Friday, April 26, 2019

Sweet Solises



The Solis is always a winner, the speed of construction, the minimum amount of fabric that you need for the bodice and the twirl factor always stirs a lot of joy in me and in our littlest family member. So, on the Sunday morning of our sewing weeked, I turned two leftover fabrics into Solisses.



For the ones that saw my post on boy shirts, those will also have seen the two bear shirts (that our son decided to boycott) that I cut from a cute panel. After cutting those two shirts, I was left with a big amount of boring forest. The leftover are a reason why I do not often buy panel fabrics. The fabric did not really speak to me at that moment, but I felt I had nothing to loose by turning it it a Solis. The trees were that thick that it was not that clear what was up and what was down. That dark bar on a the front is actually a tree sideways and now it looks a bit like waistband. I really love the result, and also our girl is very happy with her tree dress.



Last week, I showed the shirts that I sewed for our middle daughter and after sewing that awesome color blocked rainbow shirt, I still had enough fabric left to turn it into a Solis bodice. From the fabric that I had taken with me, the red / pink stripes was the best match. If I would have my entire stash (which is not that big anymore by the way), I might have chosen a different skirt, but I am still very satisfied with the result. Stripes turn into arches when you make a circle skirt with them, so now she has a two color rainbow skirt.



So you see, whatever stretchy fabric  that you have, if you turn it into a Solis it will always be awesome. A quick way to use some of that fabric that you fell out of love wit, and a good likelihood It will become your daughters favorite summer piece this year.



Saturday, April 20, 2019

Girl summer shirts



When I asked our middle daughter what she wanted me to sew for her on our sewing weekend she replied "shirts", so I made her four Regem shirts. A few years ago, I still very much disliked using the same pattern multiple times in a row, now I really love it, as you probably judged from me using the same patterns over and over again in the recent years. But, this time I did not do four times copy paste, like in this post. This time I made four different shirts.



Let's start with the most plain Regem, the one with the mermaid/cat print. I would either call them mercat or catfish but in English both are taken by a different animal already. I love the boldness of the print and it did not need anything else than a contrasting neckband in my opinion, one that contrasted while still matching with the print because the tiny starfish have a similar color.



The second shirt, sewn in magical color changing fabric, is another rather plain shirt, but this time I finished the neck line differently. I did not want to distract from the print itself, so I simply folded over the neckline and sewed it in place. Even quicker than working with a neck band. Not all fabrics are suitable for this, especially if you fabric is very stretchy, you easily get a wavy line. This rather thin fabric had just the right amount of stretch for a fold over neckline.



The third shirt, has another sea print and I used the front color block option of the Regem. I wanted the back to be mostly sea animals, but I also wanted the sleeves to match with something on the back as well. I therefore went for a straight color block line on the back. My plain light blue fabric was almost totally gone already, so I had to make an extra seam. By putting it exactly in the middle I feel it gives a extra depth to the shirt.



For the last shirt I color blocked my heart out. The rainbows in the fabric were inspiring, and I color blocked a rainbow on the front. I did not have any yellow in my scrap collection, but she did. I probably could have found some plain yellow as well seomwhere in the room with 22 addicted sewists, but I love the crazy mix with the yellow/orange print.




Thursday, April 11, 2019

Advena release



Today, the Advena, the newest pattern from Sofilantjes releases. The Advena is a very versatile pattern because you can make a shirt, tunic and dress, with three different neck lines and it includes short and long sleeves. Spring weather is upon us, so I went twice for short sleeves and I even had one of our very rare outside shoots.




The Advena comes with an envelop neck line, a round neckline and a cross over asymmetrical neck line with round on one side and envelop on the other shoulder. I twice went for envelop, but I for sure see a cross over neckline in our near future. You know that I love asymmetry.




The side panel gives the perfect color block option, you can for bold full print, uni color or like me something in between. Just make it fit your personal style. Only the middle part of the skirt is gathered, the skirt piece is relatively narrow and you need a minimal amount of fabric for the skirt. I made the dress for our middle daughter from an upcycled women's garment and a small scrap that I once received from her. Grey on grey is something that somehow really speaks to me.



The shirt for our eldest I made during the pre-test and the final fit changed a bit. I really love how the envelop neck line ribbing adds another level to the color block options. Our eldest is wearing a capri Orbis that I sewed during our sewing weekend. I made her a blueish-grey capsule wardrobe during that sewing weekend and this new shirt also easily fits in it. The rest of the caspule wardrobe will also come to the blog soon.




The pattern is on sale for €5,37- ex taxes (6.50 incl EU taxes) until the end of the weekend.

Monday, April 1, 2019

Orbis times three



I know you have seen many Orbis trousers from me, but you can never have too much of a good thing, right? Our middle daughter loves wearing Orbis trousers because they are between trousers and leggings and because they have pockets.




A few weeks ago I bought French Terry fabrics in a few colors on the bold. French Terry is perfect for the Orbis and although I bought it in uni colors such that I can screen print it, I thought the uni color fabrics would make up cool Orbises even without a print due to the color block of the pocket. I combined the colors among each other to create three different trousers and the three different ribbing fabrics provide the perfect contrast.




For the pockets I used three different decorative stitches. I made these trousers a while ago, and now that I own a coverlock, I will probably sew even more. She does not like ribbing just below her knees, so for summer I am planning to just hem is above the knee.