Scrap busting lingerie sewing with MyBodyModel, by Pam

Remember Pam’s post about getting her sew-jo back? She’s started 2020 a bang, using her body model templates to achieve many goals at once: scrap-busting, learning new skills, upleveling her lounge game, AND showing her body some love!

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Like standing in front of my pantry trying to decide what to cook , a recent conversation with Erica from MyBodyModel made me realize I had all the ingredients for something really awesome right in front of me.

And like a lot of folks, the start of a new year gets me thinking about what I’d like to do differently or better in the coming months. Things like buy less, use what I have, create in a more sustainable way, learn something new, and be good to myself. Whew. A lot.

Going digital & shopping my stash

I had already begun to make friends with Trello to inventory my stash so I can shop my own store first and more easily. And since I can never resist a remnant bin, I discovered that I have a daunting amount of those lovely and inspiring odd bits needing to be used.

Scrap busting & upping my loungewear game

Realizing that I spend most of my down time around the house (and family) in ratty pj’s, I’ve wanted to up my loungewear game for a while. Apparently this was on my mind as I was collecting several coordinating scraps of silky fabrics.

Planning a lingerie capsule: Digital drawing on my body model croquis

My Body Model’s 8 croquis on a page layout was the perfect way to think through a mini capsule of robe, camisoles, and shorts.

I’m finally jumping on the digital sketching train and that made it even easier to rough out a design whenever I had a new idea, no matter where I am. I love that I can have the option to play with my sewing paper dolls whether on my phone in a waiting room somewhere, my tablet on my lunch break, or at home with my fabric stash for inspiration.

Playing with color blocking to use up those pretty scraps

The 8-croquis page was perfect for playing with ideas for using the very small bits of each fabric that I have. I knew I wouldn’t have enough of any one remnant to make a complete garment, so I wanted to color block them in a way that made it feel intentional that they could all mix and match.

And I love the new features Erica added with MyBodyModel’s 2.0 updates! My croquis are all “award season” appropriate with their sassy hand-on-hip pose, and the back view option makes color blocking even easier to envision.

Ultimately, I chose the print with the two coordinating solids for the robe because I knew I could integrate at least one of those fabrics into the other makes. The floral front paneled robe was just the most visually pleasing to me, based on the sketches.

Here is my detailed sewing plan using the Project Planner page from my MyBodyModel digital sketchbook:

To keep everything super organized, I even added my project sketch to my Lingerie Capsule folder in the Trello app, along with the sewing pattern and fabrics:

With everything decided and organized, I was ready and inspired to start sewing!

From Sketch to Finished: Scrap-Busting Almada Robe

I’m really thrilled and inspired by my new loungewear collection. It ticks so many boxes: I’m integrating my pattern stash, reducing my fabric hoard, and using new tools to plan and organize my work – All while making something beautiful for myself which my family will also benefit from (hello glama-mama).

Next, I’m using the sketches to decide on the camisoles and shorts. I may even make a new 8-croquis sketch page to adjust for the reduced amount of fabric I have left.

This experiment has been so successful, I can’t wait to plan out ways to use all my little bits of activewear fabric!