What to make next?

Now I am starting to struggle. I have a huge pattern collection. I have a large fabric stash and my list of "to make items" seems to grow bigger by the week. Infact my fabric stash has grown huge so that its now all stored in Ikea under bed storage bags to keep it clean because it doesn't fit in any cupboards. It is not however under the bed but stuck piled up in a corner of my room where it threatens to become an avalanche at any moment. The problem is I have great intentions to make this or that and keep collecting all and anything that may come in useful for this or that project but I simply do not have enough time what with working and just life in general to make even a quarter of what seems to be on my list. I have owned this Simplicity 2757 - Arkivestry Pattern  pattern for years and never got round to trying it. Today I read a review of it:

http://bienaimeefashion.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/simplicity-2757-arkivestry-pattern.html

Its not a new post, its an old one, but still very useful to me. I find most of my hand made ( by me) clothing is simply not being worn so I decided a month or so ago to get to grips with my own style and try and make things I actually want to wear. This is surprisingly difficult when all patterns are so main-stream and frumpy in looks. That is until you look closer at their construction and get a bit arty - for want of a better description.

Anyway I have spent the last few weeks looking at loads of punk, emo, steam punk etc etc clothing and trying to work out how I can produce things for my own style. I do not want teenage clothing since I am certainly far too old for this but I desperately want to make clothing I genuinely want to wear. Not just the functional boring stuff that it seems I am meant to be making. So anyway I read this review about this pattern and have decided to give this a try. After all I already own it so I do not even need to by it and have lots of fabric that will work in this design. What I really want to do is use my faux leather to make some more "me" clothing because I really love my leggings that I made in three different colours of faux leather here: 25: Red faux leather trousers
 and here: 24: Red lace hoody - Burdastyle 01/2016 and black faux leather legging
 and here: 19: Green leather look leggings and have worn them loads but it seems a great shame to use all the faux leather I have just on trousers. I will wear them and love them but its just unadventurous so maybe time to make something a bit more challenging with it now I feel confident I can sew faux leather reasonably well. I am not sure I will ever find anymore of the faux leather fabric at an affordable price again because this was from ebay from Weston fabrics and was a bargain. Don't get me wrong, it still was not cheap but it was definitely cheaper than buying from a fabric store. I was pricing some up the other day and it was coming out at nearly £12 a meter. I have pieces ranging from 2m to 3.6m and never paid more than £6 for any piece I have and the red was really cheap at under £3 I think for 3 meters.

I reckon a leather corset top or even over dress would work so I am considering this right now. I just wonder if my sewing skills will be up to this kind of project because even when the pattern is advertised as "easy" I do not always find it to be easy for me to make.

Alternatively I have had this dress on my pinterest page for simply ages and would love to make it but so far have not decided on a pattern

I just love the straps. Very 80's! And quite simple to make. I would prefer to use a pattern though rather than attempt to draft my own because although some things work out fine when I self draft quite a few are mediocre and still others are unwearable and end up scrapped. Sad to waste my precious faux leather. So I am also trying to find a similar pattern from somewhere to recreate this dress.


So have you any ideas? What should I make with the rest of my faux leather? All ideas are welcome.

Thanks for reading:

Bracken