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: