Friday, November 30, 2018

Micis release



Today, Sofilantjes releases a new pattern, the Micis skirt. This easy and quick to sew skirt has five official version, but with a little imagination you can easily create many more. Hacking is for another day, today I will only show the official versions of the Micis (with one exception). All versions are created with just five pattern pieces and due to the small size of some of the pieces, the skirt is perfect for color blocking with scraps.


The first option is an asymmetrical color blocked pleated skirt. Either doing the pleat in print, or having print on the outside skirt both gives a gorgeous result. I, of course also had to go full crazy and to have one with three bold fabrics. Our little model herself paired it with a hairband like this. I love it when they get involved in the whole sewing and picture process.


The second option has double pleats. This gives a symmetrical front. The rest of the skirt is the same as thep previous option. The back of the skirt is straight in all but the last option. But you can easily switch out the straight back for one of the fronts.



The third option is a cross-over skirt. It is a true cross over, there is no full skirt on the inside. Due to the wide cross-over, it does stay closed well during wearing. The fourth option is a faux cross-over. There is a full basic skirt with a flap on the front. The faux cross-over skirt is the most narrow option, all the others have more freedom of movement due to the pleats.  Still, also the faux cross-over is play proof. I do not have a version of this skirt sewn from the final pattern. If you scroll down I do have a s small Easter egg, a faux cross-over of which the small front is the faux flap. This is just a little the tip off all the other options that you can easily hack yourself.



The fifth option has a simple pleat, no color block. This skirt has a more classy style and would also be perfect for Christmas dinner. This does depend on your fabric choice, because in a bold fabric this is option is a canvas for a lot of fun as well. For this skirt also the back has the simple pleat.



All options have an elastic in the waist which makes it very easy to create a perfect fit. The skirt comes in a wide size range from 3/6 m until 13/14 year. It is super easy to adjust length. I personally like to sew a rather long skirt, such that they can easily wear a skirt two years. Our youngest two actually share their skirt collection even tough they are two years apart.


The Micis is on sale for 5 euro excluding taxes until Sunday night CET. Be sure to check out the listing to see the gorgeous skirts that the testers sewed!


Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Goldie from Fibre Mood



Today, the second Fibre mood edition is launched, fifteen sewing patterns and two knit patterns and I was allowed to pick something to show you on release day. With my need for quick gratification, I again went for a sewing pattern. Picking one was hard, I finally picked Goldie, a top with an interesting sleeve detail, but I was strongly doubting between the Goldie, Gigi, a cool pair of trousers or one of the women patterns like the Kamille.



We were allowed to hack and I did so by decreasing the amount of pattern pieces that I needed to cut. The Goldie is designed to have a woven facing and to have a button placket on the shoulder. I prefer either a binding or sewing the neckline down over a facing, I therefore chose for sewing the neckline down to make that our version of the Goldie close to the original pattern. I cut the non-placket side of both front and back both on the fold to get rid of the placket pieces. I did a similar simplifying hack at the bottom, instead of working with a facing to make a casting for the elastic, I drew 2.5 centimeter hem allowance and after closing the elastic to a loop, I sewed it on the bottom, folded it inwards and stitched it in place with a zigzag.



Our Goldie is sewn with Punta fabric and I intentionally picked a uni colored fabric because I thought that that would show off the sleeve detail best.The version of the instructions that we received did not have a drawing of how the sleeve should look like which meant that I was feeling a bit like magician following the steps without actually knowing what would come out. Only after I finished making pictures did I see the line drawing of the sleeve detail. I realized that I had to pull the fabric a bit extra to the inside. Easy fix, but our pictures where done and with the current early darkness and non-amused teen I could not reshoot properly. But I have this extra shot of how it looked after a small pull. I decided to show you my close up anyway, because this way you know that if it looks like this, you have done it okay, just one step removed from the final result.



I made a size 12 for our almost eleven year old and the fit is perfect. You can buy the Goldie as a separate pattern or as part of a seventeen in one bundle deal. Either way, you find more information about getting the pattern here.



Sunday, November 11, 2018

Another Bazinga



A year ago, I sewed a Bazinga back pack for a back to school tour. I sewed it mostly because I wanted to try it, I wanted to see if I could do it. I sewed it with our youngest in mind, but the back pack turned out a bit big for her. Our eldest has been using it every day since than. This daily reminder to the other kids that mommy can sew back packs led to my son asking for one of his own. He indeed needed a new back pack, but I was not sure if I wanted to sew another bag, I still am on the fence when it comes to bag sewing in general. I even tried to sell him on the idea of a store bought bag. But he was clear, he wanted a mommy made, one with many pockets.



Many pockets... I considered for a moment designing my own, but quickly decided to just sew another Bazinga. I think my biggest problem with sewing bags is that they are made with woven fabrics. Woven fabrics just are not my go to fabric. I have some awesome prints in my stash, but I strongly prefer working with knits. A long long time ago I got some awesome dino fabric from Droomstoffen, such a cool print that I did not dare to cut it. Our son decided he is not wearing woven shirts, so I did not know how to use it to the fullest. For this bag I only used a tiny amount, The rest is now again waiting for the next special project. I have at least three more very cool boy fabrics that are waiting for something special.




Besides the awesome Dino fabric the bag contains a small amount of this fabric, a bit of orange cord fabric that I once won somewhere and a very big load of upcycled denim. I cut into three different jeans to make almost the entire inside, the back, the straps and that small pocket on the front. Color wise the whole thing became a bit too wild, even for my taste. The color balance is a bit off and I think that the small dark blue pocket is a big cause of that but, come on, it was too perfect not too use it as the extra front pocket. I got three pockets without no effort at all. I had not planned to, I just saw after cutting some other pieces that that pocket piece under the waistband for the perfect piece for that front part.



I squeezed in two extra pockets in one on the inside of the bag as well. Yes, that extra inside pocket is not straight, but my son really does not care and and I could not angle it differently due to earlier cuttings from those jeans. I had been planning to sew the bag for weeks, but the fact that there was a denim upcycle challenge in the Flosstyle group finally made me do it. I actually won a free pattern with it, so somewhere in the coming weeks I hope to be able to show you an Alice tea set, the pattern that I chose as my price. Another great pattern to sew with some of my woven treasures.



Sunday, November 4, 2018

Continued Nivalis love



Now that winter is really coming, the wardrobe of our two eldest kids clearly needed some new pieces. The younger two can simply use the stuff from the older two, but the girl and boy that have nobody above them and are growing in record speed needed some quick and versatile pieces. For our daughter I decided to make two very different garments with the Nivalis pattern. Although very different, both I hope will last more than a year.




Our eldest loves long dresses and because long dresses means more wearing time, I love them too. I therefore made her a calf length Nivalis, this is longer than the original dress idea, but this way she will be able to wear it the entire winter/ spring and with some whishfull thinking she might actually wear it next fall and winter too, but then with a more traditional dress length ofcourse.



The other thing that I made with the good old Nivalis pattern is an extremely cropped top. I used the upper color block piece, the sleeves and the hood  of the Follis (but this totally works with the Nivalis own hood as well) to make the perfect winter accessory. This way she can wear her favorite summer dresses all year round. In the pictures she is wearing the Vallis, her favorite dress hands down, but this hood and sleeve combi fits on many more of her summer pieces.



I made the Follis hood because I love how it sits on the back, but it might be a bit on the heavy side for this specific project, so next time I will simply use the Nivalis hood. I raised the neckline a bit such that the Follis hood would fit, I will probably do that as well next time, because I do not want a summer dress itself to be visible at the neckline.