Happy new 2014

I´m sitting here with Roger and writing post number 500 ( That´s Pol Roger...I know what you where thinking....;-) )
This time of the year I usually share some goals and look back at the goals from last year. I went through the blog the other day and saw that there where more knitting than sewing and unfortunately that´s a sign that I spent to much time waiting for doctors appointment.
2013 will always be remembered as the year my mother passed away.
My mother can take credit for a lot of my crafty and sewing life, not by  passing on her knowledge...she really hated to sew and as I can recollect she knitted 2 sweathers in her lifetime. I think someone, or maybee the era told her that she was supposed to do that. She also took a sewing class when I was little and I can remember a skirt and lined jacket she made me when I must have been 7 years old, I can remember playing with the lining on the right arm that must have been slightly too long and I can also remember going to her sewing class to get fitted.
My mother did not show me how to sew, she said: - You can play with the machine as much as you want...and I did and tought myself through false and error, I wish I would have known about the internet back then...
My mother was a fenomenal cook and the last two years, after her stroke she passed on a lot of knowledge to my dad who easily whip up a majonnaise from scratch or a hollandaise to go with his fish,

Goals for 2014 is as always denim but one thing has changed, I always been intimidated by the distressing part, but after beeing to a lecture on back store sewing jeans that you are supposed to break in yourself, I think that´s the way to go for me. I found some pictures of for me a classic jeans skirt. Do you remember the front buttoned Lee skirt with the zig zag stitching? That´s what I´ll be making this year!

2013 was the year I fell in love with Liberty´s cottons.
I visited London twice, first time with my niece and second time with Maria and Vibeke for the PR gettogether. I also visited Ireland and Edinburgh and got some really nice wool pieces for future projects.
San Fransisco, loved everything about it and looking forward to Austin next year and the long time dream of mine; New Orleans!
I´m looking forward spending time in my sewingroom that I rent in the basement of my building as well as some more yarn stories, My local group has a KAL to finish twelve things next year and twelve unfinished things was not hard to find....


Me and Roger wish you a Happy New Year!

Endangered sheep mittens

I think I knitted these mittens 2 years ago, but when it comes to knitting it´s such a thing called weaving in the ends...and I did that two weeks ago....
There are two interesting things with these mittens, the first one is the wool that´s from an old swedish sheep called "Värmlandsfår" Värmland is like a county in the middle of Sweden close to Norway and the colors are natural, as I can recall it there was one more color.
The second interesting thing about them are that they are knitted spiralvise using 4 threads.
I started by knitting an I-cord and then picking up stitches from it, but now I learned a much better way to do it as I´m knitting Fiddleheads mittens ( Ravelry)
The inspiration was a red and grey striped mitt by Filippa K some years ago but I think mines are nicer thanks to the spirals

It´s the inside that counts

You can never have too much shoes or too much bags! Right? And the fun part is that no matter how many bags you have there´s always a suitable bag that´s missing...Before my trip to Ireland I realised that I needed a bag that would be large enough for ordinary stuff and would also have room for my camera and since my beloved Ness bag is to winterly I decided to sew one. The hardest part with this bag was to find the closures and I still havn´t bought the feets for it...

I used Burda style sewing books bag pattern as a guide and did some changes to suit me. The flap/opening could have been slightly longer but apart from that I like it! I used denim from Stof och stil for the outer layer and quilters cottons from stash for the lining

 

 I like doing linings for bags becourse you can custumize them, here I did a variation of pockets, the zip pocket is sized after my passport and the hook is a idea that I stole from my Ness bag

 I might as well show you my thimblecollection as it´s visable in the background, it´s a combo of silver, plastic, china and advertising thimbles. The chimney sweeper has it´s own story. My maternal granpa was chimney sweeper as well as most of his brothers and also my oncle. My oncle collects chimney sweeping things and when he saw my collection he decided that I should have this one, you can even flip his hat

Addicted to Craftsy

I bought two new classes on Black Friday sale. The lowest prices I´ve ever seen part from the zipper class...
The new one´s are Lynda Maynard about edges ( I will never sew a facing agin!) and Kenneth D King´s Jeanious.
I took a serger class two weeks ago with some friends and no wonder I had problem with my serger since I didn´t tread it correctly and had wrong settings and you name it! After class when I was about to start sewing on my own machine the stitch lenght and the dif. feeder was stuck! totally stuck! A trip to the "doctor" and some money later it´s now working. I have to work on my serging skills and my jersey sewing in general and I started on a t-shirt from an old Burda with a V-neck and used Lyndas method. This trick was worth the price of the class!!!
I also "found" a dress and a Sandra Betzina top already cut ...I think I did that 2 years ago...
the good thing is that I don´t have to work until Wedensday so I´m going to spend some qualitytime for the next three days.

WIP burda dress on the bias

I´m currently working on this Burda dress from the Plus issue as well as from "original" Burda from last summer maybee...

 



A nice neckline Always get me going and this is no exeption, might use some extra steam to fix the last gathering on the left side. The fabric is a charcole rayon from Stoff and Stil bought 5 meters since rayons are hard to find in nice colors ( also had a brownish colorway, also 5 meters in stash) good since there was something wrong in the weft so I have to use more yardage than planned.

 Even thought sleeveless is a nice option I really like nice sleeves too, this dress had two options and this little  elastic garthered version was my choise, didn´t have any black elastic at home so I went for grey
I used some Guterman iron-on stabilizing tape that I added befor taking the pattern off from the fabric I stabilized the neckline minus the garthering part, the skoulder seams and the armcycles. Important when sewing bias garment. It´s also important that it can hang so the bias streaches properly and it´s been hanging for a week now so I´ll be finishing it up this weekend.

The dress from the Plus issue is a petite option but I made the bodice part longer as I always do and since there´s no waistline to be conserned about,  it´ll probably be fine. I have a long bodice for "normal" sizes too and would like to try some more of the petits to see how they differ from a "normal" size, a normal tweek would also be to shorten the pattern in the armhole section, something that might be done in petits or at least should bee.
This is a nice dress for me that will keep me cool without letting those near me freeze...

Last week I took a serger class at a great local sewing mashine/ notion store that we have in Malmö called Gregers Sy. I wish I had done that before, no wonder my serger was not working as it should since some of the setting was totally off, I´ve not been sewing on it for two years when I had the knife sharpened... Now I discovered that I can´t move the differential feeding so next week I will have her maintained.

Frida Kahlo at Arken

My dad and I went over the bridge ( the famous one from the TV show) to Arken outside Copenhagen where whey are showing a Frida Kahlo exibition until january 12 next year;  based on her self portaits. There where a lot of other things showing too, ( also some of Diego´s stuff) like pictures from her childhood, also private movies  and some of her dresses.

 

I didn´t know a lot about her before and I have not seen the movie, she was more beautiful than her paintings and quite a media star.

 These dresses are really not to my liking, maybee it´s a cultural thing but I can like color combinations and if I lived in a warmer country I might dress up similar

I think I actually cought my dad in this photo....at least it looks like him...

Royal dresses at Katrinetorp

Katrinetorp belongs to the city of Malmö and was a old country house for a wealthy family once but today it´s a really nice café and restaurant that I like to visit, there´s a big garden or gardens, one is a vegetable garden, one an "English garden" and one more formal, maybe french. There are also an antique shop and a shop with en exibitionhall and until sunday they are showing evening clothes of Marianne Bernadotte. She´s a duchesse and aunt of the king. She was married to Sigvard who is known as the "design prins" . I was not allowed to take pictures but a fast google search found this pics that I show here.

The show was great becourse you can really come close to the clothes and look at fabrics, cuts and other details. Most of the dresses where by Balmain

Marianne Bernadotte is a very stylish lady and google her name to see great clothes!

This picture is not the best but it´s the only one I could find on here wearing this dress that was one of my favourites. It´s blue lace and silksatin(?) and parts of the lace is embroidered with sequens and the contrast between the embroidered parts and the plain is fantastic! so is the bust area with pleats...

 

 This is also one of my favourite, it´s silk organza and the sleeves appliqued raw edge cirkels are so great and they have also used the pattern of the fabric to sew an extra seam to form the bust part.

A real feast for the Eyes or at least mine... Know that this exibition where in Linköping Before but I don´t know if it will travel further. Hopefully it will

Back on the (sewing and travelling ) track again

Hi again! I´m back and I´m sewing again. First I would like to show you this dress from Onion 2023 without the sleeve lining, I´ve made it once Before and this time I omitted the FBA and used a Liberty cotton bought from Shaukat in London. I decided I like cotton dresses and if I wear them in not-so-summery-colors-and-patterns they works all year around. We do have central heating at work and I like cardigans...

 

 A closeup on the fabric that you almost can see. Since I made it before it was a fast thing to do and becourse I have difficulties ironing the original sleeves on the grey combo dress I made this spring I Think this is a nice variation. Liberty cottons are so nice to sew and wear and better priced at Shaukat than on Libertys!

 I also made a new skirt using an old favourite as guide, the fabric is from Edinburgh fabrics and bought earlier this year and the original skirt is from Zizzi, this amazing danish brand of plus size clothing. The back waistband is elastic and since I´ve been to the US lately I have a good amount of the no-fold elastic that´s anavailable here

 When I was almost finished I found this hole in the fabric:

 the solution was to add a coin pocket for the leftie that I´m not.

 Part from my allowances of two Liberty cottons Vibeke and I hit Goldhauk Road and did some great shopping of natural fibers, silk, rayon and cottons

 There was a PR meet up this weekend but I spent some more time with Vibeke and Maria.

Maria and I had afternoon tea close to Carnaby street and if you follow the link on her name you get a hint of how the extended weekend was spent. Maria sells Onion patterns as well as her own patterns also.

Ireland 2013

I spent 10 nights on Ireland in august, first I went to Galway there I meet Karina who took this pic of me and Oscar Wilde

 

 

 I saw a lot of Celtic crosses, and took quite a few photos of various knots

 Saw a lot of stones, they are called drywalls since there are nothing to glue them together

 Karina took me on a trip to the Country Life museum in Castlebar that showed a lot of old Crafts like this tecnique on making roofs from straw, it´s a traditional method where I live too but made slightly different

 The museum had some Aran knitting displayed too. There was a lot of nice knitted stuff in the stores and those with a zipper had a zipper pull with a celtic knot

 We visited a woman way up on Connemara, Karina had to call her twice becourse we got lost and it was pouring!!! She is a felt artist as you can see on the picture below  and she gives classes on a lot of other crafts too. She also sells fiber for spinning and Karina bought wool for a sweather and I bought fun stuff like silk hankies, corn, nettles, linen-jute, linen that I will have fun with

 

 And I had some pints of Guiness too and also visited the Storehouse in Dublin, Here´s an artistic pint, look at the foam part it´s made from fabric with some lace

Oysters are a favourite of mine and I had plenty of them!

I visited the Titanic museum in Belfast that was really a museum on building ships and about Belfast and I learned theat the linen industri is from northern Ireland and this is a photo from a photo in the exibition

Both the Titanic and the Country Life museum has photos that showed the True life and the Idyllic life in Pictures and I´m really happy that I live now and where I live...

I also saw some beautiful scenery, this is Giants causeway.
I visited some fabric stores, none of them Worth writing about, a very nice yarnstore in Dublin called This is knit! and my new love is called Avoca, Next time I go to Dublin I will take a tour to there mill. The store is fantastic and the cafe is great and I could have spent a lot more money there, they sell Merchant and Mill Products and I bought pins and two mugs that I´m unable to load in this post



Lace again

And suddenly I was  proud owner of three more shawls,

I have a tendency not to block at once...
This one is called Scotish tistle and I chosed the pattern for it when I was going to Edinburg, thought it was suitable. One of the borders are a frost flower but this yarn does not let the pattern show off. The pic is from the blockning, I´ll do it on my bed, and I sometimed put the matress on top and sleep on it to...

I let the shawl soak for about 10 minutes in lukewarm water with a little shampoo in it and when I block I´m brutal!!! and I use pins with glass nobs so they don´t get stuck in tha matress and they are also easier to remowe, I just bought new ones, not that I needed but there was this little cute retro tin...

In Edinburg I bought the yarn for the Lotus shawl that I knitted on when I was in San Fransisco and in San Fransisco I bought a recycled denim yarn that I have to have a plan for when I´m going to Ireland....

Knitting shawls when travelling is super it´s really packing light



The vintage pattern selector

Since I´m unable to load pictures both to FB and blogspot I´ll write a little about a new sewingbook I bought.
It´s called The Vintage Pattern Selector and the author is Jo Barnfield.
I like vintage looks but think that the whole kit is not suitable for my age and posture , It will look "matrony" as Heidi would have said. But I love all the different details in vintage pattern and I can use it in a more modern way and what´s what this book gives you!
They show you a vintage typical pattern and then pics on how you can style it in a modern way, these pics are both from patterncomanies like Colette and various manifactors and there´s patterns too!!!
Patterns for skirt, dresses, lingerie and accessoires too. They are sized S to XL and comes on a dvd.
There are not any pics of clothes from the patterns and I miss that.

Right side Burda July mod 136 ( or so I think...)

 I used my very nice Liberty print, quite busy and with a little stretch in it. A true summer dress! Had a little messup...sewed the gatherings  towards the right side of dress so I made som bias binding and covered the mistake that really is a design detail now. I also used bias binding for the neckline and sleeve caps, tiny ones. The fabric is from Shaukat and I´m so glad I´ll probably will be going back to London in october...

 detail of the mistake/ designer detail, the fabric is almost identical on both sides and not my usual choise

I also knitted and blocked a variation of Haruni in a matching color. The yarn is "Gotländsk pälsull" a domestic yarn, bought two shades of blue this one is called denim and the other one is more navy, very navy!

Bubbelless bubbeldress

I challenged myself to making one nice dress for my birthday and one for christmas, My birthday was a couple of days ago but I´m going out with a friend to salubrate tonight so in my world I made it!

 The fabric is an eyelet cotton and a cotton voile for underlining, both from Stone Mountain in Berkely. I used the voile for the interfacing to get minimum bulk. The eyelet is a little uneven blue at some parts but I think it´s becource I left it in the laundry mashine and one of my neigbours foung it when it was there turn so it dried all mashed up and was kind of wrinkly when I found it. The entire dress feels like it has structure and I really like it. I used the same pattern as this one but did some modification and I like the finished dress very much.

 I´ve started to use blue clothes again and this will be a summer favourite this year.
Summer has finally arrived here and the cat likes the balcony a lot

Think outside the box!

This dress is from for me the latest Burda, it´s in the plus section and I´m wild about it!!

I´ve seen som opinions about it on the net how ridicoulous it looks etc. In the magazine the dress is made in a sequened fabric and there is a optional top too, cut where the lower gathering is on the left side.  I have to agree of the opinions BUT look at the sides and think of them with the same design on the other side and there are two really nice dresses and it´s easy to make a straight skirt on the left side too for a third variation. I´ve made a muslin today of twice the left side and I´m planning to use one of my nice libertyprints for it!

The dress is so nicely shaped, unfortunately I have to go to work so I have to wait until tomorrow to cut it!

 

Lace addiction

I like everything about lace shawls, I love shopping for yarn, knitting, wearing, giving them away and I actually love to watch how they transform during blocking. I always bring a lace knit when I´m travelling since it´s lightweight and last a long time. This shawl is called "Lotus" and is knitted in a yarn I bought in Edinburgh and I knitted on it in San Fransisco. It´s dyed by a local dyer and that´s how I prefer to shop. I have two more shawls to block, one of them was finished yesterday and I already has a new one on the needles; a variation on a Haruni only using the last border.

The great thing about these shawls are that you can wear them two ways; over your shoulder for a light warmth or around the neck as a scarf. So you really need one in each color...