Sigrid - sewing projects

Inspired

2013-06-16T14:02:00.001+02:00

My most recent jacket made me realise that this is the type of jacket I like best: fitted, definite waist shaping and special design lines. In my head the next one is getting shape. For the moment that is what it is, I’m not yet drawing the pattern, but hope to do that once the current (smaller) projects are done. I have learned that it best for me to work at one garment at a time, but have broken that “rule” and am working on a pair of trousers, a blouse and a bra. I really have to finish those first.

I’ll leave you with some screenshots of my inspiration.

Easy tops

2013-06-08T00:08:00.001+02:00

Thank you for your lovely comments on my jacket. Apparently I often say that I’m doing something simple after a complex projects, as one commenter found it funny I always say that. It is the way it works for me, I usually want to do some easy projects before doing something complicated again. Right now I’m thinking about another summer jacket in a linen/cotton blend and looking for inspiration what to make.

Summer has arrived and it’s too warm to wear the jacket.I wouldn’t dare to complain, it’s been cold so long and I’m happy to have higher temperatures. The jacket will be there when the weather changes again (too soon probably). It is time to add a few summer tops to my wardrobe The top above is not a real summer top but a trial top for the combination of a Ottobre top and the collar of a StyleArc pattern. I like the collar/neckline very much and will use it more often. A thank you to one of my readers who shared the collar draft with me!

Below two cowl neck tops that only took an hour to make each. The first one can also be worn with the jacket, the color in it is the same. Bought it in the same shop so might have been designed that way.

The top on the left is the same I made last year from a very old pattern from a friend. I am a bit dis-organized (those who have seen my sewing room can confirm that) and have apparently not completely written what I had changed or wanted to change or whether the seam allowances were still included after my changes. It was too wide and I have taken in the side seams quite a bit. I loved the amount of drape of this top especially (not too deep, not too high) so I made my own pattern, based on a t-shirt pattern that fits me well and giving it the same drape. I’ve written clearly on the pattern that it does not have seam allowances so I know that when I come back to it next year! I think you can even see on the dressform that it’s a bit more fitted.

Below I’ve tried to show how I did make this cowl neck pattern based on the front of a t-shirt pattern. The resulting pattern has a front facing through the whole front arm hole. In the last drawing the lighter line is the foldline.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone! I’m enjoying some sunshine on my bicycle tomorrow!

PS: thank you also for commenting on the alternatives for google reader. I’m trying the alternatives to bloglovin too and might end up with another reader service.

Google reader is disappearing

2013-06-06T14:41:00.003+02:00

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Like many of you I used to follow a lot of blogs with Google reader. I'm not yet completely happy with Bloglovin and will probably use GR till the last day. Especially because I can read a complete post without clicking to go to the blog itself. That's such a great feature. But times are changing so I will (have to) get used to it....

I’m pleased with the result

2013-06-01T15:15:00.001+02:00

This is a very picture heavy post. The pictures will tell most of the story anyway. This jacket started with an e-mail from Claudia Sträters shop (sorry if you were expecting a pattern number now). One of the e-mails I will open and almost always follow the link to their website. The style of their clothes often appeal to me and I do have a few pieces in my closet as well.

I loved the lines of this jacket, but it was only sold in yellow and bright pink, not my colors at all.

Time to think about making it to a pattern. I worked on it for one evenening and threw the result in the waste paper bin. Next day I tried again, now using this OOP Vogue 1040 jacket with shoulder princess seams to start with.

Combining it with the center front and lapel from this Burda jacket.

This draft made it to a muslin, based on which I decided to alter the roll line of the lapel and the back still had a bit too much flare.

Part of the pattern drafting:

These were only the pieces for the body part, not the sleeves.

At this point I was very enthousiastic about it and had to leave it alone for going on holiday. Couldn’t wait to continue after I returned.

The finished result. Photo’s show more irregularities than shown in real life. I’m very, very pleased with this jacket. Valerie (a sewing friend) heard it in my voice on the phone yesterday. There were some judgement calls during the process, the seam ripper was used but nothing stopped me of enjoying the process and the result. Next project will be a little less complex I think.

Visit to the UK and a sneak peek of what I’m working on

2013-05-26T16:22:00.001+02:00

Hello my dear readers. The winterblues are over, though according to the weather here in the Netherlands it will never be summer. I’m feeling I should be out in my garden now, instead I’m inside and took a cardigan from the closet to keep warm. Well, we can’t change the weather, but as so many people here I’m longing for some sunshine and warmth.

As you may have read in my previous post I’ve been spending a week in the UK, of which the most important event was Pauline’s wedding of course, but before and after that day we made it a short holiday with a lot of walks and beautiful scenery. We were reasonably lucky: it was mostly rather cold, but we only had heavy rain on our last day of walking and travelling home.

An impression: Constable country near Dedham

Bluebell season

The South Downs, beautiful views from the hills:

And another meeting, this time we met Clare and her husband for dinner. I’ve met Clare quite a few times now (PR weekends of Paris and Brussels, several meetings after this with the group of seamstresses I blogged about before) and it was a pleasure as always. Nice to meet with the husbands as well. It’s been a week that I have thought several times about what blogging and the internet sewing world has brought me. So many new friends, sometimes meeting in real life, sometimes only contact by e-mail. I am so glad for all this.

Finally, the main topic of my blog is (and will be) sewing. So here’s a sneak peek of the jacket I’m working on. The full story of it will be in another post and it’s quite an elaborate jacket, so it might take a week or so to have it finished.

Not my work

2013-05-19T22:02:00.001+02:00

But wanted to share the beautiful dress of Pauline, who married yesterday and I was proud and honored to be invited. Look at Pauline’s blog for more photos. In the past months she made all the bridesmaids dresses and her own dress. Quite an achievement and didn’t she look gorgeous?

This next picture was taken by my husband a little prior to the official photographer taking photos. Next to me is Vivien, another sewing friend of both Pauline and me. It was so nice to see her again as well. Mentioning to a few other guests that we were sewing friends brought the subject on the ‘great british sewing bee’ program which a lot of people had seen though they were not sewing themselves. Ann’s achievements in the program got a lot of praise.

My dress was made by me a few years ago. This time I found shoes in the exact color. The photos show the dress in more blue tones than it really is, it’s an emerald green silk.

My husband and I are enjoying another few days in the UK, doing some sight seeing and walks at the south coast of England. After we’re back I’ll be finishing a jacket I’m making so I will hope to be posting more soon again. The winter blues are over.

Blog vacation

2013-03-30T16:42:00.001+01:00

Van Burda 02 2013 106

This is the jacket I’ve sewn last week. It’s from BurdaStyle’s February issue. A full review of it can be found on Pattern Review.

It’s also the last post on this blog for a (little?) while. After almost 6 year of blogging I find it difficult to write something new. Í don’t think it’s interesting to read about the way I construct a jacket for the third, fourth.. time, see yet another bra or t-shirt. Perhaps it’s winter-blues and am I in need of some sunshine and higher temperatures. We’ll see.

Edited to add: Thank you for all your kind words. I’ll be back. Just need a break.

For now happy Easter everyone and till next time.

Pattern Review contest

2013-03-13T19:51:00.001+01:00

O dear, is she again saying she’s entering a contest and not meeting the deadline by weeks (or even months)?

No, this time I’m managing a contest. A first time for me. On April 1 a new contest "2013 Spring Pantone colors" will start. This week the discussion started about ideas and the interpretation of the rules. I’m sure it will be a fun contest. And though I can’t enter the contest for real, I will try to sew an outfit in one or more of these colors (hope to find them, I might have some Monaco blue but the others are not in my stash probably).

If you like the idea be inspired or join the fun!

These are the colors, numbers and names for the colors for women (the palet for men is a bit different).

Interfacing lycra

2013-03-08T21:20:00.001+01:00

Sometimes I work with lycra that is thin and has a lot of stretch. Not a good fabric for my bra’s, as I need support both in the cups and the band. Often the nice lycra’s (and besides beautiful lace I do love a lycra with a beautiful print) are too thin to use as they are. The solution: interfacing. The downside of using an interfacing: risk of shifting layers with pleats as result. This is what happened in the center of this bra that I made a couple of years ago, look at the bottom of the bridge:

This is how I tackle this issue now (and I’m sure I’ve written about this before, can’t find the post however):

Depending on the result I want I use an interfacing which has no stretch at all or that has a little stretch (but less than the lycra). The bridge is always interfaced with an interfacing without stretch. I’ve used the lycra of this example for an all-lycra bra without lace which is not finished yet, and used an interfacing with a bit of stretch for both the cups and the band in a very light skin-tone color.

For demonstration purpose I used a black, non stretch interfacing in this post.

Cut the pattern pieces in both interfacing and lycra, with seam allowances of course.

I’ve pinned the two layers together to show both pieces are the same size.

Stretch and pin the lycra so that all seams are beyond the interfacing pieces. It depends on the amount of stretch how munch you do this. With this thin lycra it was 2 to 3 millimeters on all sides.

When you lay it on a flat surface, the lycra will pull on the interfacing and it will not lay flat.

Zigzag the layers together within the seams allowance!

Cut off the edge of the lycra.

The pattern piece has its original size again but looks a bit weird. It’s no problem at all to work with though.

When sewn together and worn, the lycra will lay smoothly over the interfacing without any pleats.

When I started making bra’s I used a fusible interfacing for the under cups. This was a special interfacing that I can’t find easily any more, so most of the time I use this method for the undercups.

Questions and answers

2013-03-08T19:45:00.001+01:00

There were a few questions and comments on my last posts on bra making that I will try to answer here.

DaneMum asked whether the change to accomodate the cup circumference to the band/wire length for the cup is a large change. In this case it was only a matter of overlapping a centimeter of one cup piece. The other pieces were not changed. I always have a bit of extra space in the cup that I work into the band (like a sleeve head) because of the extra volume I need. I’ve always done it like that, and in Beverly Johnson’s book Bra making part two she confirmed that this is the right thing to do for my shape. The shape she calls an omega-shape (narrow chest, full cup).

Diana mentioned that it would be nice to have some of the lace in the back of the bra. I think she’s right and it would have been lovely. I like to do that on another bra, this one will remain as it is, but it’s a nice idea to have something attractive at the back too.

Amanda asked how the width of the band would refer to a longline bra. I must say that I don’t know. I’ve never owned or made a longline bra so can’t advise there.

Stuffandjunkorwhathever questioned the reason for the double topstitching of the wire channelling and observed that she had seen that mainly on lace bra’s, and only one row of topstitching on more functional bra’s. To me it'’s always been two rows of topstitching. The more luxurious bra’s indeed have that double topstitching and I think (but just an idea, not founded on any real information) that with two rows to enclose the wire it is more flat to you body. It’s a bit more difficult to make than one row of topstitching, but I do it all the time. Just love the look of it, but there’s no real reason against only one row of topstitching.

Bonny D remarked: “I wonder if the integrity of the garment would suffer at all if I could do the last under cup band zigzagging "after" I did the channelling top stitching, thereby allowing me to control where the zigzag goes. My purpose of this would be to avoid the zzzzz on the channeling. After all, it's not like that small bit needs to stretch. Previously, I would try just to avoid the channeling area with the zzzz.”
With the method I mentioned you topstitch the channelling last, but if you could do it differently. If the method suits you there is no “law” to say you have to do it otherwise. They way I describe is just one of the ways, and the way I prefer to do it.

Think these were the questions, if I’ve forgotten one let me know.

To finish a few photo’s from the panties I made to complete the set. Though not a very sexy model I do think these are different. I especially like the first one, with the triangular detail in the back.

Next post a tip for working with very stretchy lycra. Then I will be sewing a few other garments.

Sewing the elastic to the band

2013-03-05T09:05:00.001+01:00

In the lingerie sew-along I orgnized a few years ago I’ve published this post on how I sew the elastic to the band. I’m re-posting it here for general information. I’ll try to gather a bit of those posts as a conclusion to my lingerie sewing month.

One of the most common problems in bra making is the rolling/flipping of the elastic to the inside. This is often caused because the elastic is sewn too low on the band. In one of the classes I took it was told that the maximum height of the band under the cup is 1.25 cm (0,5 inch). It was said that in a lingerie sewing contest this was one of the things that got extra attention.
This is the way in which I sew the underband. It’s specially made as a tutorial, so only a partial bra is shown and non-matching colors are used for all parts.

	Sew cups in the underband.
	Sew the elastic to the underband, pluche side up and picots pointing to the cup.
	On the inside, sew the chanelling to the cup, on the very edge, almost onto the seam where you sewed the cup to the underband.
	Turn the elastic and topstitch it with a triple zigzag.
	The elastic attached.
	The inside at this point.
	Now topstitch the chanelling twice. Once close to the seam, once on the outer edge of the chanelling. After many bra's, this is still the most difficult part for me, sometimes I have to take it out because it shifts on the inside, and I won't get the wire through.
	Finished on the inside.

Line drawing Knip Mode

2013-03-04T23:18:00.001+01:00

Tonight I have traced a pattern from the March issue of Knip mode. But while tracing it and comparing the line drawing and drawing for the cutting layout, I got confused. Is there a gathering at the back too? The drawing on the cutting layout shows an a-symmetrical pattern piece. The line drawing is not clear, as it hides the back for the most part. I’m almost sure I’ve written on this before and I simply don’t get why Knip Mode always makes line drawings like this. I want to see the back completely too. Is there something special or not in the back. I started reading the instructions for the top and there was nothing on gathering the back, just “sew the side seams”.

Then I looked at the dress which is basically the same pattern. The wrap on the front is also on the back. Not or hardly visible in the line drawing. Also no photos of the back in the magazine. In the instructions for the dress there is the instruction to gather the back on the side. They forgot to copy that text in the instructions for the top. As a relatively experienced seamstress I can work it out, but if you haven’t been sewing that long, this is quite confusing.

In any case I defnitely would prefer clear line drawings of the back.

Connecting cup and shoulderstrap

2013-03-04T22:53:00.001+01:00

Thank you ladies for all your very kind comments on my last bra.

Lauriana asked how the shoulderstrap and cup were connected. Good question and it was not visible in my photos.

Here two close-up photo’s that had too much light from the flash, but with the advantage of showing the details of the black fabric. When sewing the elastic to the side of the cups I carefully check and mark the width of the shoulderstrap and make sure that the picot edge of the elastic is in line with the shoulderstrap when the elastic is turned. The shoulderstrap is sewn to the cup and topstitched to flatten the seam.

This is one of the ways I use regularly. Another way is putting a ring between the shoulderstrap and the cup.

Latest lingerie item

2013-03-02T20:01:00.001+01:00

February is a short month and the past week there were family matters to take care of, so again I did less than I hoped to do. But I’m pretty pleased with this bra, which has the cups of Merckwaerdigh BHST2 and the band of my tnt pattern. After making many, many bra’s I know that this band gives me good support, is comfortable and doesn’t ride up. What I did is making sure the cups fitted into the band. It meant taking in the lower cup a tiny bit but I didn’t make any other changes. Through experience I know which cupsize I have in in the Merckwaerdigh line of patterns.

As I’ve said before the trouble with bra making is that you can’t judge the fit untill it’s almost finished and I’m happy the fit is very good. The cups have good breast coverage and center front is on my rib cage.

My dressform is even a bit too wide and closing there is quite a bit of tension on the back. The reason why the shoulderstraps are not straight up.

Tonight I will be making the accompanying panties, there is one bra still unfinished because I didn’t like the color of the shoulderstrap I had after all.

I found out that the technical issue I had last week with links to my photos were not a technical issue after all: in some strange way I had a Google + account (don’t remember signing on for that, I’m not one for that kind of social media (yet)) and apparently the developers of that service think/assume that you only want to share photos with people in you “circles”, so there was no “link to this picture” any more, only a “share” option which was not wat I want. After a lot of browsing I found out that this might be the cause and after I abandoned my google+ account I was able to link to my photos as I was used to. Hope they will keep it that way, you never know what “improvement” they have in mind next.

Wire shapes

2013-02-24T17:34:00.001+01:00

I’ve completed another bra, which I will share with you when I have my issues with Picasa webalbums solved. There were changes in the interface and now the “insert link” to photos is missing. I’m certainly not computer-illiterate, but this has cost me more than an hour this afternoon and I’ve given up for now.
You won’t see the difference with the above photo though, but I like to organize my photos in specific albums before publishing.
Back to sewing related information: I’ve shared this information in the lingerie sew-along I had in 2009 and thought it might be good to share here, with all the interest in bra sewing now.
What you see is the wire-size page from Beverly Johnson’s book the bra making manual. These are the most common shapes in wires, not only from her shop. (I’m talking wires for a ‘normal’ bra, not push-up or strapless, they have a different type of wire).
The length I need is the same length as her size 38 wires. But for me this shape is no good at all. I do have a narrow frame and large cup size. When the length is what I need, most wires are too wide, as they will end up too much to my side instead of around my breast. The red line is my wire, the yellow follows the line of the 38 wire on the page. You see there is a considerable difference.
I’m NOT saying that the type of wire I’m using is better in general, it’s better for ME and my shape. If you’re sewing bra’s or interested in starting sewing bra’s the shape of wires is something to consider if you have fitting problems.

ETA: the brand I'm using is Galbline. Online available at Elingeria in Germany. Scroll down to see the information on length/cupsizes. Their price of 1 Euro is great, I pay 1.50 or 1.95 from Dutch stores, (but I don't have to pay for international postage).

New winner

2013-02-19T17:30:00.002+01:00

Sarah hasn’t claimed her lace, so I did a new draw. The cream lace will go to Dilliander. Please send me your address and I will send the lace to you.

Just a note

2013-02-15T11:59:00.001+01:00

Just a note for Sarah Leeming. Could you please send your address to me so that I can send you the lace that you "won" last week.

If I haven't heard from you by the beginning of next week, I'll do the draw for the cream lace again.

Thank you.

The winners are

2013-02-09T13:43:00.001+01:00

What a lovely responses to the lace give away. I decided to do add a mystery lace to the drawing and did a draw in three groups: those who favored the cream lace, the black one and those who didn’t express a preference (most of you). And to those who didn’t ‘win’ this time: I will repeat this at the end of the month. Sort of celebrating (almost) six years of blogging and sharing sewing and sewing friendships.

The draw resulted in the following:

the cream lace is for Sarah Leeming

the black for Helene

the ?? for Knitmachinequeen

Ladies, please send an email to isedl at yahoo dot com with your address, I will send the lace to you this week.

And to answer a few questions: I don’t often have trouble with the lace seeing through my garments. That said I must say that I usually don’t wear my tops very tight fitting. Color is more often a problem showing through than the lace structure. It also depends on the “height” of the embroidered lace.

And Knitmachinequeen: I have had my problems with fitting and still occassionally have with a new design. Basically I’m happy with the band pattern and if I try a new cup style (which I will do on one of my next bra’s again), I still use the band pattern and make sure the cup fits into that. A little trick/tip: lace with a bit of stretch are more forgiving than non-stretch lace. With my cup size I don’t use material with a lot of stretch or I interface them, but no stretch at all makes fitting more difficult.

Lingerie sewing month

2013-02-08T21:54:00.001+01:00

I’ve finally found a way to make photos of the bra’s that show them a bit better, without showing them on me. In this post I share the last two I made. Sewing lingerie is really very popular on the blogs right now, with Amy’s recent bra sew along and Melissa’s lingerie week. Both Amy and Melissa have created patterns (Rosy lady’s shorts and a lacy thong) and share them as pdf file on their blog. How generous! I will try the lady’s short soon, a thong I find uncomfortable so I’ll pass on that one, but if you like them, you know where to find a pattern.
My lingerie sewing will last a bit longer than this week, I’m about to cut another set.
This bra is Merckwaerdigh BHS 10. I used a lace with a little bit of stretch, the side/back panel is has lycra underneath, the cups are unlined. What you see is a foam cup under the cups.

And here the bra from the lace that is in the give away. This is a first experiment for me with a more transparant finishing in the side panel. I’ve used a tule with stretch to make it stronger, both in the under/side cups as in the side/back panel. Also I used boning at the side. It has a bit less stretch than my usual way of working and I increased the length of the side panel a tiny bit.

With each bra I made 2 matching panties. It’s not that I find it tedious to sew them, in general I find them more boring to sew. The trick is to make it a bit different from time to time. For this one I took a basic pattern and drafted new lines for the lace and incorporated the side seam in the lace part. This made it fun to do again.

I’ve shown this before, but with the extra interest in bra making this might be of interest to some: my bridge part is very narrow. I overlap the wire chanelling at the front, which makes a more narrow bridge possible. The second row of topstitching stops at the point where the channels meet, there I turn and start topstitching the other cup. The wires have room to go to the top.

The inside, the seams are all hidden. For the cups I “sandwiched” the upper cup in the under cup and the lining under cup. A technique I first saw in the instructions for the Rebecca bra. This pattern is the Rebecca bra btw, with some alterations for my personal fit.

And these I have to share: vanilla macarons, made by my daughter for my birthday tomorrow. The first time she tried to make them, think they’re lovely. Both my children were finishing and arranging them on a cake tray. I came in the kitchen a little too early and saw them working at it, sooo sweet (they’re 19 and 17 now).

Some lace to give away

2013-02-06T23:29:00.001+01:00

Through several circumstances beyond my control I didn’t manage the deadline for the One pattern, Many looks contest. I had hoped to be just in time with the last blouse I had started and have shown the collar in my last post, but it didn’t work out (again). It’s still unfinished but I plan to finish it soon. In the meantime I used a few spare moments to sew a lingerie set. The colors of the photos I took were mostly horrible through the artificial light, so I will take new photos in daylight.
A sneak peak of the bra. A lovely off-white color with some lilac accents. After sewing this bra and two panties to match, I still have some lace left. I’ll be giving it away! It’s 2 x 40 cm lace (left and right side) with a bit of stretch, a piece of about 50x50 cm of the all over lace fabric, a piece of the shoulder strap embellishment and a bow. It would be enough for a bra and a bit for a panty to match, depending how you would use the lace.
And that’s not all, I have 2 meters of the black/gold(yellow) lace that has been in my stash for a very long time now. I don’t remember how it got there, just that the colors are not me. It’s 15 cm wide and has stretch.
Leave a comment if you would like to be in the draw for it and let me know which one you would like.
ETA: You can enter till Friday. I'll do the draw on Saturday morning (my European time).

Couture techniques

2013-01-30T17:02:00.001+01:00

I was not the one to discover this video. I saw it first at The Sewing space

Great video sharing techniques and showing the finished garments. Eye candy!

(and making clear why these clothes are so excessively expensive)

One pattern, many looks

2013-01-27T20:38:00.001+01:00

A few days left to finish the last blouse that I planned for this months “one pattern, many looks” contest at PatternReview. I’m not worrying about the deadline, it’s just that I promised myself to finish these 3 blouses. Entering the contest is not a goal per se.

I’ve just spent almost an hour on the buttonholes of the second blouse. Normally my machine does buttonholes very well, but this time two went wrong for no good reason. Of course the two wrong ones were the most visible buttonholes of the blouse. I started with the least visible ones and those were sewn easily. Then it went wrong and it took me more time to unpick them than to sew all of them. It just happens sometime. I’ll be sewing on the buttons tonight.

The third blouse is a white one again, and like the blue shirt the fabric is from Acorn fabrics. I had a special lace attachemnt in mind for the collar, which was not working as planned. Not having too much lace to experiment with I chose to just cover the collar and the stand partially with lace.

New fabrics and sewing plans

2013-01-25T20:46:00.001+01:00

The second blouse is almost finished, the only thing to be done is buttons and buttonholes. It’s been in this state a week now, I hope to buy buttons tomorrow so that it can have a final press and declared finished. The third and last blouse for now is being planned, and will have a little lace embellishment.

I’ve been working on some lace things as well and have accumulated a little more lingerie stash by going to Kantje boord in Amsterdam with Valerie and buying online at Lijfgoed. Which was a first for me and a positive experience.

This is what my sewing table looks like, the white blouse fabric on the left, the rest is all lingerie stuff. Addicted? I think so. There are worse addictions…

I’ve used this lace before and it’s one of my favorites. Just another bra.

A detail from the panty with the new lace bought at Kantje boord. They also had the same lace on the bolt. And as I like making bra’s better than making panties, I started with the panty.

The fabrics bought at Lijfgoed, very soft and beaufiful. I look forward to working with them.

Though I intended to buy only light colored, “spring” fabrics, I could simply not resist this lace. There were shoulder straps to match too. Recently I tried on a few bra’s in a department store, and I think this lace or something very close was in the rtw collection. Needless to say I didn’t buy any bra’s.

Now I have to find time to sew more. In any case I plan to sew a lot of lingerie in the next few weeks. I’m not too happy with some of my bra’s. Some are too old, some don’t fit as well as I would like. My body must have changed. So I want to clean out the lingerie drawer and fill it with new sets. Will be fun I hope.

Fabric makes a difference

2013-01-12T00:09:00.001+01:00

My next blouse will be a very basic one without any embellishments in a pale blue color. Just one of those blouses I like to have in my closet. Normally a bit boring to make but this fabric makes it a real pleasure.

I have been looking for good cotton shirt fabric for a very long time. It’s difficult to get here, often it is more a quality you would use for sheets, not blouses. Somewhere in December I googled for it and found a fabric supplier in the UK that was apparently known for its shirt fabric, which is the only fabric it sells: Acorn fabrics. I made an enquiry for white fabric suitable for women’s blouses and they advised me the malham quality and sent some samples. The quality is wonderful, think Liberty fabric but than in plain colors, beautifully woven stripes in it etc.

I ordered a white and sky blue fabric and started the blouse tonight. Like I said: a pleasure to work with.

The fabric comes with a label with the details of the order. I’m a happy customer!

Blouse with trim / blog layout

2013-01-10T13:07:00.001+01:00

The first blouse is finished. While editing the photos I noticed I had not a proper front shot and the little red button detail is not that clear in the photos. I’ll make photos on me later when the other planned blouses are done. For now it’s dressform shots.
I had bought 2 meters of this trim, which was just enough to do the trims as used in this blouse. I think only 15 cm is left. As a detail I used one red button and made the buttonhole with black thread. Hindsight makes me think it would have been nice to do all buttonholes in black, but I was not going to change that anymore.

All seams are French seams. Quite easy really with the 1 cm seam allowances I had cut. I started them because I was too lazy to change the thread of my serger. It makes such a nice finish! The yoke is a double layer of fabric in which the seams are enclosed.

With Burda blouse patterns I often have trouble with a bit of extra ‘puffyness’ in the back . I shaved off a bit of the sleevecap and then it was relatively easy to get the sleeves in smoothly and without the puffyness. These are also French seams.

~~On another note: I’ve changed the layout of my blog~~
Changed it again to a more conventional layout. Still working on it but information is visible without extra clicking. As I said I was not sure about the style. I liked the different view possibilities, but having no visible sidebar was not helpful.