Resumé 2011 and goals for 2012

Hmm my goals for 2011 was denim, lingerie and blouses and let´s face it;I blew it!!!
2011 will always be the pink year for me and due to the reduction finbding nice bras at good prices was easy so I might have spent a lot more than expected on buying lingerie. Denim....Let´s take it into next year...
blouses, I made one during the very nice sewing retreat organized by Åsa. I´ll take blouses with me for next year too!
I did a lot of sleeveless things though, due to medical stuff etc...bought a lot of cardigans too!

So the goals for 2012:
Focusing on a few key pieces
I want to make a Odd Molly look alike knitted blazer using my knittingmachine
A couple of nice dresses for summer
There is that sampler sweather from Rowan that I´ve saved to do for 20 years and I want to make it with handspun yarns on the knittingmachine
I would like some pieces that say "night", after work oriented that I could not wear to work, a little fancy stuff. I bought fabric for a blouse when visiting Annika and I will sew it next year.
You can´t have too many shawles!
More spinning
There is a Vivienne Westwood skirt that I like to make. I adore both her and her clothes!
I need a slip or two
Have fun!

Prada style socks

I saw these socks from Prada´s fall fashion show earlier and thougt they where cool.

The first attemt top was not so good but the bottom rocks!

I have to weave in ends but don´t whey look great!?
They are knitted bottom up and then I reached the point there the braid would start I knitted the entire braid, then I picked up stitches at the sides and knitted the sock back and forward picking up stitches from the sides of the braid. On the curvy first sock I took one stitch/row but on the good ones ( there is two!) I knitted two of the picked up stitches together on every second row.I also added stitches mid back since my calves are quite wide
I used Drops Fabel and the braid is in Nepal

First machine knit item

In Seattle I went to Churchmouse yarn and tea out on Bainbridge Island. A very nice place both the shop and the island!
I was going to try out Annikas knittingmachine and wanted something easy to start with. I used one of the stores own patterns an a Berocco yarn with alpacka in a rusty shade I think 5 balls...

I knitted the bodypart on the machine and it went fast...at home I did the border using the Camomille shawl pattern by Amimono and finally did a little cowl and 2 rows of crochet for the lower edge

It´s really a nice way to knit a poncho and it can be made in many different yarns and textures...stripes...fair isle etc etc.
If you ever read a book called " Snow is falling on Cedar" It takes place on Bainbridge Island but a fictional one.
There was also a great coffeashop Blackbird café there I had my best carrotcake ever this far...and I have had quite a few....

PR weekend Europe 2012 Barcelona

I started a thread on PR about this as an event. go there and join the chat and please book your calenders

Sewing a la Colette

So I bought a new book. I haven´t got it yet but like the Burda stylebook this one has patterns too and they cost the a same, at least from Adlibris, a swedish net book shop.
http://www.colettepatterns.com/shop/colette-sewing-handbook a link to the homepage of Colette patterns.
The patterns seems to be popular on the sewing blogs and I bought the beignet pattern when I was in the US and yesterday I washed the mustard corduroi that I intend to use for the first skirt....I also have to find all the patterns that I bought there and probably stored in a good place...

Stamps

Look at these stamps. They are so nice that I might actually send a letter instead of an email!

Burdastyle sewing handbook

I love Burda, the patterns and the fit is great! I know a lot of people are complaining about the lack of instructions.
This book has great instructions not only on how to sew but also how to alter a pattern to 2 different looks, the looks are created by members of the Burdastyle homepage.
There are pattern for a A-line skirt, a shirt, a dress, a coat and a bag and part from the 2 illustrated versions there are 14 more of each garment to get inspired by.
The patterns are sized 32-46.
For sewers of all ages and the perfect X-mas gift for a young sewer.

Studio

My camera will not work so I can´t show you my KNITTING MACHINE!!!!
Hopefully I will have it up and running this weekend. It´s a brother medium knitter and I bought a new spongebar for it. They dont make brothers any more but a brand called Nova Knit works on brother machines so I can get supplies for it. The machine came with a lace carriage and a carriage that I can switch between four colors of yarn, and I can also do tuckwork, that means that some stitches are made through 2 rows.
All this stuff made me go for an idea I have been thinking about for a while and I now sleep in my livingroom and the bedroom is now only for sewing etc. Will probably work fine since I plan to keep all my crafty items in there.

Shopping in Seattle

We have been to a lot of Goodwills and fabric stores and I've bought a lot of patterns and some fabric and notions. We have been to two Pacific fabrics, JoAnn and some more "creative" stores. We also went to a pearl fair.

This is from across Pike Place Market

and this I think is on 4:th avenue. It's Pumpkin cake and the latte is clamed to be the best in Seattle

Mill Creek Main Street Yarn

I've been here only a short while but have already visited the local yarn store

and bought some yarn from a local artist. It's handdyed and contains wool, silk, nylon and silver and my plan is to mix it with a lace yarn in a matching color and knit it Camomille wise.

It's almost Halloween and pumpkins sales for 3 for 10$

and I also tested the local brew...in this case coffea...

Think Pink!

It´s October and it´s time for breast cancer awarness again. And believe me this year I´m more aware than ever about it...
It´s time to donate money either just donate or buy any of those products that will share part of the profit to research.
In Sweden we have a tradition that the ribbon have a different patterns printed on them each year It´s an honor to do the design and there´s some symbolism in it. This year there are six different designs!

The desingers this year are Per Holknekt, one of the founders of Odd Molly ( you know my feelings for their clothes....) and his wife Lena Philipsson

Lena is a wellknown singer and performer who looked like this when she started out and the other thing she was known for then was that she sewed her own clothes!!!both for stage and private.

Anyway the symbolism of this year is the embrace and that breastcancer and that it affects both sexes, 3 of the designs are malish and 3 femalish.
Finally the flowers I got from my colleages at the formal salubration of my birthday

Georgeous!

Stil 23272 top

I repin a lot of stuff on Pinterest and this top is one of my pins

I decided that I should sew it and had an Ottobre pattern in mind but found this dress while moving things in my sewing/bed room

and had a very different piece of fabric that was almost enought for the top I had to add a little seam on the back. I have no idea where this fabric came from nor the fibercontent. It does not have the drape of the original top but I have one more fabric that I want to make into this top, a vintage polkadot in blue given to me by a friend who found it at goodwill.

There´s been a lot of sewing lately but now I´m gonna work a couple of days.
The knife of my serger gave in yesterday so I removed it and are going to look for someone to sharpen it after work tomorrow, I believe that there is a place close to work.
I cut the top 21 cm under the mark for the ties and used ready made bias at the neck but I did not have to take in a little in the lower part of the armholes so next one will be made in a flash

Ottobre fall 2011 mod 7 Bubble pocket

I fell in love with dress instantly and I even used one of my most cherished fabric in my stash, its a brown cotton with a little elasta in it and tiny light, light pink dots thats more or a seed starting to grow...
Bought in Paris on the PR weekend there almost 2 years ago. I had 3 meters and used almost all of it. I made the dress 6 cm longer at cutting and then I hemmed it I added a double border to add another 6 cm. Reduced it a little at the armholes and I omitted the zipper. The back facing is cut smaller due to the zipper and has to be cut with more allowances due to this. I had to make the back facing a little wider to due to puckering. I´m not sure if this is due to the little elastic in the fabric...
I love the pockets on this dress and want to make another one instantly.....

Crafty Karin goes friendship bracelets

I´ve been making frienshipbracelets before but lately I´ve found some great ones on Pinterest tha lead me to this page with a lot of great patterns.
I use DMC floss for them but you can use any yarn, as an adult I like thin yarns but children can get great results with cotton knitting yarn. My plan was to bring this to do on the flight when I´ll be going to Seattle shortly I don´t thing anyone in airport security would mind...
I also decided that I need a new case for my camera so I did one in crochet very quilckly and topped it with a fancy botton from the stash.

I currently working on a dress from the latest Ottobre using one of my favourite fabrics that I was saving for a special project and it was worth the waiting. It´s one of the fabrics from the PR weekend in Paris. More on it later today...
You can also watch the MC Call dress fabric closeup here

Ottobre spring/summer 2011 mod 16, 5 and 7

This design is kind of interesting, iy does not have shoulderseams; the front is extended into the back like some sort of facing and the front is double so it´s a different way to get into the neckline issue with making jersey tops at home. It works well and in this case the neckline is flattering.
The fun thing with this design are the sleeves. They are double and the upper part is garthered using the framilon to the under part that´s in the correct size

I sewed the framilon to the right side of the fabric in this case it should have been attatched to the wrong side

Then I sewed the sleeves together stretching as I sewed....

Works like wonders each time.
The fabric is rayon jersey the same as on the yoke on the Violet Rose top and since I did not have enought fabric I used a black mesh for the lining. If I would do this again I would probably use the regular sleeve. This is a fun sleeve but one top with it is enought

How to garther jersey with Framilon (invisable elastic)

I used invisable elastic for lingerie and for stabilase the shoulder seams on knits but it took me many years to find out that the Framilon that so often are mentioned in Ottobres patterna where the same thing...and then it tock me some more years to decide to try it out and now I´m in love! It´s simple to sew, the result is great and you can get it almost everywhere even in Sweden...
I use the thin one that I guess is about 6 mm.
First you have to sew it to the part that is not going to be garthered and I prefer to do this with the 3-sted zig zag that propably has a totally different name in english. I sew it to the right side of the garment and just outside there the seam is going to be.

Then I pin the part that are going to be garthered to it right sides together and devide the ease with pins so the gartheres will be evenly over the area.

Now I sew the parts together...I´m not a skilled serger so I prefer doing this at first with my regular machine with slightly larger stitches like 3,5 mm.

When I came to the garthering part I stretch the fabric where the framilon is and continue sewing the entire seam

This is how it looks finished and the framilon is inside

so when I finally serge it it will be inside the seam but still doing the job as stabilizer.

And this is the finished top, the Violet Rose again in a grey rayon jersey for the yoke and som kind of ribbed knit of unknown fiber content for body and sleeves. Both fabrics are from Stof och Stil.

Ottobre fall 2011 Violet Rose ( mod 9 )

I´ve always liked the models from Ottobre. They are very wearable but I have done very little from them. I have read a lot of times of the use of "Framilon tape" and Known for some time that it´s a brand name for invisible elastic. They use it to garther fabric and since that is one thing I don´t like I decided to try the method and it´s so great!!!!
Since it was a muslin I thought about making a night T-shirt so I had this fabric from the ugly fabric swap in Copenhaguen some years ago, I think it was Maria´s fabric and that the color wasn´t good for her.
I didn´t see until now that the yoke is supposed to be double so I tried a new method here to the Jalie way and it did only OK mostly due to that my fabric does not have any elastic length wise, but will work better next time...


Look at those garthers!
I will make a tutural for this!

Mc Call 5974

Mc Call 5974...one of last years top rated pattern on PR and seen on many blogs and truly a great pattern, there are two versions one fakewrap and one singlepieced bodice. I made the last one and 3/4 sleeves in a striped fabric in dark green and black from the stash and I have no idea where I bought it, when and fibercontent...
This pattern is a Palmer Pletch pattern and that means that there are a lot of extra lines and instruction to fit the dress as you go ( and some before you start. There are extra wide sew allowances for this purpose and you know how I feel about sew alowances on the patterns...
i did some changes like raising the neckline some and adding extra fabric ( raising it a little bit more ) by doing the finishing different and taking in the side seams at chest level and about one cm at the front shoulders. This made it hard to set in the sleeves and if I should do it again ( I will; the wrap dress...) I will wait until the body is done and make changes to the sleeves before cutting them.
I also felt that the sleeve head was to high so I ended up using the sleevehead of a Jalie pattern.

This is how my dress looks and I think it will be a good transitional dress and a close up below:

Vogue 1250 DKNY dress

Yeah! I had to try it too! and it is a great dress, and so fast to sew. This is my second attempt I wasn´t careful enought with the pattern so one of them came in a wrong position, I might shorten it to a top but not today.
I even got my serger to work, I changes the needles and threaded it correctly...


I made some changes, I needed the lowerpart bigger so I cut the pattern and spreaded it and I also added the extra for the seat. I later took that amount of fabric away and some from the back since there where a little too much fabric there.
I followed the instruction but stabilized the shoulder seam.
The fabric is bought in Copenhaguen at Stof2000 short after byuing the aqua fabric and my plan was to make a top from it, since it was 2 meters for 50 crowns sale I bought more then needed so there was enought for a dress.
I would not mind making this dress again in a very very nice fabric and I would not mind paying extra for it course this dress is worth it
Well...there is a reason why this pattern seams to be everyones favourite this season!

Burda 4/2011 mod 140, again!

Aqua corduroi, not really my fabric but saw something nice in a knitting book and thought: why not? Aqua has been big this summer and I might as well sew the fabric and wear it late summer...early fall.
This version is true to the pattern, a pattern that I will through away now, there are many nice skirts out there to be sewed.
I used a sparebutton from a jeansjacket I think and couldn´t hammer it to hold so I used superglue, I can always replace it if it falls off.

The skirt is a bit wrinkled after wearing it to work ( started working halftime wedensday! YEY! )teamed it with a red top since I´ve seen many kitchens and quilts in that combo and I think I might prefer it in that matter...

Vogue 1236 take two

A kind of retro knit from the 1,5 meters cuts at Stof and Stil.
I had to make the dress smaller at the chest so I scooped out the armcycle to the smallest size and then I took it in about 2 cm on each side ( total of 8 cm ) I shortened it to a top by folding the hem to the " make-it-longer-or-shorter-here-mark "
I did this at sewing camp and Vibeke had made 2 dresses from this pattern too and had a beautiful!!!! fabric for a third dress she was going to wear at a wedding later this month. This is such a great pattern!

Burda Plus spring/summer 2010 mod 424

This shirt comes with some different looks but this one is 424 minus the pleated edge around the bib and I also made "real" plackets on the sleeves, the sizes run large.

Well it does not hang so well on AE...
I used a very soft pink cotton skirting bought at a small fabric shop in town that now is closed...The good thing is that we have an excellent notion store and I bought the buttons there ( I also looked at a Cover pro machine, just looked!)

I used a light blue grey thread for all the topstitching as well as the buttonholes, apart from the bib every seam is flatfelled

Burda 4/2011 mod 140

I´ve been to a sewing camp for three days and got a lot of things done including this skirt. The first picture is of a flea market skirt I bought, it´s a kind of german/ austrian look in a really nice fabric; a corduroi in cotton/rayon in a beautiful green variagated color

I used Burda 4/2011 mod 40 and raised it in the back adding a mid back seam and layed the front on the buttoned frontpiece. The original skirt was lined with a polyester lining, I used that for the pockets and added a black rayon lining

I tried to save as much of the cute stuff from the original skirt like the button holes and the little fake pocket.

The skirt is really nice with the sewed pleats and a nice basic skirt that I might do again.
Love the buttons!!!!