Winter Wool Wardrobe

This past September while we were visiting my parents in Iowa, my mom let me look through her stash of patterns and pick some out to make some everyday dresses for myself.  I've been wanting to add more vintage-inspired style to my wardrobe, and I also have a goal of making more things that I can wear in my daily life (instead of focusing all of my sewing energy on historical costuming).  My mom has quite a collection of patterns from the 60s and 70s, and a few even from the 50s that were in her mom's stash.

So I was picking out patterns for some fabrics that I already had, and out of the blue Mom just gave me a stack of wool fabrics! 

These were also from her mom's stash, and probably dated to the 60s and 70s.  I have fallen in love with wool in the last couple of years, so I was more than happy to take these off of her hands! 

Most of the pieces are between two and three yards, and range from 54" to 61" wide. 

This piece I'm hoping will be enough to make a new tailcoat for Brian the Engineer!

I love the micro-plaid design of this one.

This is the smallest cut of the group, and has some moth damage.

Close-up shot of the moth holes.  I'll have to cut around those.

This one has a nice weight and feel, and a lovely variegated yarn.

This one is in two pieces.

Same texture, different color

The one thing I know is that whatever garment I make from this piece has to be able to be worn with each of the two coordinating ones above.

This one is a lovely lightweight crepe.

It took me a while to match patterns with fabrics, but I came up with the following design decisions: 

I'm thinking the right-hand view would be perfect in this fabric.

This is the fabric with moth holes, so I'll make a skirt that takes up a relatively small amount of fabric. That way I can cut around the problem area without too much trouble.

For the three coordinating fabrics, I want a purple dress and a blue dress, and a jacket that can be worn with either.

I like the view with the contrasting collar.

An elegant crepe deserves an elegant design.

So those are my current plans.  So far I have one dress cut out.  I haven't been motivated to work on my winter wool wardrobe very much, because it hasn't really been cold in Virginia yet this year.  If I had gotten my act together, I could have had at least one dress finished for my Christmas trip to Iowa (where I am now) to visit my parents.  It is colder here!  :p  But I'll get started in earnest when I get home.