Houndstooth.

Don’t worry, I have already given myself a big slap on the wrist for being such a lazy blogger, but to be honest, sewing is the last thing I feel like doing at the moment.

Because of a very complicated situation, I got denied entry when I flew to London and got held overnight in the detention centre in Stansted, before I got packed on to a plane and flown back to Denmark. Not the best of experiences, I can assure you, but really, how many people can say that they have spent 24 hours in no mans land? I felt like I was in “The Terminal”, trying to wash my face in a very small hand basin and sleeping on airport seats. I have all the problems sorted out now and on Wednesday, all going to plan, I will be one happy tourist, wandering around London. A few things I learnt though;

1.  Airport immigration staff in Britain are scary – until they have to search your underwear. Frank didn’t seem to enjoy that any more than I did.
2. If you ever find yourself in the same situation, the detention centre where they hold you is comfortable and they just want to be nice to you. The ladies on night shift are hilarious and I can at least say I have watched Coronation Street and eaten Salt and Vinegar chips on what is technically, British soil.
3. Danish immigration is a piece of cake after that ordeal. The police met me off the plane, checked my visa and told me I could stay as long as I needed. Such sweethearts.

The week after all this, the snow returned to Denmark and doing anything outside would probably have resulted in hypothermia. Once it all started to melt, we took a trip to the art gallery called AROS, in Aarhus and got a few pictures of my houndstooth wool skirt. The photo’s that are yellow, are up in a part of the gallery called the rainbow, a big circle attachment on the top of the building with rainbow tinted glass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I used the same pattern as I did for my blue wool crepe skirt, Butterick 5015. The skirts are the same, slim waist band with four darts. I used the same method on the zip as I did last time and I am still in love with how much easier it is and how tidy it looks.

I’ve actually had this skirt done for weeks now and I have worn it to death. It is such a good shape to go with everything and I really love the houndstooth with some brightly coloured tights. Makes any cold winters day a little bit better. On a side note, does anyone watch “The Hour”? It’s a cool show about the way news reporting changed in the 50’s on the BBC. A little like Mad Men with some very cool costumes including a houndstooth skirt on the leading lady.

I have sewn two tops and two dresses, all variations of the Sorbetto, but they just need a little more work. Bias binding on the armholes or hemming them up, things that aren’t going to get done when you are having a lack of motivation. As I have mentioned before, because of my lack of sewing machine in England, I won’t be getting much posted but I will post some photos of the things I have been doing instead. Hopefully they won’t bore you all to death!

Til next time!

Cold Snap

And just as we thought we could see the end of the tunnel, this happens;

With the matching temperatures of -5, I’ve been finding it quite hard to find spring inspriation. Team this with frustrating visa issues, and you have one very unmotivated sewist. After two weeks of complete darkness from the visa office in London and missing a much anticipated flight, I am now flying out in 10 days time.

On the positive side of all this, I have had more time with my sewing machine and started finishing a dress I started 6 months ago and got bored of. I also helped my little charge to make an elastic waisted skirt. Apart from the elastic, she cut out and sewed it all herself. Very proud Au Pair right here. She used the fabric that was going to be a yellow sorbetto top, but I promise I have something much cooler to replace it with.

I also got the muslin for my sorbetto fitted. I added a dart in the armhole, made a round shoulder adjustment and cut down the sides of the back to a size 8 and it fits much better. Take a look see;

From this;

To this;

I also got the hand sewing on my houndstooth skirt done. Photos to come.

Til next time!

Muslining

Only one row of hand stitching until I am done with the houndstooth skirt, but in the meantime, here is something for your perusal

It is a muslin of Colette patterns Sorbetto top. I had just enough fabric left over from this maxi skirt, to make a wearable muslin to try out the fit. To be honest, I was slightly dubious about how this was going to turn out. All my measurements, including the bust, fit in to one size nicely. Immediately I began to think I had done something wrong. Bust measurements were off, I had read the pattern wrong. Something must have made this happen, because I am NEVER one size when it comes to tops. I remeasured and double checked everything, but nothing seemed to be at fault. I began to hesitantly cut it out thinking “it’s only a muslin”.

And I was pleasantly surprised! No major problems except for a small gape in the armhole, front and back. This was nothing I wasn’t expecting, though. Colette patterns are made for a C bust and I haven’t been that for aeons, so of course a bit more shaping was going to be necessary. For the “real” versions, I’ll either leave the dart where it is or move it to add to the bust dart.

The back armhole gape, which is bigger than it seems in the pictures, is just a case of the round shoulders. Nothing that a bit of adjusting can’t fix.

I also think that I will shape the sides down to my waist a bit more. I know it’s supposed to be loose from the bust down but I cant help but want a little more shape.

Other than in the armhole, the back looks pretty good. It’s a tad roomier than I would have liked but I think that will change when I shape the sides a bit.

I didn’t add any photos of the waist and hip area because I plan on chopping it to waist level anyway. I think some crop tops to wear with high-waisted shorts and skirts will be just the ticket in a hot Italian climate later this year!

But that’s it! Surprisingly simple. If all goes well from here, I’ll hopefully have two Sorbetto tops to show you by the middle of next week, as well as the skirt. Less than two weeks of sewing to go!

Til next time!

Progress

Sewing goals for 2013:

Black, kimono sleeve dress – Check!

Blue wool crepe skirt – Check!

So it turns out, having a solid plan does help with problematic procrastination! I finished the blue wool crepe skirt on Sunday and managed to convince Bif to come out in to the freezing cold to take pictures with me today. Promises of hot coffee while we were outside seemed to help.

The skirt is a basic straight high waist skirt with a back zip and a lapped waist band closure. The pattern is Butterick 5015, view G. I shortened the length and graded from a size 16 waist to a size 14 at the hips. The pattern is an old one from my mother. I had wanted to make the one with the draped front (view A) but there was no where near enough fabric after I had prewashed it. The skirt was really easy to sew up and it fits really well. After having a very big brunch this morning, it has held up well and there is more than enough ease on the hips to sit comfortably and not have to pull the skirt down all the time for coverage.

I lined the skirt with light pink polyester lining fabric and finished off the seams with bias binding. I love the effect of binding the seams. Makes them looks so tidy! I also used the bias binding to finish the hem and hand stitched the waistband and the lining to the zip. I usually sew the lining to the zip when I am doing the outer fabric, but this worked so much better, and actually took less time because it was easier to be accurate. No unpicking! The waistband is closed with a simple hook and eye. Please excuse the wrinkles. I had been wearing it and lining is pretty unforgiving.

I am quite proud of how the zip looks on the outside. I did it a bit differently to what I normally do, so that you can see the stitching on the right side and tried to take my time and it looks very neat as a result. I found a book preview on Google Books, of Marcy Tiltons “Easy Guide to Sewing Tops and Tshirts, Skirts and Pants”, where there was a bit on sewing linings and zips in the preview. I am seriously considering getting this book now because it is very clear and has some pretty useful information. She says that instead of sewing darts in a lining, you just sew tucks/pleats. I have always sewn the inside the same as the outside, so I will have a go with this on my Houndstooth skirt. It also has a glossary of fashion fabrics, which when you are useless at naming fabrics and knowing their qualities like I am, could be really useful.

Two seconds while I mentally prepare for the cold.

Alright, I’m ready.

Maybe just one more sip of tea!

It’s OK if you didn’t notice, my roommate didn’t, but I have had my hair chopped off! After years of trying to grow it out, the ends had become to ratty to live with and I told the hair dresser that they all needed to come off. I felt like yelling “Off with their heads!” but I feared I may scare the poor Danish lady who didn’t really speak English. It’s so light! I just need to get used to actually having to style it a bit more now. With long hair, you can get away with not brushing it in the morning, especially if after 3 hours under hats and scarves, it looks like you just got out of bed anyway. Let’s see how long it takes me to crave my long hair back. Short hair and I are still on our honeymoon.

Hounds tooth skirt is on it’s way!

Til next time.

Let me introduce you to…

Yolanda!

I know it sounds like I have been watching a bit too much “Pulp Fiction”, as in “Yolanda, I thought you said you were gonna be cool”, but there actually is a completely unrelated reason for calling my new dress form, Yolanda. When I was born, there were two names that my parents wanted to choose between, Amelia and Yolanda. Yolanda is apparently a Dutch name that is in my mum’s family and Amelia was just a nice name that they both liked. I must say, that I am rather glad they picked Amelia. No one has ever been able to find anything bad that rhymes with Amelia, though my brothers did try very hard. I thought it was only fitting that my “other half” should be called Yolanda.

But on to more sewing related things. My sewing goals for 2013 are well under way and I finished all the mending/finishing that I had to do before the end of the week before last and managed to get not one, but two, patterns cut out to start sewing. Well on course! One of the garments was a copy of a double-knit, kimono sleeve dress that Bif’s mother had worn to death and wanted a new one of. So off I went, bought some double-knit and thought it would be easy. Or not.

Turns out, the double-knit was quite stretchy in both lengthwise and crosswise directions, which doesn’t make for easy sewing. Luckily, I had tried out the fabric on some scraps and found that the seam stretched as I sewed it, even with a zig zag. On to the Inter-webs I went. Lladybird has done a fantastic post on sewing with knits, which you can read here, that got me started. I had also read a comment somewhere, that you don’t need a walking foot or anything special (though a stretch/jersey needle is recommended), as long as you use a mass of pins and that is exactly what I decided to do.

And it worked! No stretched seams!

Here are the deets.

 

The dress is just a basic kimono sleeve double-knit dress with shaping through the waist and hips and a boat neck. The fabric has a 2 way stretch and is quite heavy. The “pattern” is the same front and back and the neckline and hem both have facings and the arms have a cuff around the edge. The facing for the neckline was on the original dress and I added the facing to the hem and cuffs to avoid having to turn them up and stitch them. I actually really love hem facings now. They look so tidy and are so easy! Since it’s a knit, I didn’t worry about finishing the inside seams, just trimmed them down nicely. I used a zig zag stitch through out and a jersey needle to sew with. If it weren’t for all the pins, this dress would have been an easy make, but since it wasn’t for me, I really didn’t want to risk the seams stretching, so I pinned. As you can see above, I put the pins in perpendicular to the seams and I just sewed right over them to save a little bit of time. Nice and simple, really.

Sleeve cuff

I also cut out the blue wool crepe for a skirt and I am just over half way done with sewing that one. By the end of this week, I want to have that skirt done and the houndstooth wool cut out and ready to go, if not already half sewn.

Til next time!

Sewing for 2013

Plans for 2013 will be a bit light on the ground, I’m afraid. I plan to be travelling for around 6 months from March until late September and I doubt that my little machine will make it in to my luggage allowance. Maybe I’ll take up knitting. But, come September/October, I’ll be back on Kiwi soil, along with my mother’s overlocker, her two computerised (don’t know if this is the right way to explain them. They have screens) Bernina sewing machine, one of which I plan to steal, and her MASSIVE pattern and fabric stash. Heaven! I really didn’t know how good I had it until it was gone. Should have listened to the Counting Crows.

Since I won’t have much time to sew this year, I don’t have very ambitious plans. A couple of skirt, finishing some dresses and making a few basic tanks. Here are the deets;

Now that I have a printer that actually has ink in it, I’m keen to try my hand at the Sorbetto. I have two fabrics at home that would be perfect for it. I picked them up at the Turkish bazar in Aarhus and I have no idea what they are. They have a bit of weight to them and drape really well. I edited (very crudely) the line drawing to get a visual of what they will be like.

 

The red one, I plan to lower the neck line and shorten the length to make a “crop top” to wear with high waited skirts and short. Not sure whether I will keep the front panel or not. The yellow one, I will add some lace or ricrac to the front panel – just something to make it a little less plain.

The two skirts I plan on making, both come from Butterick 5015. One will be in the plain skirt with darts (G), probably out of the houndstooth wool my mum sent me. I was going to make the Burda skirt that I mentioned there, but since Mum had also sent me this pattern, I thought I may as well make use of it. The second skirt, will be out of a bright blue wool crepe, also from Mum, and will either be the plain wrap skirt (D) or the draped one (A). Wool crepes drapes well, so we shall see. Both will be in the shorter length and I’ll add pockets at the side seams since there is a back closure.

I’ve also promised to sew a copy of a knit dress that Bif’s mother has worn to death. It’s a really simple kimono sleeve, only-has-back-and-front-pieces sort of dress. Once I have it cut out, it shouldn’t take long at all.

AND! If I have done that faster than planned (HA!), I would like to make a dress for a wedding I have to go to in Italy in July. I’m thinking something out of cotton, since it will be stinking hot by then or with a nice flow-y, chiffon-y skirt. I can dream of something like the dress below, while whizzing through the rest of my plans.

So, five items (possible 6) to sew in under 6 weeks. All very simple. By the end of this week, I plan to have cut at least one pattern out and have it ready to sew and to have all of my UFO sewing finished. There are only three of these, mostly just re-hemming or adjustments in fit, including the dress I made for Bif’s mother at Christmas (the bottom of the zip stuck out weirdly). Have I mentioned that I hate hemming? It’s always the last thing I have to do on a project but it always takes me around a week to get it done, or in this dresses case, 3 weeks around a suddenly busy schedule. But! It will be done by the end of this week! No time for procrastination!

For anyone interested, this is what it looks like outside my window at the moment. And I was worried I wouldn’t get enough snow this year!

Til next time!

Christmas Trees on the Run

The last piece of Christmas sewing was a table runner for Bif’s grandmother. She had specifically asked for something hand-made and the only thing I could think to make was something Christmas-y. I searched the interwebs for Christmas table runners that were a bit different and stood out, but most of them had backing or were set on to something. I struck gold when I found these two images;

By combining the two, I got this; a forest of trunkless Christmas trees

I cut out four different sizes of trees, with a curved base so they didn’t look so stiff. I don’t remember the widths, but the biggest tree was 20cm tall, the second 17cm, the third 15cm and the smallest 10cm. I cut them out of two different fabrics, though if I would have done more if I had had the fabric on hand. I cut out a white cotton to sew on the back as well so the edges wouldn’t be visible.

The basic process was as follows;

• Sew cotton and main fabric together, right sides facing, leaving a small gap at base to flip the tree inside out. Flip the tree  inside out. Iron.
• Stitch around the right side of the tree, sealing the gap at the base.
• Do this for all the trees and then arrange them in an order you are happy with.
• Stitch them together, following the lines you have sewn on the outside to hide the extra stitching.

Simple, right? I imagine this would also be pretty easy to do with other shapes like this one. Maybe adding some interfacing would help it stay more stiff as well. We live and we learn.

Til next time!

Polyester Delight

Who else loves real, cold, hard patterns? You know those ones you don’t have to try to decipher from a Burda magazine or just draw them from scratch. As much as I love the challenge of drawing my own patterns, when it comes to making a dress for your boyfriend’s mother, it is a lot less risky just to hand over the cash and get the wisdom of someone else who has been trained and has probably been doing it for years (technically I didn’t hand over the cash, my mother did, but that is a mere detail!).

As mentioned here, I decided to sew a dress for my boyfriend’s mother for Christmas, specifically one New Look 6000, which has had a lot of good reviews over on Pattern Review. I accosted a younger sister and we rifled through her mum’s closet, racking our brains to remember which dresses fitted the best so I could take measurements. I ended up with a 6 at the bust, graded to a 10 at the waist and an 8 at the hips. This is the first time I have ever needed to grade anything, I’m a straight size through my upper bust, waist and hips and I just do a FBA for the chest situation, so naturally, the pattern was separated in to 4,6,8 and 10,12,14 for some of the pieces and other pieces only had one size per line drawing. It was definitely a learning curve!

 

I made the version with the pleats at the waist and the longer sleeves just without the collar and cuffs. I haven’t hemmed the dress yet. I’m planning on getting that done once she had tried it on and I have made any fitting alterations. Grading through the pleats stumped me for a while and they still don’t look perfect but I know no one else will ever be able to see it. I lined the dress by just using the plain darted bodice. The fabrics are a polyester crepe from my mum and a polyester lining . Polyester! Polyester everywhere!

Instead of using both a lining and a facing, which many people vote both for and against, I just cut the facings from interfacing and ironed the interfacing straight on to the lining. All the stiffness with none of the extra bulk. By accident, I swear it was and not just laziness, I ended up sewing the lining with the side seams of the fashion fabric. Whoops! Late night sewing never seems to do me any good. But I figure it will still work and she wears a petticoat. I’m safe, right?

This was also the first time I had to sew sleeves all on my lonesome. I haven’t sewn sleeves since high school sewing class when we had to sew a sweatshirt. They were a pain in the ass then and I just assumed they would be now too. As luck would have it, following the instructions included in the pattern (benefits already, people!) and careful use of ease stitching, I managed pretty easily and I think they look rather great, especially since we have been playing a very long game of Hide and Seek. Guess who was the hide-ee.

On an unrelated note, how sweet is this card that my little sister made for me?

Two more posts to come before Christmas; one sewing related and the other is more edible. Santa Claus is comin’ to town!

Til next time.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year

Christmas is coming! And I am getting quite excited! Being the second Christmas that I am spending in Denmark, I now know what to expect and I’m feeling rather like a child in a candy store. Christmasses here are like the big ones we southern hemisphere kids see in the films, where the snow is falling, everything is dark outside and lit by candles inside, there is far too much comfort food and everyone gains around 5 kg in just one day and, to borrow an overly used Danish expression, everything is just so cosy. There are a few extra traditions they have here that just make you think “What!?” until you actually participate in them. These include, but are not limited to, holding hands and dancing around the christmas tree whilst singing Danish christmas songs, and making far too much rice pudding with almonds broken in to it, or Risalamande, and forcing everyone to eat it all until it is all gone and the one whole almond has been found by a lucky someone who gets a gift to go with their incredible feeling of stomach ache. Strangely, especially for a serial 1st of December-er, the Christmas tree doesn’t get put up and decorated until the 24th. This also happens to be the day that this is all celebrated, though for quite a number of lucky families, a lot of these things need to be redone on the 25th with the other half of the family. I know this is how things are done in a lot of northern European countries, but I had just never thought of it. The 25th has always just been Christmas for me.

This year, I decided to make a few more things than I did last year in the way of gifts. I’m getting up quite a stash of fabric after being sent a whole bunch from my Mum and getting a bit from Bif’s grandmother, who used to do a bit of home sewing. As well as the skirt I made for one of the sisters, I finished two cute little backpacks for the other sister and a small cousin.

This first one is for the small cousin. I can take none of the creative talent since I found a tutorial here and just adjusted it a little.

The fabric is just a plain cotton. I used three layers just to make it a bit more stable on the outside and used the same fabric on the inside. The straps are the blue cotton canvas left over from this skirt. I still have to add a dome/snap or a button, I just haven’t decided which one yet. I did buy some little trains from Ikea to add in to the bag. I had no idea they sold toys and they are made from wood so it was definitely a win!

The second rucksack came from a mixture of two tutorials. This one over at Heart of Mary, is so great! She did a really good job with the instructions and I found it really easy to follow. The second one is from a magazine, I think, and I used this one mostly to simplify the other one.

I bought some wool and used that as a tie for the top of the bag and attached some pompoms at the end. It’s been years since I made pompoms and I don’t remember them taking so long to make or why on earth I made so many of them as a kid. My bedroom was like puff land and it would have used quite a bit of mum’s wool stash, which for reference, is just as big as her enormous fabric stash. Have I mentioned that my siblings and I never had wardrobes? Sure, they were in our rooms, but they were strictly used for storage of wool and fabric. We used to hide in it and not be found for hours during our many games of hide and seek with the neighbourhood children. Perfect place to bury yourself.

Anyway, the outside of the bag is a fabric I bought for a lining when I first started sewing here and I had just enough left to squeeze a bag out of it. It is quite thick and should hopefully stand up to the job. The inside is a viscose rayon which I had left over from this top and the flap is the very popular polka dot matte satin fabric that I have now used to make two skirts.

I have two more gifts to make before Monday, as well as baking around 60/80 shortbread biscuits to put in to biscuit jars as a small add-on gift to other presents. I should be kept busy! Will add posts on these items before I give them to their recipients.

Are you making any homemade gifts this year? Do you prefer to receive something homemade to something store-bought?

Til next time!

Three’s a charm

Sewing! Yes I’ve actually sewed quite a bit over the past week. But sadly, not for myself. Just before Christmas, 4 birthdays hit us and one of them is for Bif’s youngest sister who is forever requesting for me to sew her things. After over coming the language barrier, she quickly realised that, yes, I did indeed make that skirt I gave her for Christmas last year. Apologies in advance for terribly lit photos. Winter means no decent day light, unfortunately.

Two of the skirts are for the youngest sister and the third skirt is for Christmas for the other sister who is now, conveniently, the same size as I am so fitting has become a breeze.

The first is just a straight skirt with the left over piece of fabric from my polka dot skirt and a 3.5cm piece of elastic. Nothing major to write about there.

The second for the youngest sister, has the elastic in a casing and is around 120cm wide so lots of gathers for her 60cm waist. Actually, the elastic only just manages to stretch the width of the fabric. I only put one pocket on since I thought it looked cool and she likes clothes that are a bit different, and then stitched a bit of ric-rac on to it. It is also lined because the fabric rides up on tights during the winter and is incredibly annoying. I attached the lining by just sliding it in to the elastic casing under the elastic.

Aaaannnnd the third. It’s made out of really thick fabric like what you would use for curtains but I liked the print and thought it would look good with a few pleats. I originally thought to make gathers right around with a straight waistband but having a silly moment, the pieces I cut out were too small for her hips so I began to play around and came up with this.

Deep pockets on the side panels and pleats in the middle front and back. The zip runs down one of the back side seams and the waistband is just two straight rectangles from her waist measurement and a bit of wearing ease.

A few more Christmas sewing posts to come. Is anyone else starting to feel Christmassy?

Til next time!