Alabama Chanin again

I really like my AC skirt and top and have thought for a long time to make a dress, this time my plan is to add some sparkle aka pearls. I find it quite easy to do the stencil using stencil plastic and using some quilters glue to attach it to the papers with the pattern printed on and a rotating knife to cut

I used two spraypaint fabric dye first one aqua and then a grey shimmering over that and the result is a glittery mermaid greenish blue pattern, the fabric is light blue, the same color as the local football team use...

and to tone it down I´m planning to use grey pearls and maybee some grey embroideryfloss as well as some light blue thread

For the love of fabric

 I really love this fabric! It´s a cotton batiste from Italienska modetyger outside Gothenburg. I can´t resist a nice borderprint and I did a wonderful job if I may say so myself...and since it´s my blog I may! I also found the perfect red match for a detail, it was a silk blouse that I started so long ago so I don´t remember then, but everything failed at the end  due to the fabric was too stiff for the pattern of choise so I had to rethink and changed the plan for a dress to one for a skirt and a top and then there where suddenly nice weather...

No maxi for me

I live in the south of Sweden and as a swede I want sun more than Everything.. we have a saying that "the Swedish summer is wonderful, this year it was a tuesday...."
I measure summer with how much tan my legs get by showing the white parts where my sandals is...and I wear sandals as early as I can...I even wear them with socks just becourse I can!....There is no way I´ll be wearing a maxi and the wonderful Ilse Jacobsen maxi will be shortened... I don´t get the hiatus of maxis and summer!

Carolyn PJ

I liked the look of Carolyn PJ from Closet case patterns and it is really a nice pattern with a Classic manly look that I understand is actually really hot as a day look according to some magazines I´ve been reading lately.
I used quilters cotton from my stash and bought some bias binding for the top.
Do I like it? Yes and No!
No I don´t like to sleep in it , maybee course I´m used to sleeping in cotton jersey and I don´t like the blue color of the pants, I might toss them away or try to dye them in a darker shade and something I dont like about the pattern is that the seam allowances in the collar and neck area is to big, I prefer 1 cm here.
Yes, I like my shirt very  much and intend to wear it as a blouse and yes I like the pant as a pattern. It´s a very good pull on pant with pockets and elastic waist that I can see myself wearing in a both viscose, linen and cotton, I might even make a couple of shorts from it, and while I´m writing this I´m thinking of making a day PJ in a nice fabric to wear this summer...

Oh shit! That is a lausy picture, I really don´t know how to get a decent selfie, thought the pillow was cute (due to lack of teddie)

MMMay 2016

It´s my first MMMay but not the last....
May can be kind of tricky weatherwise where I live, It can be cold so you want a warm jacket and it could be georgeous summerweather, this year was OK and with my Nice weekend I got use of some of my summerdresses too. Even thought I missed some of my RTW I found some old clothes that I have not whore for years and the most fun was the flowery skirt that I never whore but now felt that I actually like a lot...
Looking at other peoples closet was fun and I think about adding color even thought I really like neutals .
I wear denim skirts a lot´...and I must like peasant tops becourse I have a lot of those...all RTW and I have to do something to make my selfies look a LOT better....

My goal to not bye any RTW this entire year is still on and still going strong

...and now off to plant the plants I bought yesterday for my balcony....

Fabric shopping in Nice

I spent last weekend in Nice and had a wunderful time, I ate too much and drank a lot of champagne and rosé, but I also walked a lot and went up and down 74 stairs to get to my airbnb room, perfectly situated in the old Town.

I looked and toutched a lot of nice clothes at Gallerie Lafayette and I also went to some cool vintage stores at looked at Chanel bags in a wide array of fabrics and sizes, all TDF ( I have an obsession for these bags...)

 

All my breakfasts looked like this!

And over to the fabric situation: I did a google search before I left and got adresses for stores that when I got there did not exist any more. I found two stores that existed , the first one is Toto

 

 

Toto is on 26 Rue de France and is an ordinary fabric store that has a little of everything but nothing special, they have a store on 14 av. Malausséna, I just passed this one but what I could see from the window it was more into drapes than fashion fabric.

 

When we have Wunderland Tissus.....on 6 rue doct Jacques Guidoni and it´s a little heaven of nice fabrics.....They have basic wool jersey, other jerseys and really georgeous couture fabrics

 

 

Both these stores are located very central and the last one is a really great store!!!

A plan for summer

 

I also have a plan for summer, I was not sure what to sew at first, but when I whore my flowery skirt I decided to do a plan around it and add the summerblack dress we all need, mine is actually ready and I whore it today, its another Karen dress this one slightly tighter and in a rayon jersey.

The other items here are the green top that I found the matching fabric at Ohlssons, the broderie anglais is a remnant bought in New Orleans at a fabric store called Promenade at 1520 Saint Charles Ave , it was lost for a while but now it´s found, the orange is a sweatherknit that I got at an ugly-fabric-swap and I´m not used to do sweatherknit so I really dont know what to do with it

MMMay Onion 2031

I love this dress and this fabric! One of my favourite designers are Nygårdsanna, She does classic things inspired by historical pieces and uses only natural fibers, always a Libertyprint, her linen is TDF ( to die for)  and her designstudio is in Linköping and twice a year she has a clearance sale there when she sells fabric too, and I fell in love with this pattern when she made her collection of it so last time when I was at the sell out I grabbed what was left of it, I still has a piece and I don´t know if I want to make a top or a skirt from it or just pet it ( that´s normal?! right!?) It´s a cotton sateen with some stretch and the colors and pattern are lovely!!!!

 

 The pattern I used is this  and it´s the third time I used it , I omitted the split in front and added pockets the Nygårdsanna way;big so you can put your hand into it! I´m very pleased with the way the flowers ended up, not on any "focal points" I think the neckline is just the right size and the elastic on the sleeves is such a nice detail. The sleeve is kind of strange just under the elbow but I´m very fond of them.

 

Onion is a danish company and I buy them when I go to Copenhagen. That´s just 40 minutes by train and I go not as often as I used to, have to do something about that....If you live not so close to Denmark there are some dealers who has a webshop. I´m a huge fan of their patterns!!!

 

Gerda Wegener

A while ago my dad told me about this fab danish artist that he never heard of before and whos work
Arken, a danish artmuseum outside Copenhagen was having an exibit, He also told me that her husband was a transvestite and she painted him as his alter ego; Lily. 
So one day that I was not working I took my car and drove over the bridge ( as in The Bridge) and at the museum I realised that her husband was "The danish girl" .
The exibit shows different types of her work as fashiondrawings, erotic illustrations as well as portraits, not only of Einar/Lily. There are some painting by Einar too and there are motivs that both Einar and Gerda painted, but in different ways.
The exibit also told the story of Gerda´s life, and it differs a little from the movie ( that I loved also!)
If you google Gerda Wegener you get a lot of pictures, some from the movie but also a lot of her work
I picked a few to show here:

At the end of the movie there´s a textline that says something like "Gerda continued to do paintings of Lily" She might have done that, but she also remarried, moved to Marrakech and did some wonderful paintings there too! No danish museum bought any of her work so I´m thrilled that this exibit has been a success!! I´m going to go back and see it once more and since they have decided to prolong the time it´s showing until januari 7 2017, there´s plenty of time!
And I recommend that you do too!
The museum shop had some books on 1920 fashion, drawingbooks as well as 2 posters( I think) but not of her magazine covers and fashion drawings...

I sew with a plan!

My drawing skills are minimal but I found Gertie´s sketchbook and it helps me a lot. The background kroki sketches are like shadows and they are normal in height and have 3 different sizes.
We have a Facebook group in Sweden there we make 4 plans with 6 items (more or less) we precent our plans on our page and then the result, in between we chat alot and we actually meet to sew for 4 days(and nights) in a row.
The picture above is my plan for spring and below are the fabric and yarn to the left and to the right the ready items - the skirt




The flowery fabric is a silk I bought in Italy a long time ago, a nice silk that I did not like on me so I never finished it.
I had plans using a Seamwork pattern called Onaka but ended up using an old favourite from Burda that I have made more skirts than I can remember from




I think the magazine is from 2002 and when I saw the new pattern; Selene from Colette I decided that I would never buy it but I´m hoping for a lot of inspiration from people who do.
This time I made a fake wrap skirt by making two frontpieces and letting them open up. The fabric for the skirt is from Joann´s , bought it in Seattle almost five years ago, I like it! It´s shiny and has a little stretch.
The blue and green leafy jersey is from a fabric shop in Gothenburg, I bought 2,5 or 3 meters and that was enought for a dress and a topp, used the same pattern Onion 2047, a knit dress with some gathering on top of the sleeves and split center back. A favourite of mine!

MMMay continues

Left in my hallway with my knitted Siri cardigan and to the right I found a skirt I sewed a couple of years ago and never used due to I´ve considered myself not beeing so colorful. The top is a bought top never used either and both garments are really strays since this is the only match they have. After wearing the outfit for two days I have to say that I like it and my plans for a summer closet is to add things to it. And I think I´ll start with a white jacket, first I was thinking Jeans but Now I´m leaning more towards a bomberjacket...
The flowery skirt is an old sligtly A-line skirt from an ooold plus size issue and probably the garment I spent most time on sewing and used silk organza for stabilizing the yoke, the zipper is really well done and the skirt is lined with rayon lining, the outer fabric is a cotton sateen bought locally in a store that no longer exists. The photo is taken in my dads bathroom and as you can see that light is much better there.
We have had a really nice and sunny weekend, visits from relatives and good food

St Petersburg

I saw that where are a lot of people reading the blog from Russia so I have to write about when I went to St Petersburg. It was a 4 day weekend and I could have used 2 days more, but I can Always come back...For a Swede travelling to Russia you need a visa that you have to pay in my opinion too much for, when applying you have to show papers on payed hotel etc and it was really so much work so I bought a weekend package from a travel agency and that included a guided tour of the city from bus that in my case became a private guide and a cab since my plane was delaided for 2 hours. I stayed at a hotel called Moscow and it was not my kind of hotel, 825 rooms and breakfast was included and that many people in a huge room became like eating in a school canteen....

I like taking subway, trains and busses on vacation and St Petersburg is easy to navigate from the subway and cheap, I think the subway is the deepest subway in the world and you can see on the left picture how long it is to the top. The right picture is from a trainride I took to the Tsar´s summerpalace; Petershof

This picture show how it has been restored

Since I work with trains I had to visit Vitebskiy Railway station that was the first railway station in Russia built in 1837 and restored to it´s original glory....and it was Beautiful, with chandelers and staircases, the formal Tsar´s waitingroom was a cafeteria ( left Picture)

During the guided tour the guide recommended a visit to what my old guidebook refers to as the Summerpalace garden, and the first summerpalace is here and it´s really close to the Winterpalace, the palace, that is on the small side was closed for renovation but the park was lovely to stroll

 Ok and  now to the serious part; fabricshopping, the sewing machinestore was rather close to my hotel and looked like an ordinary dito store in Sweden, I checked the prices for needles and thought they where like home.  When I travel I usually google "fabric shopping in...." and that way I found the fabric store, There where actually several shops in the building, the good fabric was on the second floor.... and it was good!! they had a wool room that I did not get a picture on and I thought the prices where good. All the fabrics hanging in the back have samples on the desks so you can touch them and when you want something you tell the lady at the desk how much, she does not speak English but numbers are international, then you get a note and take it to the cashier and pay for it( they do take cards) take the receipt, bring it back to the first lady and you get you get the good stuff

I don´t remember the name of the shop nor the adress but it´s easy to find, you go to the Finlandish railwaystation, stand on the stairs and look toward Neva, look to the right and on the street outside the railwaystation the store is on the first block to the right. I bought two pieces, payed with card and I don´t remember how much I paid but it was good value.

The food was great, I ate at a lot of different places an high end cafées, canteens, restaurants in back streets and at the hotel. The funniest meal was when I was going to the fabric store and it was not opened so I went around the block and found a café in a basement and ordered cappucino( not a good choise...) and what I thought was a apricot and almond cake that turned out to be filled with mushrooms.... but it tasted great!

MMMay Denim skirt

MMMay day 3, wearing a denim skirt and a top from a Onionpattern ( more on that one later

I hate selfies and I´m not good on doing them! The grey hoodie is something I wear at work a lot due to that the temeratue is different in different parts of the room, but when I see this Picture I should probably wear something else most of the time....

The pattern to the skirt comes from this book; sy nederdele (sew skirts) only in danish but with good step by step pictures you can follow in any language. The publisher says that this is the fastest selling book they have ever published, Sewing is Cool again!!!

Maria on the cover in 1 inch makeup...

I made some changes like opening up the waistband and used the pockets from the Ginger Jeans since the pockets here are so tiny, tiny...I actually used all of my skills from the Ginger jeans into sewing this skirt and the same 2% stretch denim and the skirt was on the large side but after washing it I find the size better, I really don´t know why I missed fitting the side seams...

I used quilters cottons from stash, button from my stash of extra buttons from RTW and rivets from Prym

When Maria and I where in London for the PR meetup we went to Victoria and Albert museum on sunday and bought one of these cups that I use as intended on the box. Only days after, the big lingerie/undergarment exibition opened ,so now I have a reason to return.The giftshop located in the clothes exibit have some notions from Merchant and Mills as well as books and other stuff

There are a lot of nice things about that museum part from the collections; it´s free, nice restaurant and you can sit outside if its warm, clean toilets, fun gift shop

MMMay Karen and Karin

May second is Karen Day and another picture from work and yes it´s dark outside due to shift I´m going to talk about the papers on the wall at the end of this post.

The fabric used is the second from bottom and it was bought at a sewing machine/fabric/notionstore in Copenhagen called City Sy Center, It´s on Amager Brogade so it´s not really very central but there´s a metrostation close by. It´s a cotton/elastan fabric and was a bit pricy compared to other fabrica I bought. The reason why I was there was Maria och Signe´s releaseparty for the book they have written about sewing skirts. ( more on that later).

Anyway Maria gave me the Karen pattern ( I also met the real Karen at the party...) and I planned to wear it at the PR meetup in London a couple of weeks later, but there was no time between shopping and party to switch clothes so the dress made it to afternoon tea at the Orangerie at Kensington Palace

Karen is a really nice pattern that is fast and sew and give something extra to a basic knit dress. It only needs 2 meters of fabric and I have bought fabric for one more dress, I just need to pick up my scissors that have been sent away to be sharpened.

 and we had it all including the Champagne. superdelisious in a supernice place on an coldish springday

The book looks like this and I will talk about it later

About those papers on the wall. each year about dec 7 we have to apply for when we want to have our vacation the next year, I have 34 days I can use and if I don´t apply now there are a little chance that I will get of on my dates, the problem with this is that it´s pure luck if I can attend a wedding och birthday party that I was not aware of at this early point and that is why I can´t attend PR weekend in Chicago that I so was looking forward to....