Sigrid - sewing projects

This was a great sewing day, I did a lot of work on my wintercoat and will soon post some pictures. Welt pockets and bound buttonholes take a lot of time.

Right now DD is tracing McCalls 5512, a Hilary Duff dress, which she wants to make in the version with sleeves. I bought the pattern in size range 4-10, assuming my daughter would need 10 (bust measurement).
I've not a lot of experience with McCall's patterns, but I read somewhere that they run large. Large? Large!!
My DD has a bust measurement of 87 centimeters, which according to the size chart would even be size 12. But after measuring the paper pattern in size 10 it would be 104 centimeters at bust level! That's 17 centimeters more than bust measurement! Of course some ease is needed, but not that much if I see the model in the picture.

And yes, I did remember to take off the seam allowances. First I forgot, so it seemed even worse.
(It's confusing working with patterns with (all American patterns) and without (Bu…

For a long time I've wanted to try the technique described in the article The Bridge Engineer - The Keyhole on the Bra making blog (unfortunately no recent entries any more).

In the past week I tried it, and this is the result, it's not exactly what is described, I gave my own twist.




Important is that you can only do this on a partial band bra. I've used my own pattern and converted that to a partial band bra. I'll write a post on how I did that later.
Instead of paper as described in the article, I used a piece of washaway stabilizer.

A picture to illustrate this.
The idea is that you can change the shape of the center front tab as you like and use paper (or washaway stabilizer) to help you to keep everything in place while constructing the bra.



It's made of a few pieces left of a lingerie set I made two years ago, this is a very wearable muslin. However, it's not completely what I wanted. I made a change to the upper cup, to try to make a more horizontal line, ins…

Two weeks ago I posted a picture from the Octobre Knip with a great skirt and I had to make it. In my wardrobe plan it takes the place of the other Knip skirt I intended to make. This is the result. I tried to make the pictures clearer, but the lines simply won't show.


I like the skirt, but not the fabric I used. It wrinkles very easily, so I'm going to make it in a better quality soon. A full review I'll post on PatternReview.

And yesterday I went shopping with a friend in the lovely old city of Leiden: great fun but what did I find: jeans that FIT! Very dark blue jeans, I don't have to alter anything and can wear it without a belt if I want to. That is a rare find for me, I can tell you that there's nothing so frustrating for me as trying skirts or pants, if they fit in the hip area, there's a huge amount of space in the waist.
Gone is the need to try to make my own jeans very soon. Out is the McCall jeans pattern for the moment. Will make it some time, but not …

Nancy tagged me and now I am to tell 8 things about myself that you probably don't know (don't worry Nancy, I would have said no to this if I didn't want to).

I learned English in high school where we had to read 25 books for our exams and there my love for English books started (we also had to read books for German and French, but that never became languages that I read books in for pleasure, my French is only on holiday conversation level). Books that have influenced me greatly (clearly showing my age I guess): Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook and quite a few others by her, Marilyn French The Bleeding heart and Her mothers daughter and Simone de Beauvoir Memoirs of a dutiful daughter and All men are mortal. I don't read much any more, which I find a pity, but there is not enough time (I can sew in little time blocks, but not take up a serious book and read for only 10-15 minutes).Bedtime reading is either a …

Today I finished the last part of the Burda pants, the complete review is posted on PR. In general I like the fit (as always good with BWOF), but it will be the only time I sew this pattern.

To complete here two pictures of the pants (I was looking for a black belt to go with these pants, and then realised that went to the dustbin some time ago) :





















Meanwhile I have started two other projects, one the Knip skirt that I posted on last week, and the other my Marfy wintercoat.

The coat is really an ambitious project for me, and will probably take quite a bit of time to complete. This is only the second time I make a Marfy pattern, and the first time in many, many years that I make a coat. So I'm going to read all information that Laura gave in her post of today, in which she shows such a wonderfully made jacket.

This is the pattern picture (remember Marfy, this is all the information you get, no linedrawings or instructions!) and the fabric that I'm going to make it with.













The paisley l…

As promised in my post on Saturday, I have made pictures from the second pocket for these pants, that are now almost finished. Hemming to be done tomorrow, and the belt loops still to be made.
Not my favorite pants pattern, (though I love BWOF pants fit). I will not make it again. Apart from the pocket/side panel construction I think it is easiest when you don't need to make size alterations in the waist/hip area (for me there is 2 sizes difference).

This is what I did in the end (and I'm not saying it's the correct way, just found this way by ripping all seams first time, there might be a better way, if you know, please tell). Some pictures have a different color/contrast, this because of trying to show the details.

1. Sew the side seams first

2 Inforce all corners on the front and back pattern, they will be clipped. I did this with fusible interfacing.


3. With right sides together, stitch the pocket from the side seam to the marking on the front (be accurate)


4. Pin the other …

Some of you may already seen my review on PR, but DD wants to learn sewing. I love that these skills are passed from mother to daugther. My grandmother sewed a little, my mother a bit more, and I can't seem to stop, so where does that lead my DD in the future?
Though it does not always work, my sister can't even sew a new seam in a pair of RTW pants, she just never was interested and still couldn't care less about sewing. Am I lucky with my daugther.

Besides that, DD is trying to knit. That's something I've given up on a long time ago. I can do it, and even knitted complex patterns, but after a serious RSI problem 10 years ago I stopped, and don't feel like starting again.
But it is very nice to see how the seed of love for fabrics, yarns and patterns grows (but primarily in the female line).

On Friday I hoped to have enough time to sew a new Burda pants this weekend. But it does not alway go as you want. First I have a presentation on Monday morning of a program I'm making for a new customer, and yesterday afternoon a part of this did not stand the test at a second computer here (did I ever tell you we have four in our house (which is also my office)!). This meant working today, instead of a lot of other things, one of which was sewing.
But fortunately, the problem was solved this afternoon, so I'm confident that the presentation will work out well and I could clear my head and think of other things.

Tonight I managed making a tiny part of Burda 09-2007-115 pants, which I like for the special pocket. I sewed one pocket in an evening! It's a difficult construction, and the way they tell you to do it is probably right, but without pictures it was difficult to make sense of it. I did everything wrong and ripped every seam at least once. Then when I made the buttonh…

Just a small image of my combined Ottobre shirts. Something went wrong again and the picture became quite small.
It seems like a lot of work done, but it did not take a lot of time, the last one only took me an hour.
If you want to see one of the shirts in more detail, you can find the pictures here and the PR review here.

Today I bought the new Knip mode magazine. This pictures shows a great combination from a Dutch designer, and I'm definitely going to implement the skirt in my wardrobe plan. But I think it will be better without the horizontal line (at least for me), so I will draw it without.



But what about this skirt? It's not my style, but that's not the point. They definitely took a model that does not fit into the skirt. I hate it when Burda doesn't show the details properly (hair before the neckline,or bag before the skirt with a special godet etc.) but this is worse. Who would be tempted to make this with these pictures? It's not flattering at all.

In the last couple of days I gradually made a storyboard for my wardrobe plan. I did not intend to do so, as it takes a lot of time. But doing it bit by bit (and I'm behind my computer many hours a day anyhow) made it word, and it was a lot of fun. Plus I liked to think about what to do with all these fabrics.


The colors for the bottoms are not very good, this is the best result I could make of my pictures. Some patterns are new, some I have sewn before. The Ottobre top is finished too. That makes 3 tops finished.
Now to make one or two pants first. Today I'll trace the bottom right one, from the September Burda issue.

Just saw that Laura from Laura's sewing room has nominated me as Rocking girl blogger. Thank you Laura.

What can I say, I'm very surprised. My blog is only a few months on the web, and it feels good that it is read.
Just like to share my sewing experiences, and like very much to read other blogs on sewing, as there is really nobody in my family/friends circle who sews. Blogging myself, and reading other blogs makes me feel that I'm part of a sewing community, and I'm grateful to all who share their experiences that way.

I believe that I'm supposed to name 5 others, this seems a bit unfair, as there are more than 5 blogs that I read regularly. But I would like to name (in alphabetical order, and probably some have been named more than once,):
Belinda
Carolyn
Cidell
Julia
Nancy

And a special thanks to all sewing bloggers for sharing experiences!

Life is chaotic at the moment, the new school season started and the sport season too. And although this means that during the daytime I can work reasonably undisturbed, it also means a totally new schedule after schooltimes, requiring a lot of planning. Unfortunately 3 times a week we can not manage to have dinner together. This last I feel as a loss, it's such a great time as family together, to share news and talk about the little and more important things in life. But alas, training schedules are in the way.

But luckily I do manage to sew a bit in the evenings, although not very complicated patterns at the moment. I'm doing a lot of t-shirts from the Ottobre patterns, but with alterations.

I liked the fit of the first Ottobre t-shirt I made, but do not want all my tops with a gathered neckline, so I combined the shirt of two patterns.














I took the first as a start, with the long sleeves and ungathered neckline.

Then I drafted the neckline of the second pattern into the front of …

On Laura's blog she shows a special Burda magazine. I tried to post a few links I found in the comments there, but that does not work. Therefor these two links here:

Burda Exclusive Schnitte

This information tells it is available (in Germany I guess) from September 7.

This is one of the knit fabrics I bought Tuesday. The colors of this fabric go with the bottom colors of my wardrobe plan, and with some other clothes I made earlier. It has a special layer with shine, which makes it a bit more special.
As we have a birthday party this weekend for our daughter who became 14 this week (time flies) I wanted to make a top of this right away, with no questions on fit. After considering the Ottobre tee and consulting DD, I decided on the Jalie wrap top 2449, which I made before and like to wear so much. (My review for this top here).

The top is very quick to make, from cutting to finishing it took me 2 hours. Actually a little bit more, as the topstitching was a problem, with very many skipping stitches. In the end I used a Schmetz stretch needle and tissue paper to cover the fabric. This worked reasonably well, but I lost stretch in the hem. Serging the top was no problem at all with this fabric.












The end result, with two combinations from my closet (the line…

You should think that my stash and wardrobe plans should be enough to keep me busy as far as sewing goes, but I bought more fabric. In a shop where I was near for a work appointment I found two beautiful knits, a black fabric in a fine quality for pants and something to match my fabric for the Marfy coat.

With EmmaOneSock I was tempted for a very colourful paisley. Could not help myself and ordered it.


And two weeks ago I ordered 4 sewing books (thanks to Carolyn's post on books I started looking for Decorative dressmaking and found it, plus three other books I liked) .
Today I bought two patterns. A Jalie shirt (love the fit of Jalie tops) and this Vogue pattern:



I do like the jacket so much, especially the back. Had my eyes on this one since I first saw this on someone elsed blog, and just could not resist the temptation....

Last week I wrote about making a wardrobe from my stash. My stash is not very large (I think) and most fabrics I've bought the last two years, untill this summer.
I will not make a complete swap-board with patterns and line drawings to go with the fabrics, this takes just too much time, plus there are some gaps still in my plans. I'll just write about the projects as time goes by.

These are the fabrics I have in my stash for tops that can be combined with at least two of the fabrics for the bottoms.



These are the fabrics for pants or skirts:


As you can see the bottoms are all rather plain. Just basic stuff really. In general I prefer that, so that I can easily make combinations.

To show I do not only do brown/grey and blue, another picture of more colorful fabrics for some other (non related) garments.
The green for example is meant for a favorite winter combination: black pants and black top, with a colourful jacket to go with that.

My first Marfy patterns is finished. I'm reasonably happy with the result of this pattern. The blouse is not quite my style, but I have a better idea of the size, and now I'm more confident to use a Marfy pattern, that's the happy me. A full review is on PatternReview.

As this is a simple blouse, I had no problems with the lack of instructions, and for most sewing issues I think there are enough books or other information (Internet, PatternReview) to be found to solve construction problems. So I'll use Marfy patterns more.


A little info on how I made the sleeve slit.






1. Fuse a little fusible interfacing to the end of the slit, then cut the slit


2. With right sides together stitch a length of bias cut fabric to the slit, folding the sleeve as in the picture, and take care not to stitch the fold. I find it helpfull to make the bias strip a bit wider at this first step.


3. Press the bias strip towards the slit, cut it to a smaller strip (twice the finished width) fold and pin…