Tag: White

Red Birds and Foxes

A year ago, I added a piece of light coloured fabric with grey leaf-ish things and little deer, birds, squirrels and foxes to the stash. On the hunt for a project, I re-discovered this fabric and decided to finally make (at least part of it) into a top of some sort.

Enter Simplicity 9, model 59 minus ruffle. This pattern came in size 38-40 at the smallest. In general, that tends to be too big. However, I hoped it would work anyway without resizing the pattern beforehand – spoiler alert: dumb choice.

In order to get it to fit, I made a 2 cm pleat at the back, ending at the small of my back. The shoulders were lowered 1.5 cm. I redrew the neckline at the front and back to correspond to the original size. So in total I probably managed to shave of more than 8 cm or so. I now like the fit a lot better. The fabric does crease like crazy and I don’t like ironing, so this is why you see it in all its wrinkly glory.

The fabric is super cute though and those five buttons also came from the stash. The original pattern had more buttons, but I was not going to let such a good match in buttons go to waste, so five it was. The button bands might have a little to much interfacing for the thickness of the fabric, but all in all, it wears well and it’s very cute. So far, so good!

Mini Bunny

Sometimes you just really want to do a quick project. So about one episode of Castle ago, I cast on a little bunny. It’s 15 stitches wide and knit in stockinette to a square. Using the Bunnies from a square pattern, I knit up a tiny bunny. I’m claiming it is for Easter, but I just wanted to try out the pattern.

It’s quite cute, and it was a really quick project so that was nice. Who knows, he might get a family in the next few days…

Mondriaan Finish

I’ve had this fabric in my stash for years.. probably over a decade by now. I have always liked the Mondriaan-eque pattern on it, but I never really knew what to make from it. I finally decided to cut into it again. I used the garden party dress bodice by Honig designs again (used before on the riding jacket and a graduation dress). I re-printed the pattern this time. I used the second size, squared out the shoulders a little (downwards), increased the width of the back darts and lowered the neckline on both sides. I added a skirt from two widths of fabric with big pleats (about 10 cm). Also, pockets, of course.

I think this is the cleanest finished dress I have ever made. The skirt is two full widths so I could use the selvages. Along the skirt zipper, shoulders and bodice sides, the fabric was folded inwards, cut with pinkers and sewn. The waist seam was finished with some white bias tape, invisible from the outside (I think). The neckline and arms were finished with some home-made bias tape. I sewed the single-fold bias tape along the inside at around 5 mm from the fold, cut of the excess fabric, folded the bias tape over the cut edge and under again and stitched it down around 8 mm wide. This mimicked the width of the stripes on the fabric. I had white in the bobbin and black as the top thread, so it almost looks invisible on the inside!

There were some severe troubles getting the skirt to go on right. Since I have quite a bad swayback and effectively stick my butt out very far when standing normally, I had to accommodate for some extra length in the back. This turned out a lot harder than expected, but it did work in the end (I hope). I might wear this for convocation this year. It might be too bright, I’m not sure yet. We will see at the end of August, I guess.

Hopefully the next you’ll hear from me will be around September 1st, when I’ve finished a dress for a wedding with a Tenue de Ville dress code.

Summer Playsuit

Have you ever noticed that when it is very hot out, you don’t feel like making clothes for hot weather (or making any clothes for that matter)? When it’s not very hot out, it also does not feel right to make clothes for hot weather, afraid to jinx it or something. Saturday, after the enormous heat wave we have been having, I decided to make the hot weather outfit that I needed for the summer. I’d spotted a really cool patter in Simplicy Naaimode 24, a jumpsuit with options for length, pant-width and top style.

I chose to make the short version of the wide legged one, with the ‘A’ top, which is the one where the shoulders are not bare. I’d bought some white jersey with yellow flowers especially for this purpose. Also because I wanted to make something with a pattern that would be suitable for outdoors (octopuses really aren’t for everyday wear). So on Saturday afternoon, I set to work, ironing the piece of fabric. I finished the entire thing that night, apart from hemming and some other little things. It’s pretty comfortable so far. I made one change and that was to add belt loops, apart from that, it is as drafted size 34. It feels really quite big, but I guess that is what makes it comfortable.

I’m going to have to wear it out once it gets hot to see whether it actually works as hot weather gear, but I hope it will! I might make it again in the long-legged version, although I will take in the top then to prevent the gaping at the overlaps.

Birdy Scarf Repeat

Dinosaurs are awesome, unfortunately nice fabric with dinosaurs on is hard to find. Birds are the descendants of dinosaurs. They are quite nice themselves too, and fabric with birdy prints is really easy to find! The local market stall had two really nice bird print fabrics, one white with hummingbirds, one navy with white swallows, which I clearly needed to have in my collection. They were both soft and slightly see through and combined beautifully with each other to form a scarf.

A friend of mine has a hummingbird tattoo and it was her birthday. So although I didn’t finish it exactly in time, there is now a circular scarf waiting for her neck. I also wanted one for myself, so there are now two double-birdy scarves in existence. The recipient of the other one seemed to like hers, so I’m happy.

The proof is in the wearing as they say, and I have worn this one every day since it has been finished. I’ve determined that navy is a neutral and must thus go with everything. In contrast to the light blues and greens in the previous circle scarf, I’ve decided that I can wear this with red too.. In any case, Happy Easter!

And Now, to Conquer the Galaxy!

Or just a bit of fabric with a night-time print, I guess. How did my conquering of the galaxy come about you may ask? Well, I’m currently waiting for what I hope will be a walking foot to arrive in the mail. I’ve been working on a sort of modified riding jacket from a striped wool-ish fabric. Almost all of the outside has been constructed, but it requires a lining. I cut out the lining, but from experience I know that sewing the particular fabric with the normal sewing machine is hellish. I also know that my overlocker is still being naughty in a corner and refuses to make nice seam. Thus, I’m reduced to having patience until the new foot arrives, which I hope will allow me to sew the lining without much shifting.

img_20170209_214205275_hdr img_20170209_214643249

What I needed was a simple, one evening or less project that I could actually finish and that would not end up in the corner. I have more than enough unfinished projects as is, don’t need any more, thank you very much. Enter, the loop-scarf (again). I bought some fabrics a while ago specifically for a loop-scarf project. One was a galaxy print fabric, with a black border print and the same print on white in the middle. This time, I took the easy way out. I made a little snip and just tore it along the grain; easy straight edge and about 100 times as fast as attempting to measure and cut. How I’ve learned from last time!

img_20170209_214345440 img_20170209_214447033

I just sewed the long edges together (seam 1), pressed them flat and then open and then flat on the outside again. Next, I was smart enough to pin the black short edges together the right way the first time I tried! Whoo, progress and improvement ladies and gentlemen! Left about 8 cm open and sewed that shut by hand (seam 2). Hey presto, easy peasy scarfy-weasy. I’ve found that I prefer loop-scarves since they don’t hang in my food nearly as much. Who knows, there will probably be a few more in the near future, if I can bang them out in an hour, there’s a lot of space for making.

Birdy Scarf

After my failed skirt project from the last post, I wanted something quick and easy that was useful and I could finish and wear quickly. Winter is coming (and/or arriving), which means that I’ve been layering up with a scarf daily again. One of my favourites is a double sided scarf from something cottony that is just a long loop. It has a blue and white plaid on one side and a different yellow and blue plaid on the other. I found that it wears really nicely and that you never have an end hanging in your food. Clearly I needed another and since I have a number of thin fabrics in the stash it seemed like a perfect solution.

Birds

Now, have you ever heard of the Dutch proverb (loosely translated) ‘A donkey doesn’t walk into the same rock twice’? Well, I’m most obviously not a donkey, I’m way, way worse. I tend to walk into the same thing at least… oh 5 million times. As I did now. I should have remembered from previous frustrating attempts that you cannot just turn something inside out and expect it to be good. I made a tube, but it was the wrong way round, somehow. Instead of it being a loop of birds on the inside and a loop of stripes on the outside, it turned out to be half a loop of birds on one side and half a loop of stripes on the other side. It also didn’t fit comfortably over my head anymore. So I gave up and chucked it into a corner.

Stripe

Cue a few hours ago.. I unpicked one of the long edges, ironed out the other long edge and edgestitched around. Then I ironed the other long edge and folded both sides inwards and edgestitched those around too. Magic, I had my scarf. I used 65 cm and the full width of both fabrics for this scarf.

Scarf Scarf

Just the coverage of something around the neck helps tremendously with the cold that’s coming. I need to see how the little birdies hold up, but I hope that this project will be successful. Both sides will show a little but they go with nearly everything (if you ask me, which you don’t but I’m telling you anyway), so I have high hopes.

New Shirt Pattern

I found another shirt pattern in one of my pattern magazines: Simplicity Naaimode nr 4. This one has a center back seam and either a boat or a v neck. With some fairly badly recovering red/off-white striped jersey I decided to try it out.

Front Back

I managed to match the stripes along the seams pretty well, and I quite like that it manages to be straight-ish at the back, as bottoms generally stick out more than backs do. The back seam is very curved, to accommodate the sway back. This is why it looks so much longer at the center back on the hanger, see below. It’s currently still on that hanger, so I should stick it in the closet soon.

Inside Inside

I have already cut the remainder of the striped leggings fabric (piecing significant bits), to this pattern, with some modifications. So hopefully, I’ll be able to show that soon too, although it’s very hot, and sewing in hot conditions isn’t always very nice.. We’ll see when super summer ends again!

Stripes Everywhere

To combat underwear views in the last graduation dress, I made some shorts. I found this leggings pattern on the internet (Into the woods from Grosgrain Fab.com, here) and cut out the shorts from some striped stretch fabric I still had available. I wanted to have the shorts end on a blue stripe as that would match the dress better. However, when I put on the finished product, it was too long, and was clearly visible when wearing the skirt. Oh noes!

Front long Front short

So… I made another one that was shorter. Why not cut of some length of the first one? Well two reasons, 1. I didn’t want a green stripe at the bottom and 2. I needed some short leggings to wear under my butt-protector shorts during roller derby, and the first pair were just long enough to serve that purpose. I still managed to get the blue stripe at the bottom in the second version, so that was nice. You can see the difference in length between these two.  There are a couple of extra stripes on the right one.

Back long Back short

I have no idea why the left one pulls more than the right one in the back, especially since they are the same pattern. I’ve still got to try the full length version at some point. Not in summer though. First I need to finish a shirt from the remainders of this fabric…

Twirly Graduation

A couple of Fridays ago, it was again time for the most important work event of the year. The Summer Graduation, 150 students came to pick up their diploma in caps and gowns during a splendidly sunny ceremony. This of course warranted a new dress.

I had found the pattern months before on Papavero, the Polish site that also gave me my January Graduation pattern. They call it the Sukienka na poprawiny and you can find it here. This pattern features an asymmetric full skirt and asymmetric top, it’s sleeveless and doesn’t have too many pattern pieces. Two skirt parts, one bodice front, two bodice back, a strap and three facing pieces. The skirt pieces are enormous and are not really suitable for a lining. This meant some special fabric restrictions as I didn’t want a see through dress. Luckily I found some blue and white fabric that was really opaque, it was a very long piece which I still got for about 10 euros, it was apparently just too short to cut in two (lucky me!).

Dress Back

All the bits were cut out and sewed the thing together. The front of the skirt turned out shorter that I would have figured so I decided to do a bias tape hem to restrict length loss as much as possible. This would also mean a nice decorative feature. I also covered some of the seams in the same bias tape for cleaner insides. I made a few changes, namely: increasing the depth of the neckline at the front, subsequently changing the strap piece so it would still fit, shortened the bodice at the shoulders quite drastically, inserted plastic boning in the back darts and I added pockets.

Pocket Binding

The pockets were fantastic. I could put so much stuff in but due to the nature of the skirt it was invisible. It helped me out a lot during the day. The other fun thing is the mega swirl factor of the skirt. To combat the dreaded underwear showing during mega twirl, I also created some shorts to wear underneath, but more on those next time.

Inside Inside

The invisible zip worked out pretty well and it’s nice to wear. It’s airy but still *in my opinion* formal enough to serve well during events like this. People also made a lot of positive comments about it, which is always nice. I think I may make the dress (or just the skirt) again, but then I’m going to lengthen the front of the skirt a bit so that I feel ‘safer’ when I wear it. All in all, it was a success!