OWOP!
I beg your pardon?
OWOP! One Week, One Pattern!
What's that?
It's a group project which will see us wearing garments we've made from one sewing pattern every day for a week, Saturday 24th to Friday 30th March 2012.
Why would you do that?
It's about celebrating those sewing patterns that we love so much we use them again and again. Many of us have a special sewing pattern that is so wearable, practical, versatile, beautiful or for whatever reason it never gets time to gather dust on the shelf before we whip it out again. Personally I'm really interested to find out what other people's favourite patterns are. Plus the exercise may get us to reflect on how much we use the patterns in our stash, or what factors make a well-used pattern.
It's also an exercise in restyling what's essentially one style garment (or it may literally only be one garment that you've made), pushing the boundaries of its versatility by creating seven outfit variations out of it. Who needs more clothes when you can remix the ones you've already got?
Early indications are that about 90 people are going to participate, which is awesome!
Sounds genius! How do I play?
1) To sign up to the project, please leave a comment below in the following format (this will help me collate the contributions into a fascinating quantitative and qualitative analysis post, possibly involving pie charts):
- Pattern company + pattern name + garment type
(eg. Sewaholic Pendrell blouse OR self-drafted skirt OR McCalls 2401 dress)
- What you like about the pattern to make it up lots of times
(eg. "It's the kind of thing I can wear to work every day, plus it's got bows on" or whatever)
2) Starting Saturday 24th March, wear things you've made from one pattern for seven consecutive days. Take a photo each day to show how you've restyled it / them (see my Beignet week from last year).
3) At the end of the week I'll ask for links to your photos if you care to share so I can create a round-up post of participants. Please keep all 7 photos on one web page. If you leave a link to your photos or blog, I'll assume this means you consent to me borrowing a photo or two for the round-up post - or if you'd rather I didn't, just say so when you leave a link. You may also want to share your reflections on the process.
Do I have to have a blog to join in?
Nope! This is a great project for non-bloggers to join in with. How about uploading your photos to a Pinterest board or a Flickr set and sharing the link?
I hate posing for photos though...
I can totally sympathise with that. You don't have to be in the photos. How about arranging the outfits on the floor, on a hanger or on a dress form?
I can't do that week. Can I play another time?
Sure! Just leave your details in the same way whenever you decide to do an OWOP! week. I'll keep track of people who play along on other dates and do an occasional round up post. In fact, you might want to do it multiple times with different patterns, whenever you feel like it.
I really want to do it, but I've only made one version of my favourite pattern...
Just think of the kudos you'd get if you only wore that one garment all week! (Just to clarify, you can wear other things with it, I'm not advocating going topless with your favourite skirt, but if it's the only skirt you wear all week that'd be pretty cool.)
Anything else I should know?
Just that it's going to be awesome. Did I mention that pie charts might be involved? And prizes, oh yes.
Want to add a button to your blog? Grab the code in the box below:
