GI Jane or Where have all the flowers gone?

The 19 buttondress are in progress and I´m adapting a Burda shirt dress with mixed results, my main problem right now is that I can´t "shoot from the hip" It´s to tight there and it should not be according to measurement and I don´t have the energy to find out how it happened. I just know how I will deal with it.
I will also rip the seam on the right pocket flap that I´m not content with

I added some glamour on the left side with a batch and have one more for the sleeve that I´m currently working on.

And here´s where the flower went

There´s alot of stitching and since I´m making flat felled seams a little more to consider and a lot more timeconsuming but fun and I like the result. I bought 3 meters of fabric at first but had to go back for a little more and came home with another additional fabric that I will have to wash before I can finish the dress

This is a picture from the other day when I took a walk to alocal market for groceries. Feel the smell?

Na Craga

I wanted a classic Aran for ages and bought this yarn called Navia at the sale, it´s mixture of faroese, shetlandic and australian lambs wool. A nice 3 ply that knits nicely on needles 4,5.
I borrowed Alice Starmore´s book at the library and will soon add it to my own library. I fell in love with this model instantly and even though this yarn is thicker than my usual preferences I like knitting with it. I payed 200 dkr for 20 balls. a very good price!

Sad news

My favourite yarnstore in Copenhaguen are closing down.
They start 50 % sale on tuesday and that just happened to be the day I´ll be in town...
I got money (in danish crowns) from my colleagues to spend on a luxury day in Copenhaguen or yarn, fabric etc. The good thing is that it´s identical for me;-)
I will also look for green or kaki fabric for the dress. I have a rather large "collection" of hammer-on-buttons from various items, the ones when you get a spare one in a little bag, so the plan is to use them for the dress so all buttons will be different.
Wishing you all a happy easter, I´m at my parents house and we are combining dad,s birthday dinner with easter.
The weather is really nice and I spend a lot of time sitting in the sun.

19 button dress

I saw this dress in a magazine in light wash denim and decided I wanted one but in army green or maybee something like on this picture. It´s a Tommy Hilfiger dress and have some nice details like the bands on the sleeves and the pockets. and a lot of buttonholes to sew....

Fabric shopping

Not beeing able to attend PR weekend in Bryssels last weekend did not stop me from shopping for fabrics ( or yarn for that matter...)
Very close to my parents house is a huge fabricstore. They have a lot of crap or should I say used to have a lot of crap, I think due to change of ownership it has been better. Fabrics are arranged due to color and most things are not marked with fiber content. There´s a lot of old fabrics and I think they by leftovers, but the pricing is rather fair and last week I found a trolley with shirtfabrics, probably of italian origin and they where going to be folded and put in the shelves there they would disappear...sadly...
I bought 2 2 meters pieces and went back the day after for more
from left
Yellow chambray type of fabric
Light blue twill weave
Red shirtstripe
Brown green stripe that I had in my stash for years and made a very nice blouse with last fall, of course with FBA...saved the buttons I used tealish mother of pearl buttons and I know this will work with teal piping. It´s almost like not buying any fabric...
Pink shirting from a fabric store in Malmö
Flowery fabric for a blouse, it´s the same fabric as for my dress for the wedding that I mad last summer but with a different print and a totally different price...
Today I´m going to do some alterations and finishing including hemming a dress I made 10 ? years ago???
and I have rotated the furniture a little more...

McCall 5586

I rarely use other patterns than Burda and Onion but this pattern came into my stash last year I think

It´s now out of print, but I like it I think it makes nice summer tops and could easily be made into dresses.
This fabric a rayon print I found at the attic a couple of months ago and has apparently been cut in some kind of wrapdress that I did not want today

I did not want the brown border but needed it for the backing of the yoke and I used my mean ironing machine to attach it, works like a charm everytime!!!

I read a review that said that it was big under the arms so I decided to sew the side seams last and when trying it on it was very big and low cut so I used my quilters ruler and cut off 4 cm at top tapering to pattern width at hem. The top is also shortened by 6 cm

When going through all the stuff from the wardrobe clean out I found that I used to do really nice stuff and lately I´ve been sewing fast so I decided it was time for a change so to try something new I did french seams at the sides that provides a clean finish.
I have plans to add "crafty" stuff to the yoke. Let´s see if I have time tomorrow to go shopping for some.
I spent the day reorganizing or redecorate my sewing/bedroom for making sewing easier and more fun.

Cleaned out the closet

And there are two more boxes...and maybee some more...
New start!

Green of Envy shawl

A shawl in a colorway and style that I´m really fond of from the start.
I had 2 hanks of Lorna´s lace´s sockyarn in Envy that I payed to much for...I never liked the colorway and tried to knit socks but no love. Finally mixing it with green alpacka toned down the variagations in it. There are a brighter green to and the beige border is a danish yarn containing merino and mohair.

LIKE LIKE LIKE

At the fair

It´s been the annual Sewing fair in Malmö and as usual I did not take many pictures and as ususal the South Swedish handicraftorganisation brought great things to show




Some of these are old and some new samples of south swedish wool embroidery, the stitches are stemstitch, chainstitch and the satin stitch is done so the "satin" is only on the outer part of the cloth, to save yarn.
Here´s my attemt to do this, a style that I like so much

Lingerie revival

When it comes to bras I have actually nothing to wear and since the time thet I will need somthing is coming closer.
I bought a bra and pantie that does not fit me properly and I´m going to re sew the cups of it on a nice day... Anyway I used the cup that I modified a little and my old bra band that I liked and made two bras. This is the second bra in a kind of retro style:

The panties are from the latest Ottobre and I added a 5 cm/ 2 inches band of the grey fabric to match the bra:
This is the first bra in white with a lace that has light light pink roses

I used all lace so I could not make any matching panties for it.
Here is another pantie from the ottobre pattern in a flowery fabric. I think it matches the old pantie in pink that I used to have a matching bra for...That fabric is from Elingeria and I´m going to order some more to make me another one

I also been knitting. I bought two hanks of Lorna´s laces Envy yarn a long time ago and did not like it, but here I´m mixing it with a green Drops alpacka ( that I must go and buy one more ball for tomorrow )The plan is to add a lace border in a lighter green or a tan that I have in my stash. Alpacka have a tendency to lose it´s shape but mixing it with a sockyarn will hopefully make it more stable.

Nan Hedenrå

I think I+m rather known for my fleamarket finds and that I think that a lot of things need a good home like mine...
The other day I found alot of lacemaking supplies including a lot of patterns all marked to be designed by Nan Hedenrå. A search on google does not help, this woman is unknowen to cyberworld.



I haven´t been doing this for years but now I have some time and some of the patterns are not even pierced...
Still don´t know who Nan was. There is one man by the name of Hedenrå though but his wifes name was not Nan. I´m thinking of giving him a call.
There are differnt ways of doing laces, these patterns are of Vadstena type , in Skåne there I live laces are made on striped fabric and in Dalarna they are made on plaid fabric ...or the other way around.
In the boc there where a lot of "stars" or small tablecloths that I think I could use on blouses as ornaments so I might be at it again!

Shopping spree

I´ve been doing some fabric shooping the other days. First I bought the babycorduroi in aqua that I´m gonna make a skirt from, take a look at the Ottobre skirt on the next picture. The other two are knits that I´m going to make something nice from maybee with a empire cut. I bought the knits in Copenhagen and the fact that one of them matched the corduroi was a happy coinsident.


I also got 4 yards of viscose lining fabric and tuesday I booked the laundry room to get them all prewashed.
I wonder why Ottobre never can tell how long the skirts are, it would be a big help when buying fabric.
Aqua is nothing I have in my closet but a skirt for spring is always nice...

Fair Isle shawl

I did this before new year and I´ve used it a lot!
I always had a fear for fair isle but working with Kauni wool was easy. The yarn is variagated so I´ve used two colorways and some extra yarn for the back of the border ( Rauma Finull)



Right now I´m working on a cardigan with some fair isle knitting as well and using alpacka is a very different thing when it cames to doing stranded work.
The shawl is done in the round and cut open. It´s a ravelry pattern but the borders are my own.

DeFBAing clothes

I did some very nice shirts this fall, draping the front to make sure the bust dart was the correct size and correct position. These shirts now add to my button stash...
The summer dress that I whore for the wedding will be dartless and altered and I praise all the clothes I made being too lazy to do any FBA and digging out my empire cut disasters and thinking of giving the Kwik Sew Wrap Top a new chance.
Will start work again on monday ( Yey!!!!) and have an appointment with my new doctor;the onkologist on thursday to discuss and plan chemo. My need for clothes are very small right now but I´m working on my second chemo hat a 70-style something in crochet. I have to reload my camera and show you pics. The first one is a simple 2K2P hat in drops new alpack silk baby yarn.
I also started a yoke cardigan. I need thin cardigans for work in the summertime. This one uses the alpacka silk yarn too and some alpacka for the Fair Isle parts.

Left over yarns

House of Dagmar is a swedish clothingcompany. I saw this sweather in a magazine and did not realise that it was so short, but I did not intend to buy it anyway I just thought it was a good inspiration for leftover yarns

Sew along

I love to join a lot of things like sewalongs!
I joined a bra-panty sew along there I will save the bras for later and start with making panties. I recently bought a couple of "Sloggi" panties and they are so great!!!!I+ve forgotten how great they are. I think Sloggi is a scandinavian thing and at half price it´s OK to buy some. I also bought 2 bras at the supermarket to wear during the healing period, 10 euro fot two, really dull boring stuff. I´m supposted to wear a bra over the comfort bra that I´ll be wearing 24/7.
PR has a yearly one garment a month sew along and I+ll have my own verion of that that include finishing items and update the fit in different ways. I´m starting with a bolero top that´s to big over the chest and that I just bought.

Whatever happened to 2010?

When I wrote in January last year about my ambitions for this year I wrote:
Lingerie
Denim sewing and distressing
Basic and not so basic shirts
Make myself nice summer work clothes
Going to Copenhaguen for more knittingcafée knitting
Finishing a few knitting projects
Chanel 2.55 sewing
And the results are:
Lingerie, yes I did a lot of that!
Denim sewing and distressing, Yes I sewed a lot of denim and liked it but the distressing part did not go so well
Basic and noy so basic shirts, made one
Nice summer work clothes, I bought some but I made one nice dress
Going to Copenhagen for knittingcafées. Yes I did and made som new friends
Finishing a few knitting project. Yes I did, I finished I frogged and I threw
Chanel 2.55 sewing Yes!!!!

Goals for 2011:
Denim goes on
Lingerie
Blouses

My real goal for 2011 is getting well from the breastcancer that I was diagnosed with the day before New Years Eve and operated for two days ago. The operation included a breast reduction so FBA will be a thing of the past...

Paper craft

As a sewer, knitter and a lot of other things I collect a lot of stuff that will be good for something sometime. Years ago I bought a tall chest of drawers size of a paper. Half of it; size wise is very shallow about 1,5 inch and the others about 4 inches, I´ve been keeping some order here like buttons in two of the drawers. The other week I decided to do something about it so I garthered all heavy paper from corn flakes boxes etc and started making little custum boxes


It´s a lot of work but I like the result. Of course I got some help from a friend at the beginning, a friend that´s not with me any more. Gorbatjov died two weeks ago,almost 18 years old. Found this picture when loading my camera and smiled becourse it was so typical him...

Finally internet

After beeing out of ínternet at home I´m finally connected again and will be able to load all the pictures from my camera and start blogging again. I finished a beatiful an warm shawl in fair Isle that I partically proud of since fair isle has been not really my thing...I also finished my bohus sweater and it´s gorgeous! More to come in a couple of days

Fiber Vacation ends

My fiber vacation ends today.
This is what have happened:
There´s a hole in my finger due to to much knitting, resting
The mermaid yarn is ready, keeping it single and are going to knit a shawl ( as if I lack of them...)
One skirt is finished and one more that I will hemmed tonight
A jacket i half finished, need to find that purple lining and finish it
2 blouses ready
I bought an Elnapress, for the first time in a long time I have no interest in learning to master sew in interfacings.
Baby owl sweater finished
2 bras finished ( one was only the eye and hook band...)
I passed a lot of things to the garbage, things that I cut out, sometimes started or never started to sew.
I worked out a god basic T-shirt pattern that fits me
I spend a lot of time on the internet...

There´s a lot less things laying around in my sewing/bedroom and it will be so much easier to start on my pants tomorrow.
And I really enjoy going back to work so I can apply for next vacation
and when "real" computer is back there will be pictures!

Computer crash

My computer crashed and when getting the bag to put it in for trip to doctor aka brother I found my old computer and it´s very low on memeory and keep remainding me of that every 10 minutes or so. It´s also very laod, you can actually hear it work and I think watching episodes of Power sewing is out of the question so when I´m not sewing, knittin, spinning I browse old issues of Threads and are finding old memories an real treasures.
I made myself one more blouse, almost done, using a Patrones pattern that I had to change due to lack of fabric, some ruffles hade to go and since I´m really entusiastic about piping I added some piping as a contrast but now I´m having second thoughts if it makes it looks like a pyjama...
I also have a skirt cut out, a lovely striped cotton in purple with pink and some other colors in the stripes and some texture too, really a favourite, bought in Paris.
Now I planned to line it and I wanted a pink lining and that´s no problem...the problem is that I want a rayon/ viscose lining. I really wish there where a store in my town with a large selection of this type of fabric. So I´ll probably not line it.
I talked about my love for Odd Molly before and they have some really nice details in collection that are not the first thing you see due to all the colors and stuff, I´ve seed underskirts that are buttoned to the side of the outer skirt and also can be worn seperate and that´s my intension. Is underskirt a proper word or should it be slip??

Mermaid yarn

Wool from Spinderiet in Helsingor ( Denmark )

Black jeans skirt

I was importing pictures from my camera and I have no pics of the shirt ( all buttoned ) so here´s one of the jeans skirt instead:

It´s nailed to the dummy and I used a basic 8 gore skirt from an old Burda Plus, very basic and made pockets in the side panels using quilters cotton to line them.
All the seams are flatfelled using a jeanstread in a color that I think is the proper color for that purpuse ( stof och stil ) The rivets are from Prym and reversible so there´s one side that´s silver also.

Had a little accident doing the topstitching

Is now repared by handstitchin a new piece of fabric to cover it up.
For the waist treatment I used Petersham band. After Sandra Betzina´s article in Threads years ago I found a small fabricstore in the basement of an optimistic womans house that was closing down and they had curved Petersham so I bought 20 meters and still have some left.
The denim is from Stof och stil, theire 10 oz black unwashed that I washed myself but I really prefer the prewashed they sell.

Notion shopping

I bought my buttons today and after seeing a lot of Sandra and Ron I was curious about wondertape and using wooly nylon on the bobbin when hemming knits with twin needle ( They have a lot of great tips in those shows). My local dealer Greger had it all! and some more things. The store is small, crowded but boy do they have things in there...Now I want to find the steam a seam light narrow thing that they use and the gauge to measure placement of buttons and buttonholes with.
I started a jeans skirt using 10oz black denim and doing flatfelled seams and everything. In David Page Coffins book on trousers he has a great way to install a zipper with a fly. I been using it a couple of times and the step by step instructions makes it easy.
the flatfelling of the seams are glued using my regular craft glue. I sew the seam using 2 cm seam allowance, press it open. the one that will be folded over are pressed down to half and the other one is cut of leaving about 5 mm fabric, then I add some glue to the overlapping part and press it over and press using my finger. Easy to sew and stays in place.
I bought a flatfeller for jeans, I think it´s a 9 mm that´s available for my Viking machine but I think that I have more control doing it without it.

Buttons wanted

I finished everything but the buttonholes and the buttons yesterday. Will take a walk later to get some.
The shirt ( there will be pictures later) is a mens skirt style and quite roomy. I will probably wear it over a dress or skirt and top. I´m really proud of my sewing that I put into this one. I used David Page Coffins book as referens and the Burda plus pattern from the spring-summer issue with the bib. I omittet the bib and did a FBA that turned out to be to small so I kind of draped it on me and pinched the new dart that I later ripped and made shorter.
Everything is made properly on this shirt, the yoke is turned, the seams are flatfelled and the collar is made using DPC´s method of sewing the collar band to the skirt and adding the collar last so the last seam will be on the "underside" of the collar, not as I did before the wrong side of the collar band to the body.
I joined Powersewing this weekend and in one of the lessons they show a cool way to do the collar that I think is better so now I´ll have to do a new shirt...
I finished a jeans skirt the other week, same as the beige one in the review gadget but it much to big so yesterday I traced a new skirt pattern and are going down to the basement to cut it out now.

And I did the macig touch on the iron...I turned it of, let it cool and yurned it on again and voila!

Blouse delayed...

I used to sew all the time, really ALL the time, I probably spend as much time with fiber today but in some way that does not count.
A nice way about blogging is that I have documented all, or almost all of my projects so I can see that I have made some things and some nice things too, but still, since it´s been a while since I felt that I challenged myself and I getting more spare time with my new job I want to start sewing for "real" again so yesterday I cut a blouse from a really nice stripe, white with pink and tan in the pattern, After interfacing the plackets for the cuffs today...my iron probably broke... so here I´m sitting all dressed up and no place to go...
I bought David Page Coffin´s book on shirt making earlier and I´m using it and are going to make flat felled seams and everything.

First home spun home knitted item

I´m making progress on my first homespun sweather this is the yarn 2 ply

I started knitting a KAL on Ravelry but all the installments where so chatty that I got tired reading them so I switched to EZ knitting without tears that usually all these kind of patterns are based at and recalculated it from the top. I think the percentage works really well and I´m planning to use it more in the near future.
Anyway to make the increases as a design feature I did yarn overs to get the holes

This is the sweather so far, need to spin some more ( and buy some more wool ) to be able to continue and eventually finish it.

For my birthday a friend gave me this:

Cute right? well I thought it was something more to it and I felt a button in the middle of the back and thought it would sound like a sheep if I pressed it...it did not! Well maybee it´s a magnet so I can put it on my fridgedoor...it was not!
After 2 weeks I found out what it was:

Fast, fun skirt

I was at my local fabric-yarn store for a visit from Hedmankvist, a new yarn manufactor with interesting yarns that are mixed in most of their designs. I bought two skeins to try out but on my way out I saw this light teal-aqua crincled hemp and bough some, my first intension was to make a wide straight skirt with some kind of elastic fabric over the hips so I went to my not favourite fabricstore and found a piece that was almost the samt shade. But then I changed my mind.
I used Burda 2010/07/138 what is really a slightly flaired skirt with elastic waist and hem, made it shorter and made the hemp fabric wider. pulled it tigether to fit the lining, sewed them together and then moved the lining 1/4 to the side before attaching them at waistline.So now I have fabric for a matching top.
My plan is to enter the PR accessoires contest of september and making, bags, shawls and maybee a belt to turn it into 4 outfits. That´s a plan...

It can happen to you too!

We have a local fleamarket here in Malmö during the warmer part of the year; every sunday on one of the squares people can rent a spot and sell whatever they don´t want any more, and other might find things they never thougt they would need. Today I spotted this:

How much do you want for the rock? I asked with a calm voice.
50 said the man ( that´s 5 euro!)
Can I look at it?
Sure!
Do you have any more spools for it?
No, it´s just that, people usually want them to decorate their homes, I don´t know if it´s working
I know and it does. I take it!

Closeup on the flyer and orifice.
It needs an handyman or a couple of plugs and some oil

And now I´m going away to a sewing meeting arranged by a woman on a swedish sewingsite. It´s outside Klippan, so I´m gonna go early and visit the spinnery´s outlet