T-shirt from Sewing Life/ Sysiden/ MariaDenmark

I´m surpriced that many people in Sweden are unfamiliar with MariaDenmark patterns. Not only does she make patterns, she makes a bi mounthly magazine that comes with patterns and a lot of tips on how to fit them and style them as well as other articles, somtimes there are videos showing tricky details. I´ve known Maria since she started MariaDenmark and was selling Onion patterns with english translations.
The magazine; Sysiden that also is published in english as Sewing Life usually comes with 2 patterns and usually you can mix them for more styles.

The latest issue containes 3 different tops and I made the slouchy T but hacked a neckline that I learned from a Craftsy class  that I forgot the name of but will update when I find out. I also bought a book by the teacher.

I really like this neckline a lot and I think on the cover ov the book it was used on the shoulders of a boat necked top in a woven fabric . I think it looks really good. The fabric is a rayon jersey that I bought last year at Stof2000 in Copenhagen. I was not supposed to buy anything but this has all the colors I like: pink, grey, black and teal.
I usually like solid tops and patterns on the skirt but this one I like a lot, slowly changing maybee...

I´ve never been comfy with making Tee´s but my cover machine and binding attachment are slowly changing that. I Think this is a really good pattern, it fits nicely over the shoulders and armhole and I will make more from it and will also hack the neckline.
I actually cut one more at once in what I thought was a cotton-linen blend but a quick steam on the neck line said polyester....

I made this at a sewing weekend and I usually don´t wear sweatpants outside of my home...

Sequence by PetiteKnit

I saw this sweather in a very nice yarnstore in Aarhus while on vacation last summer. The yarn used was quite expensive...but I found the cutest little yarn store in a small village called Amager and bought most of the yarn there. I used Coast that´s a 50%cotton 50% wool and mixed it with a silk mohair lace yarn exept for the green part where I used a supersoft wool yarn. The supersoft and Coast are sold by different stores as there own yarn and if you want to order online Holst is a good sourse. The reason why I did not buy all of my yarn ther is that a miscalculated and bought only one ball of the mohair when needed two. There are different brands of the mohair/silk yarn

You can use any fingering and a lace silk mohair for this one, the rusty part have colors more apart than the other and creates a more variagated look. I made the biggest size...I think and since the entire sweather is made in 1 knit, 1 purl I could have used a smaller size. according to the pattern the final part of the sleeves should have been the green color but when everything was finished it was only the cuffs missing and I used the grey and I think it was an exelent choise! 

The sweather is lightweight and a fun knit due to the different colors. I used it a lot under a coat riding my bike for work.

Take an extra look on the dress behind, that´s my "crazy cat lady" dress, not made by me but by my favourite designer NygårdsAnna. 

Dame Zandra Rhodes

When I was in London I went to the Fashion and textile museum. It was founded by Zandra Rhodes in 2003 and I believe she lives on the second floor and who would blame her...I love the neigbourhood, took a bus from Victoria station. It was the last day of the Zandra Rhodes exibit and the Norman Hartnell as well. I knew that Sandra had pink hair and made colorful clothes but I found that the clothes was not as wacky as I´ve expected...the colors where Lovely and the details of the clothes also.

This is something I saw a lot of a play with sheer and underlining with another fabric to avoid transparancy, and small beads and embellishment

This dress is fun to watch how she used a larger print in a cool way

This is a detail of the sleeve with Little beads attached….Lovely...

and this is the drawing of the design for Printing the fabric

and so is this

so they where showing the whole process and it was very interesting, you can also see the indian influences

The Oslo hat- the mohair edition

The Oslo hat is a popular pattern but I went for the mohair edition 1 fingering and one mohair/silk tread. The burgundy is some kind of Arwetta wool yarn ans Isager silk-mohair and the denim blue is common treads or uncommon treads a sock yarn and a silk-mohair called Ito, the blue ones is from Loop, bought 2 years apart and get a really nice denimmy color. Loop is one of the nicest yarn stores I know and if you´re ever in London you must go there. It´s in Islington and the subway station is Angel. Not far from there is Ray Stitch that is a really nice fabric store and if you´re in to indiepatterns but not PDF you´ll find a nice selection here. It´s a really nice area to stroll with coffea shops, restaurants and antique stores
The Burgundy yarn is from a yarn store in Gothenburg that I cant remember the name of, It´s small and very Downtown and also very nice!

Ok the hat. It has several sizes but my gauge was totally off so finally I had to cast on 150 stitches instead of 108. as you can see on the picture below you secure the inner brim and the brim is 3 layer thick and veeeery warm and I mean veeeery. It
It´s an easy knit and It does not take so much yarn and I´ve seen verions of it in two colors that are Lovely!

The edge will roll and so I thought for the second one I will make an edge that not will roll but it was to narrow so maybe for my third hat....

Mary Quant earrings

Where was a great variations of souvenirs for the Mary Quant exibit and for different wallets. 

 Since I´m an earring person and my hands where to big for the bangles I bought these two.

Mary Quant at Victoria and Albert

There´s a Mary Quant Exibit at Victoria and Albert Museum in London and it will end february 16 so hurry! It´s worth the trip!

Before the exibit Mary Quant was for me all about short skirts but she was about so much more! All the photos here are the dresses that I remembered...remembered and remembered...I´m born in 1961 but when I walk through the exibit I can see how she must have influenced me both as a child ( ok how my mother dressed me) and how I dressed myself as a teenager and what I wanted to sew for myself. The use of wool jersey is so inspiring and the color blocking. The zipper with a ring to pull is my new detail that I want to put on my next garment. I´m totally in love with the rain capes and some of the dresses that I want slightly longer.... and the skirt and vest with the red backing of the vest....

The dresses all tells a story from the one who bought them, how much they payed and what´s that equals today and how the used the dresses and there are also interviews with Mary showing on screens,

If you want to sew your own Mary Quant minidress where is a free pattern for one and if you want the stripy dress above too there´s also a pattern for that one, its called Georgie .

There are also some great souvenirs from this show, I bought myself two earrings.

Creattiva Bergamo

In september I packed my stuff and two of my sewing machines and went for a vacation in Italy. I rented a little "nest" in Ravenna for 2,5 week and walked and drove a lot around Emilia Romagna but also visited Bergamo for the Bergamo Creattiva a fair that had I think over 300 vendors, not much fabric for clothes but I´ve learned that there is another fair for that called Abilmente. Since my pictures are a lot messed up here I´m just going to write texts explaining  what´s in them

There was a lot of this, you crochet bags from synthetic cord and use readymade bottoms and in this case flap from synthetic leather. I don´t really care a lot for this look but it gives me a lot of options to buy things for the bags I sew

Here are a lot of straps for bags to chose from

This is a view from the room I rented outside Bergamo, I even found a small merceria there an a remnant of black Chanel wool

A lot of these kind of homedec and a lot of patchwork too

The lines where fast when I arrived early, they where not when I was to have lunch....

There was a Contest kind of like Project Runway during the Fiera

More of the bagmaking stuff

Here are ready made bottoms that you should start your crochet from

Here are something to start you of crocheing a backpack

Part of the Fiera was dedicated to woodwork and I just loved this chair, floor and bench!!!!!

These are clousures and something to add straps to that I bought, the prices are OK the clasp to the right 10 euro, 8 for the biggest one and 4 for the smaller

Fatto a mano Made by Hand just as I saw on Dolce and Gabbana´s men´s Collection on instagram today

I also bought some yarn from the industry, Wish it would have been more of that. The Fiera was fun but next time I would like to look more at fabric so maybe Abilmente is an option