe.
This exercise is really simple, all you have to do is take your swatch palette into your wardrobe
with you hold it up against the clothes that you already wear. Does it feel good next to at least
three other garments that you currently love to wear? Does it match the vibe? Does it provide a nice
opportunity for some clashing, or a statement, or would it help you create a monochromatic palette?
Does it make sense in your wardrobe and does it represent your style? Can you envision these
colors and prints as actual garments that you can wear with some of the clothes that you already own?
If so, then you've found colors and prints that will seamlessly slip into your current wardrobe.
If you're able to match your palette to three garments in your closet, but they aren't garments
that you actually love to wear or if you just don't feel right about how this all looks then
this color palette might not be working for you. All you have to do is pare down your palette and
try again. This exercise alone is really helpful if you just want to audition a few individual prints.
Bring swatches into your closet and see if they work. Now that you've found some colors and prints
that make you feel good, there is one more step to help you discover the prints and colors that
you'll want to wear the most. Once you have a color palette and some prints that make you feel good,
they work with your current wardrobe, and you're ready to actually start planning some sewing, it's
the perfect time to sketch your options on a croquis. Watch our video Plan. Sketch. Sew. It's
here in the classroom and it's linked below. It'll show you how to draw your sewing plans,
then you can either cut out little paper doll versions of fabric swatches, or you can sketch
using colored pencils. Here's one final tip for you: when you find a color or a print that you
love, save it. Take a picture see if you can find the hex code and punch it into a color palette app.
Then you can generate complementary color palettes and you can keep it saved for the future. You can
also tape your swatches or color swatches into a little journal to create a personal color library.
This is really fun and it will help you learn what works for your clothes and what might be better
on a pillow or something in your home. Be sure to check out the links in the classroom for even more
articles and resources for playing with colors and prints for your me made wardrobe. Happy sewing!