Saturday, January 27, 2018

Color blocking the boy



I had two missions when I went on sewing weekend in October. I wanted to sew the Christmas clothes with the Michael Miller fabric hat I received through Sewing Portfolio's and I wanted to sew winter stuff for my son. My son has been having a growth spurt and he was in a need of long sleeves and trousers. Since this blog post I had been planning to sew him an Orbis, and during the sewing weekend I finally did. I also took the ADVT pattern* from Sofilantjes and sewed three crazy color blocked shirts.


Two years ago, I made him this bear shirt, but that one became quickly to small. I still had enough fabric left to make him the same shirt in a bigger size, but I did not feel like it. I was planing to donate both fabrics to the free for all, but I ended up keeping it myself. I used a French Terry remnant inside out to create fluffy shoulder piece.  The triangle fabric that I used for one of the Rugam skirts really made the combination different than the first shirt.


The Orbis* is clearly a great success. I bought the fabric at Textielstad and it has a white fluffy inside so it makes a perfect winter Orbis. It makes the ultimate "soft" trousers that my son loves. I also bought the fabric in grey and sewed him a Domi, which might also once end up on the blog. For the pockets I used a sturdy knit from the free for all pile. In our house blue combines with everything even it is has a bunny print, so they way my son shows his shirts today, that is also how he wears them to school. He really loves those huge pockets, he is not a collector but he loves to put his hands into them.


This Minion fabric came from Davina. There actually would have been enough fabric to cut an entire shirt from, but I just love color blocking. My son likes glitter and flowers but he sometimes fears it would be to "girly". In this glittery cherry remnant that I used on the sleeves, I saw the perfect color block with the minions. I told my son that the peaches look like minion butts and of course he loved the combination and explanation. The glitter cherry fabric also has a soft inside, so that also contributed to him loving glitter peaches on his shirt.



The last shirt that I am showing you today the wildest of them all and not just because it has tigers on them. I combined six different fabrics into one shirt. I really like how it turned out. Yes it is crazy, but it totally fits my son's style. I used her coverlock to topstitch all those seams with golden thread. Most of these fabrics' were donated to the pile by her, thanks again Davina!


Saturday, January 20, 2018

Flora Dress



You know that I prefer knit over woven and you know that I have taken a step back from testing, but sometimes you have to make an exception to all your rules. Today's dress is the result on such an exception. When Elegance and Elephants posted their testing call last year, I just had to apply. The color block on the front, the no-closure fit and puff sleeves made me lose all reason.



The Flora has three color block options, three sleeve lengths and is available in dress and tunic length, making the dress perfect for any season or event. Due to the low back scoop there is no zipper needed to get the dress over your daughter's head. The puff sleeves are adorable and make dressing in this no-closure dress easier (more room to get the arms in the sleeves).



I am not a 100% satisfied with my combination of fabrics for this dress. I took the main fabric from the "free for all" pile from our latest sewing weekend. The daughter of Sabrina went from a color addiction to a black and white lover and this cute dark pink flower fabric had to go. My pink lover was of course over the moon with this fabric and she was happy with any other pink addition. For me the contrast with the bodice color (Cloud 9 fabric) turned out a bit off. My daughter obviously loves the entire thing, so I do not really mind. The next one will be in one fabric, the pretty examples of the listing easily convinced me of that.


 

Saturday, January 13, 2018

Underwear



Last October, we had the 2017 second edition of our sewing weekend and I posted my projects of that weekend on Instagram (and that picture even made itself into my Best9). In a month, we will go on the first weekend of 2018. Although, now that the kids are bigger, I can sew at home while they are awake, those sewing weekends create peak production (last time I think I put in 20 hours of just sewing in one weekend). This means that after such weekends I have several unblogged projects that sometimes seem to never reach the blog. Today's post is about the last set of clothes from February that I had not shown you yet. I sewed several pieces of underwear, and in the weeks after, I sewed some more that I also added to this post.



From the sewing weekend projects that I did show, several pieces were made from scraps remnants that where exchanged during the weekend. This ballet suit's fabric was from the same pile. The outer fabric is the most intriguing jersey that I ever saw. It has splots of thick glitter paint on it. Katrien just had a small piece left, but it was enough to squeeze a body suit out of it. I actually lined it with one of her scraps, but that is not visible of course. This picture is now almost a year old, and you know how it goes with these small kids. The suit therefore already moved out of our home (and into hers). The pattern is the Alley Cat from Lil Luxe patterns.



From my own scraps, I sewed two pieces of underwear, a size 3 and a size 4 for my son. It is the Suat boxer pattern, and I was not sure which size was best for him. Therefore, I sewed two different sizes to find out. I sewed many, many more a few weeks later. Here is that extra collection that also contains some pieces for my eldest daughter. I really like the pattern (and used it here as well), and it will definitely go with me on the next sewing edition. If you need plans to sew with smaller remnants pieces, underwear is a perfect project.





The last piece of underwear that I sewed during that sewing weekend was a bralette for myself. I used the free pattern by George and Ginger. I squeezed it out of a remnant from when I made this dress. But the bralette actually required a bit more fabric than I anticipated so I ended up with a color block on the back.I am used to wearing under wire bra's so the bra felt a bit too "sport bra"to me. The fit is nice, but I had to get used to it a bit. For sure I will take a decreased version of this with me for the next edition to make some for my eldest daughter.




Saturday, January 6, 2018

Regina times four



I already told you in my previous post, December was super busy, and blogging was the thing that had to go. Fortunatly, I did not let go of sewing (it relaxes me) and last month, I sewed four Regina's* (besides some other sewing), the newest pattern of Sofilantjes*. As you can understand from the name, a dress fit for a queen.




Seeing as I made four dresses already, it is clear that I once again adore the pattern. It has several features that I love. First, the pleated sleeve. I am a sucker for pleats (in jersey) or other 3D effects and those cute pleats on the front of the sleeves make a very cute detail. In the short term I already foresee a slightly hacked version with pleats on both sides of the sleeve. The pleats are most visible in a uni colored fabric, but they look great on a printed fabric as well. The pattern also includes a regular sleeve, in case you do not have enough fabric (which is why the giraffe version has regular sleeves).




The pattern comes with two skirts that fit the Solis/Litore/Montis. There is an all-round pleated version (the Solis skirt has a partial pleated skirt) and a gathered circle skirt. The latter one now competes with the high low skirt from the Litore over being my favorite skirt option. My girls love a good twirl and with a gathered circle skirt they can almost literately twirl their socks of. Both the giraffe and glitter dress have a pleated skirt. The pleats are best visible in a fabric that does not have much drape. That is why the giraffe dress's pleats look better than the glitter one. With drapey fabric I would advise a circle (Solis) or the double circle skirt.




The Regina has a boatlike neckline and the front and back bodice pieces are the same. This means that after cutting your bodice pieces you can still choose which print placement makes the prettiest front. The neckline is finished with a jersey band, so you no not have to find a complementing ribbing color. Another advantage of a similar front and back is that of you have regular sleeves and but the seam of the neckband at the shoulder, the dress can never be backwards on your child. The same advantage as the Silva pattern. The dress in is unlined, so if you have a girls that sweats easily, this also makes a perfect summer dress.



When I was writing this post, I realized that coincidentally all four of these fabric were bought at Textielstad and they are from four different trips 9al in 2017...). Last year, I started with administrating how much fabric went out (and sometimes in) my stash. Unfortunately, I am not that good in keeping up these kind of organized routines, so after four months I stopped. This year I do not have any special plans on how to decrease the stash, but I feel I am doing fine at the moment, I feel at least my stash is not growing. I did gift myself another Bobbinhood kit (a bigger one) and I actually plan to print fabrics, instead of buying prints. This means that the uni colored fabrics in my stash are more versatile and a smaller stash should be a logical result (right?).



Feel free to leave a comment in the language you prefer (although Google translate might have to assist me if you choose something different than English, German, Dutch or Hungarian). If you buy anything through my affiliate links (*), I get a small commission (the price stays the same for you), I am very grateful for everything that feeds my fabric addiction.




Monday, January 1, 2018

Dadirri Cardigan and Nore hack



First things first, happy new year! I hope that all the good things from last year will continue and that the bad ones will quickly only be memories. I usually do not make resolutions, but this year I have at least one. My life became very busy the last months and especially in December, I simply did not have time to blog. For this year, I will continue taking up less sewing deadlines (tests and tours) such that I have more time to freestyle. My blogging and sewing relaxes me, and I will go back to regular weekly blogging. I have several backlogged projects and today I am starting with a special one. Today, I am showing you my first clothing piece within years created from yarn, the Dadirri cardigan* from Compagnie M.


When I started this blog, sewing was not my main hobby. I had sewn a few things, but I mostly crafted with yarn. Knitting and crochet were the two things that kept me busy. Since I discovered sewing with knits (already four and a half year ago), those yarn related crafts just seemed to take so much time. But there is a huge advantage of yarn crafts, you can do them wherever you are. You can take them with you or just do them in front of the tv. Sometimes I feel like "doing nothing"in the evening and just want to watch tv, and then crocheting or knitting is perfect. Therefore, I usually have a yarn project laying around (which often do not reach the blog when finished). Through the years I have made a few blankets and toys, but not clothing.



I have often sewed with Compagnie M* patterns, I love the unique twist that Marte has in all her patterns. When I heard that she was going into knitting patterns, I was intrigued. The thing that make the Compganie M knitting patterns stand out, is that you are free to choose your own yarn and needles. For every pattern there is a special calculator that creates a pattern based on your personal gauge. You make a test square per stitch type and than you sit back and just follow schedule especially created for you.


The Dadirri *cardigan front is knitted in a coin stitch, and has regular knitted sleeves and back. The yarn that I used is recommended for needle size 4-5 (I knit rather loose, so I knitted it on 3.5). You can make the front dots very obvious by using a contrasting color, but I went for a rather subtle gray. On my version, the shoulders became a bit too wide. In the test pattern (the one I used) the shoulders were wider than in the final and I had even widened the front a bit because I knew my daughter would wear it over long sleeves. I am not bothered my the slightly wide shoulders, but in case you were, than it is important to know that this should not happen in your version.


I am a craft material horder and besides a big fabric pile, I also own quite some yarn. I am a big fan of cotton, and I bought this lovely blue yarn with the plan to once knit a cardigan. In blog and Instagram land I often envious look at all the perfectly matching knitted projects, so I always have plans. I also have the yarn in red, in that color I even once started a cardigan, but after knitting the back and a sleeve the project stagnated for a year, and I pulled it all out. I turned the pulled out yarn into this squirrel.


The biggest challenge with knitted cardigans is probably finding the perfect button. I almost never  use buttons on my sewing projects am very loving the kam snap option and so do my kids. I have a very small collection of buttons and almost all buttons are tiny. I therefore decided to try making my own buttons from Fimo clay (which I also just happen to have in my craft collection). I had no clue how much clay I would need, so in the end I ended up with about 20 buttons...


For the shoot I decided to sew a dress and I hacked the Nore for kids* into to be like option B in the Nore for women. I only had half a meter from the blue tree fabric, because I bought it so long ago (I started out with buying half a meter pieces, but now I buy at least a meter). My eldest really liked the fabric, so I squeezed a dress out of it. I had to make an extra seam in the skirt.  I even had to put the trees diagonal there (due to not having enough fabric), but I still feel it either looks intentional or does not show.