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...

Lemon juice, Ottobre spring/summer 2013

I guess it´s not totally clear why this top is called Lemon Juice? It was yellow in the magazine...

I really wanted to do it in a very nice vintage blue rayon but wanted to try it out before in another fabric, this fabric is from the remnant table at Stof and Stil and has borders in both edges, I used them for cutting the sleeves.

I really love this top, it lookes weird on the hanger but when you wear it there are a nice assymetric cut to it due to one side seam is flat and the other a kind of waterfall.

 

Close upp on neckline. I was planning to use my serger but didn´t find the cord...It´s so much easier to get the neckline even cutting it with a serger

 A pic from the cut out, you can se the borders on both side of the fabric here, it´s on fold on the right angle and on the left angle is the hem

 I used framilon/ clear elastic for the ruching, ruching is onother reason why I would have prefered to use a serger, it gets a little uneven

 I´m wearing this top today with a black jersey skirt from one of our chain stores in Sweden; Lindex, think a little more mature than H&M and they have a plus section that might not be brilliant but much better than H&M, but let´s face it; everything is ...

The reason for showing this pic is that it´s quite simple and brilliant in the constructon. The entire skirt is double at the hem, has one seam in the back and is turned with an elastic attached at the wrong side, you can see how the outer layer of fabric rolls over the upper edge and then the elastic is stitched through both layer to hold it in place, NO HEM! talk about fast project...and adaptable to other knits!

Burda 09/2011 mod 128

 

 This blouse cought my eye in an old Burda, it´s not a plus size but I enlarged it by splitting and adding at the side seams. It´s the first project made in my sewingroom and I absolutely love beeing down there

 I used a rayon from San Fransisco from Satin Moon, It costed a little more than other fabrics I bought on that weekend so I got frugal and bought 1,5 yards, not really thinking that there is a difference between meter and yard and with this small amount I should have bought some more. I really love the pattern and they had it in one or two other colorways.

Does it look like in the magazine is a common question on PR and part from beeing more busy due to fabric choise and using sets of three button placement, it does. The original model is made in white and really nice ( hmm I have some white linen...) and have badly done buttonholes...shame on you Burda! I hate then they show poor workmanship och take a photo of a skirt not in the right position ( Yes I have a pic on a skirt rotated 1/4 around the body)
The blouse was easy to sew once I realised that the collar should go on first before attaching back and front....Thats why they have instructions...right!

And now clothes on and go down and sew girl!!

A little prinsesse

Happy National day to you!  This is Prinsesse Estelle wearing a childs national costume. The swedish national costume is an invention although quite old I still think it´s cute if you are 1years+ but the old folk costume or regional costumes are much more interesting.

Upstairs Downstairs

I got the keys and have starting the move, there are still some fabrics upstairs, as well as furniture, notion, dressform etc, etc but it feels great to be able to look at all the fabrics and pet them too...
I´ve sorted them in wools, knits, linen, silk, tops and dresses, bottoms, odd fabrics and I have some pieces that are like "treasured-fabrics-of-small-amounts-suitable-for-trims". I have some fabric in the attic too, like a lot of quilters cottons and I´m actually looking forward doing some quilting
I knew I had some nice wool but I was surpriced how much knits I´ve collected...

Soon to bee sewing room

 This is my soon to be sewing room! It´s in the basement of my appartmentbuilding, quite big, has some loose shelving also and is just been repainted, It does not have an outlet but it will any day. I will pay 200 crowns for this!!! it´s like 30 dollars / month at it will give me a chance to keep my appartment free from snippets and some of the dust but most of all it will give me a chance to indulce in my hobby!

1920 extravaganza

I went to a 1920 style burlesk extravaganza and had a fabulous time, I wanted a flapperstyle dress that I could wear casual also, so I used no 432 from the Burda Plus that I wrote about before and added the angle cut and the ruffles from Vogue 8082 that I oicked from the unloved table at PR weekend SF

 The fabric is from Paris, marked as rayon but I think it´s polyester, and even though it´s kind of retro it´s really not 20 something, I underlined the dress with Silk organza that I brought home from Stone Mountain in Berkeley

 The headpiece that I bought at Claire´s in London and a elastik trim with sequens on bought locally

 The skirt looks like this and I made view A since I was kind of lacking in fabric, I even hade to piece some fabric for the ruffles. The rufffles was cut on bias and hanged out very uneven, the little point on the upper ruffle had to be shortened becource it was longer than the under ruffle.

It was fantastic to see what everybody was wearing, next time I´ll put more glitter into it...

Shaukat

Shaukatwww.shaukat.co.uk is at 700 old Brompton road and you´ll reach if by taking bus C1 from Victoria station. They sell tweeds and Liberty and the prices of Liberty is so much better than in any other store I visited, You can shop 3 meter pieces or have them to cut from the bolt for you

 

This is 3 meter pieces very eatly folded and the store is very clean, fabric stores have a tendency to be dusty but nor here

They also have chairs for company who dont want to explore the shelves. This is Hanna without the mask...

and this is the two pieces I bought, the first is very Liberty to me and the second one not so but has a nice retro feel to it. Liberty cottons are so nice to touch and have the nicest drape....yum!

Next week I will be given the keyes to my new sewingroom. I decided that I lacked a room and wrote the board of my appartment building if they had any vacancies and they did not but shortly after this room, right down the stairs was available and now it´s been cleaned and painted and I can start carry down thing very soon. There´s even very functional shelves down there, so I´m looking forward get my appartment livable again....and the rent for this room is less than tiny...

Oh yes! and I´m going to Ireland in August!!!!

Good night mask

I don´t know what the proper name is for this but my niece fixed one for herself fast

Protect and serve

I`m not in the army but at Stonemountain and dauther in Berkeley I bought a pattern from Decades of style, they had a lot of nice patterns, but I like aprons, have some vintage in the attic and also some vintage patterns, but they are kind of small in sence that they don´t protect very well.  On this apron almost all seams are finished with bias tape and I had readymade in my stash, the fabric is a quilters cotton that are more stable than usual and I thoughyt that the combo had a vintage feel to it. I would like to do this again but then I would make the pocket bigger.

The pattern is no 5005 1950s Ptotect & Serve Apron, highly recommended!



 

Burda Plus spring/summer 2013

Burda Plus have the last years been a kind of " best of" so if you by Burda Style you already have all the pattern...Now they are back in business with this issue; all new patterns, at least for plus size and I can basically see myself in almost everything Nice stories and fab fabrics.
Thank you Burda!!!!

I´m working on a flapper dress that I´m going to wear to a party extravaganza later this month and used one of the dresses from this issue as a top and going to use a Vogue skirt pattern for bottom. I´m using a kind of retro fabric bought in Paris and underlining with silk organza and the fabrics don´t behave in the same way...I´ve done underlining before but not this large pieces, but there´s still plen...some time to get the job done.

Napkins

I dont sew much home dec, but I´m proud to live in an appartment where all the curtains are hemmed...
I do enjoy cooking, baking etc and used to write a blog on those subjects too, today I sometimes read foodblogs and one of my favourites are Chocolate and Zucchini A long time ago she made napkins by sewing two fat quarters together, turning them and topstitch, really nice and I thought I could do that with my reproductionfabrics that I´ve been stashing and then I forgot all about it until I watched the FQ table at Peapod fabrics and I bought 8 pieces that cordinated in pairs. I cut squares as large as I could get and used a contrast from one of the fabrics for the topstitching. Really nice and fast and great for a gift.

San Fransisco

I can´t believe it´s a week since I went home, due to timezones It will be a week tomorrow from when I returned. I´m still on vacation and have not have any big issues with jetlag maybee due to that I was up early the entire week in SF. I toured the city, shopped a lot of fabric and attendet PR weekend and listened to Sandra Betzina....and bought some books from her and got some patterns for free that where unloved by others
and here´s some photos that are not fiberrelated

OK there might be some fibers in the strawberries and the tea leaf sallad...

Grey dress Onion melange

 

The dress is finished, only missing my label

 

 Here´s a close up on front detail and sleeve and you can also see how beautiful the fabric is. I already feel that this is a dress I will wear a lot

 I got the sewing bee book today and the other book I bought a couple of months ago. What I don´t like about these books is that you have to tape a lot of papers together pdf patterns are not a favourite of mine...the sewingbee gives you the option of enlarge with help from a grid,... like even less... There´s one pattern for a sleeveless tunic thats fullscale in the sewing bee book and the sizes are 8- 16 the other book is interesting becourse you make the pattern with your own measurement

I thnk the sewingbee book reflects the joy I find watching the show, there are step by step instructions for a lot of clothes and home dec. including Tillys blouse ( finished edition) and my favourite; Stuarts dress ( love that fabric!)

I also finished the hem on Paco´s half circle skirt..... I fused it.... It´s a knit and that´s how I prefer to hem those items....and I´m not a skilled sewer then it comes to knits.

Onion 7063

I decided I wanted to sew a dress for SFO and looked through some options
Onion 5040 I´ve done it before but I´m not sure I blogged about it, I used a crinkly cotton-po light blue fabric and never really liked the sleeves, but I like the boho style of the body. I started with covering the lower part of the sleeve with my thumb and it looked so much better

Then it was this dress that I made the other year and then I thought about using the sleeves, the short puffy ones and that´s what I did. There was  a minor difference in size

I used a rayon from Stof och Stil and rayon lining. I decided to go with the rayon instead of the cotton voile becource this fabric is heavy and will work all year around exept for a hot summer day and I just have to make myself  another dress where cotton voile is a better choice, I might even do the 2023 with a simular fabric as the first flowery dress that I loved to wear...

 

It lookes like my visions for a sewing room are coming closer. A couple of months ago I wrote to the board of my appartment building and asked if they had any rooms in the basement that I could rent and yesterday I got a call that there´s a big room free from may 1:st : We don´t know yet if there are any outlets and the best part is that it´s a big room and its in my building

Ok now I have to set in the sleeves.....

GBSB

When I was in Edinburgh I met Deb from My happy sewing place ,she talked about The Great British Sewing Bee so I´ve been waiting and thinking about how I would be able to watch it and I was really happy when I found out that they are on youtube and since I´ve been very tecnial advanced these days and got myself a HDMI kabel I can watch it on my TV and it´s so much better...

 

 

This is the thirst episode, there are 4 in total, 2 is still to come. The best thing about this show is that it actually show how to sew and the judges give very constructive critiqe on that. Nothing like Project runways sarcastic approach.
Ann and Tilly I´m familiar with before there are six more contestants and they have managed to find a croud with very different backgrounds and I love that becourse it showes that sewing is for everybody. I loved when one of the guys said that his wife also had a mashine and they sew in front of the TV  together. That´s my kind of boyfriend!!
There´s a book too and of course I´ve already ordered it!

Counting days to SFO...

PR weekend Europe Barcelona 2012

What do you do on a PR weekend besides shopping for fabric...)Well according to my pictures we ate lot, and had coffea...
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