Sunday, March 25, 2018

Josephine Sunshine sale



I have tested and sewn many Bella Sunshine Design* patterns, and I am always happy with the result. Bella Sunshine has many great girl patterns for both jersey and woven fabrics. They also have patterns for women, if you like to twin with your girls, this is your go to shop. Last year, the Josephine dress* was released as part of One Thimble issue 15*. For a while the pattern is already available at Bella Sunshine as well, and today, really only today the pattern is extra cheap. For just $5 and the code “sunshinesale” you can now buy this beautiful vintage inspired pattern.



The Josephine is a pattern for woven fabrics with split side panels that scream piping. The pattern can be sewn either as a dress or a top. The gathered skirt for the dress option comes in regular and vintage length. There is an extra wide hem on the bottom that you can let out if the dress becomes a bit to vintage short. The pattern has cute cap sleeves and has an exposed zipper as a sophisticated detail. The boat line neckline makes it a timeless design.


I sewed the dress in a fabric from the goodie bag from our sewing weekend. This beautiful flowy drapey fabric comes from Huis van Katoen. I could not find the fabric on the site this morning, but there are many other great options. I used some silver piping that I still has in my stash to show off the side seams. I have to admit that sewing on that pipping on a bit stretchy slippery fabric was not the most enjoyful experience, but the result totally makes up for it. If you use a regular woven, it sews up in a breeze though.



 So, if you want to scoop up this pattern* for a bargain, go and buy it now! It is on sale until midnight Sunday 25 March US time with the code “sunshinesale”. 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.




Thursday, March 22, 2018

Foras dress release



Color blocked jersey dresses are my favorite sewing projects, if you feel the same, you will love the new Sofilantjes pattern, the Foras*. The Foras is a dropped waist relaxed fitting dress with two skirt options. One with a circle skirt, the other gathered skirt. The pattern is made for pockets lovers. The pockets that fall  perfectly in line with the color block in the bodice. But, you can very easily not make pockets and have a nice basic drop waisted dress. Today, I am showing you two of the four dresses that I sewed with this pattern, one with circle skirt and one with gathered skirt.



The side color block is an easy sew. If you are a beginner just clip or pin the color block in, and it should line up perfectly. Those side panels really adds to the design on the dress, because of the color block options. On one hand those side panels are perfect for using some treasured scraps. On the other hand, the side panels make the front bodice relatively narrow, which make it perfect for all kind of small panels. The pattern comes with three sleeve lengths, long, 3/4 and short sleeves. The long sleeves have a long cuff, which gives some extra color block options.



The first dress that I made is the black velvety dress for our eldest, that Fabric comes from Textielstad. Recently, when I just went to buy a rol knive, I bought at Textielstad some awesome new striped ribbings (my current obsession) that perfectly match the jersey that they sold as well. That means that for the black dress, the pockets are in jersey and the neckband is ribbing. For the other dress, the bunny one (The fabric is from Joyfits), I clearly did not use ribbing for the neckline, so although it is nice and stretchy fabric, I did add about two centimeter to the length of the neckband to avoid a pulling neckline.



I know that I just wrote that I recently bought new ribbings and matching jersey stripes, but I am really trying to not buy new fabric. Every time I sit in front of my fabric closet I feel that the good fabrics are gone (although there are piles and piles of fabric), but when I force myself to make something from the piles, I always rediscover some perfect fabrics. I did the same with the bunny fabric. My daughter picked it, and I am now so in love with the combi. I considered making a matching print on the pocket, and even halfy tried, but I decided that I just needed a sewing shot and decided not to be bothered. I glued, cut and sewed the bunny dress in a two hour break that I had before the kids came home from school. I was really craving from creative endeavor. The joy that I felt after finishing the dress was similar as I would have been to a Spa for the entire day, which really shows that sewing is cheaper than therapy.



As usual dress is on a very attractive release sale, you can buy the Foras* now for just 5 euro's (excluding EU VAT). This time the sale period is actually longer than we are used to at Sofilantjes, you can buy the dress until Sunday evening 22:00 (EU time). 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.




Friday, March 16, 2018

Cicero times four and an awesome sewing weekend



I mentioned it a few posts ago, last month, I again went on my sewing weekend. We went to the same location as the first and second time and it was great again. This time MonDepot joined our sewing group and she took her store with her! The social atmosphere was great again, and that much uninterupted sewing time is always a good idea. My personal theme this sewing weekend was basic summer stuff. I already showed you the two Vivaxes that I sewed that weekend and today I am showing you four Cicero's*.


I love the Cicero pattern. It is both great as a base pattern and awesome if you use the color block options. My kids needed new hoodies, because it is what they practically live in in the summer. They do not wear coats, they wear hoodies. I made a few color blocks versions in the past and I hacked a few, but this time I went for plain and simple. I love the fact that the zipper is actually a sort of color block option. I shortened the zipper again the same way as I showed here.



All four of them were sewn without a color block, but I of course added pockets. A few of the people were surprised by my "plain" choice of fabrics. But I did it on purpose because I know how their wardrobe looks like and I know that these jackets will be combined with a lots of different colorful clothes underneath, so they will be color bombs any way. These "plain" jackets are a way to down down the craziness a little bit. Our smallest is showing off her Cicero in an almost toned down combination of an Orbis (at the end of the post) and Hibernis that I sewed for her older sister in the past.



At the beginning of the sewing weekend we again got spoiled with a goodie bag filled with fabric and haberdashery. I always get super greedy and immediately put it together with my stash, almost afraid that I have to give it back. I am a bit like Gollum when it comes to sewing gifts, my precious! So of course I forget to make a picture of the content of my bag. She was less greedy and her picture gives you a good view of what was in the bag. My fabrics where different, but I will show them when I use them. I already sewed up one that I will be showing next week.

So I want to thank the generous sponsors of our goodie bag!




The fabrics that I used for the Cicero's had divers sources this time. The red and orange stars came from Joyfits. The pink grey starts with fluffy inside came, as often, from her stash. The deer fabric I bought at Cas and Nina, a recently discontinued fabric store. Half a year ago, I made our middle daughter a Domi* from the same fabric and of course she wanted to combine them for this shoot. The trousers were often washed already so the fabric changed color a bit already. The white with grey glitter fabric came from Textielstad.



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.


Friday, March 9, 2018

Sora sweater and give away



For this blogger year, which seem to be similar as academic years (seeing that they start after the summer), I am part of Blank Slate Patterns, sewing team. In October, I therefore made this tutorial on how to create slightly different pockets for the Denver. Next week, I am showing off my two versions of the Fairelith, but today I am posting about one of Blank Slate's newest patterns, the Sora* Sweater.


The Sora Sweater is actually intended, as the name says, to be a sweater. The perfect layering piece for winter or summer evenings. But, I took a different angle, I simply made it into a summer shirt. I am very much looking forward to warmer weather, and by sewing summer clothes, it at least partially feels like summer.



The pattern has two options, you can make it into a pullover, like I did, but you can also make a cardigan* with it. It has both long and short sleeves and you can create some cool color blocking effects with the small triangle piece on the side. This time I went for plain, uni colored fabric. No color block. Next week, on the Blank Slate blog you can see very different fabric for my Faireliths.


Although I have been regularly sewing for years now, I do still make mistakes, and sometimes even huge mistakes. While I was sewing the Sora, I paid close attention to how sew in the collar. The instructions are great (and Melissa is even making a video), and all should have been fine, but there was one tiny detail that I did not pay attention to. I have sewed shawl collars in the past, but this one was different. And due to my previous experience, I actually sewed up the collar piece upside down.


While sewing the collar, I went through the same phases as she did with a different project (read that post, I laughed so much). I was sure that I was doing it fine, and the problem had to be with fabric/pattern combination. I just did not understand why I had to stretch the neckline so much to fit in the collar. But, I believed in the pattern and hoped that a good top stitch would fix it. I steamed the *** out of it and felt it was decent enough. I even made pictures, and when I showed them to Melissa if she understood why mine looked so different, I realized myself that I of course  had sewn in the collar wrong. Better late than never right... The last picture, the one with the light colored jeans is how the wrong construction looked.


I am not one for waisting fabric, so I took out that top stitching (yes of course I did a stretch stitch), steamed again, and than all was fine. If you like the neckline as much as me, you are probably happy to hear that I am allowed to give away one Sora pattern to my readers. If you are interested in winning the pattern, just fill in the Rafflecopter.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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.