Planning A Patternmaking Portfolio

It's Sunday so it might be the wrong day to fear / antisipate business going slow (I know I'm being impatient) but there's a great way to plan ahead on what to do with any spare free time I may have.   Update my fashion squidoo pages (when they fix up the bugs on my lens),  review my fashion industry books,  but perhaps,  more importantly I should work on putting together some content for my own online patternmaking portfolio.  

I don't have any eco - friendly fabric,  but I do have a stock of fabric from years ago and some other materials I purchased from thrift stores.   So I should try to decide on what kind of designs to create that would demonstrate some serious patternmaking abilities.   Then I'll have to figure out how to take some decent photos (with my cell phone?  hahaha,  I'll probably  have a great new camera by then hopefully) to put on my portfolio pages.

The thing is here is that my sewing skills aren't that great, or atleast not as refined as I'd like them to be,  so I'll have to get past that to provide some visual 'credentials' for my patternmaking skills.   That shouldn't be too much trouble though,  usually when I sew I'm in a rush,  things rarely turn out perfect like that.   I'll just take my time so I can get it right.

I want to make some complex garments and some simple garments.  I think one garment should be a sort of empire waist baby doll slip with a keyhole detail at the centre front and slightly flared hemline.   The next design should be a princess seam dress with puff cap sleeves and cut out detailing in the sleeve and side panel areas.   I'm thinking this would need some kind of backing material or interfacing to stabilize and support the cut out areas neatly though.  I should also do a pair of pants with frontier pockets and an asymetrical jacket.  For the simpler designs I think I'll do a totally girly scalloped hem tulip skirt with fullness at the waisline and hips tapered to slim fit skirt width at the below the knee hemline.  I'd also like to do an interesting color block fitted vest.  

Yeah,  I'll work on these whenever I don't have clients or much work and post these projects on the sewing mamas forum too.   I'll plan ahead to take my time and make sure they turn out perfectly too.   Right now then,  I have to re-do my little figure templates and do my fashion illustrations for these designs first.   When I can,  I'll post the figure templates on my Squidoo lens too.