Vogue 1175 Donna Karan Dress

This pattern is OOP and I´m so glad I got one! I had it for some time and was intrieged by the weird cut.

I used a viscose fabric with velvety dots in some synthetics that where way to stiff for this dress but I made it to be used at a Gatsby party so I consider it a wearable muslin.

 

 It´s low cut in the front but even lower in the back. I did not wear a bra ( probably the first time since "mellanstadie" about age 12)

 Here you can se the beautiful cut in the back

 I had to raise the dress to fit me, as always and I did that by remowing fabric at the shoulders and simply made a pleat at the back to fit the front

 Deep plunge.......

I have to say I really love this dress, It´s comfy, fun, elegant and even have pockets. I find it hard to test the pattern without sewing a muslin, but I will wear this one again, the dress is lined and I used silk from a sari that´s been in my stash way too long

Better late than never

It´s Burda 2008/09/134 and the fabric is from tha ugly fabric swap in Kiel, unknown fibers, quite shiny and I would say that it looks more purple than the pictures will show

 The jacket is completely interfaced by fusing tricot interfacings on every part of it, I did this probably 3 years ago...sew the shell and left it....I think I lost the lining I bought for it.... There is pocket with plackets in the seams, hard to see on the pic

 A couple of weeks ago I decided to do something about it and found a new lining in stash that are quite heavy and I think it´s supposted to be lining in furs. I decided to do a hidden placket and used an old pattern from Neue Mode  for it

 This is absolutely my favourite hidden placket tecnique! No bulk! bagged the lining and used two articles in Threads for instructions

 Green buttons from the stash

The only thing that I don´t like about this jacket is that the sleeves are3/4, that´s due to lack of fabric and maybee it´s becourse I´m not used to it.... I plan to knit wristwarmers that match so I can wear it outside when it gets a little warmer

Alabama love

I´ve been kind of obsessed with Alabama Channing these days and my first attempt is this top,

I think it´s Burda 1/2005 and I´ve made it once before but this time handsewn Alabamastyle, It took 2 spools of buttonhole twist thread, mainly becourse I desided to do the decorative stitching also on the hems of the body and the sleeves

                                         
 I used the stencil in one of the books and created a large one using some kind of thick fusable interfacing, then I tried a rather thick paint that I used a sponge to apply, did not go well!!!!so I turned to the bottle with liquidy paint and sprayed on it using the airpump that it came with, the color of the paint is purple

 Then I started stitching using a darker blue thread, for the skirt I used a pattern from one of the books and the first gore is to the right, it´s already been cut and the second one to the left I´m stitching right now

It´s really fun and so liberating tying knots
The top is part of the Burda challenge for 2014 there you make one item from each month but since Burda in Sweden comes around mid month I´m doing januari in februari etc etc... Both items are part of a swap on a Swedish facebook Group where you sew 6 items/ season, and these are part of my spring wardrobe, that is quite summery due to I´m heading for New Orleans and Austin at the end of april/ beginning of may.

The little top of horror

This is so horrible! The fabric is a remnant from local stoff and stil, I probably bought it after a vacation in Spain and felt that it was a little Desigual...Then I cutted this Sandra Betzina top and left it for about 2 or 3 years, found it and decided to finish it, will never wear it...BUT...I love this pattern, it´s feminine, has shape and is not bulky at all under the arms as someone wrote on PR. I want to make a long sleeved version in rayon. The pattern is OOP, the pieces are kind of weird but the result will be beautiful in another fabric

Collection ( one of many)

 

Not only do I collect thimbles, I also collect other sewin related stuff and my latest collection is mugs that show of fiberrelated decors. I bought the two Merchant and Mill mugs in Dublin and the other two here in Malmö and when in London I bought a mug tree, I´ve been seeing them through my travels in the UK and Ireland so this collection will be limited to 6 mugs

Meringue anyone?

Beeing a weight watcher you really should not eat sweets or at least limit your consumtion. So nice of Colette that I can indulce both Beignet and Meringue that contains no points...

 The shirt is from the last post and the skirt is the Meringue from the book I did not do the scalloped hem and I added pockets inspired by this photo that I pinned on Pinterest

 I did a lot of extra stitching on the pockets before I got it right, mostly I used the serger on too many seams and finally decided to line the pocket. I turned the outer edges and finished the opening edge by hand. The fabric is a cotton sateen with a little stretch in from Joann

I used my invisable zipper foot for the first time ( what took me so long??) the largest size on the pattern sheet and a adjustment for the back "shelf". A really easy and fast project part from the pockets that took me some extra time, more time than needed actually.
I´m not sure but I think the front darts on this skirt is placed closer together than on other skirts.
I might as well do one more for summer with the scalloped hem.

Burda 2012/5/135 the SIB

SIB stands for Sexy Italian Blouse and I really don´t think that blouse is so sexy but the storyline in Burda was "Dolce Vita" and the fabric is from Italy...so why not? The fabric is from my favourite Swedish fabricstore; Gittes and I just happened to come in there one day as they where unpacking a load of italian mens shirt fabric and I bought 3 pieces and I think I went back for one more later. This fabric matches the skirts fabric so at first I thought I would make a dress from it, but that´s what´s so good about buying fabrics, you can always change your mind later

 

the blouse is pretty basic and comes with 3 different sleeves and a tie instead of collar and there´s a dress option too. I made a yoke on the back since I could not decide on how to unmatch the shoulders

 False sleeve cuffs and mother of pearl buttons did a nice finish

 

It´s made right of the pattern with the exeption that I went up one size for the hips.
The tie blouse has really cute sleeves and was sewn in a chiffon in adotty fabric and I so want one just like it...so I might go fabric hunting and YEY we have a new fabric store in town!!

Bias Burda dress

I finished my grey Burda dress and my goal for this year is to start making reviews on PR again, but not tonight...( and also document my projects on Ravelry, but not tonight either...)

 

 I´ve been doing things in the past on bias but the low neckline makes the drape of the fabric different in the front-front part, it´s OK but it´s proof of that you just can´t take any pattern and make a bias garment from it. I really like the sleeves and neckline on this dress and as long as you let it hang and stabilize the neckline and the armcycle, it´s not difficult to sew

 I managed to get some good shots of Missan, here she´s resting on proof of my former quilting days

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.