2011 almost gone

DVN skirt

The skirt inspired by a Dries van Nooten skirt is still a work in progress. I did some sewing in the past weeks, made two muslins and a knit top and a cardigan. I’ll show them later, they’re not very special and I didn’t find the time to blog.

In real life the faux leather doesn’t have as much shine as the picture suggests, but  I’m thinking of unpicking it and make it with another fabric. I’ll give it some thought, have the skirt hanging in my sewing room and just not sure what to do. Doesn’t matter, I’ll do a few other things before finishing this.

One and a half week ago I had the great pleasure of meeting Pauline in The Hague. She was the one who inspired me to sew the lace twinset. This is her blog: P’s thrifty sewing blog. It was a real pleasure, we had a lovely chat, a lot sewing related of course. She showed me some wonderful things she made herself and took with her on her travels. Her own lace twinset among them. Thank you Pauline for a lovely evening, hope we’ll meet again.

Thank you

Thank you for all your kind comments on my last posts on the lace twinset, the blouse en the fabric for the skirt. It’s good to have my mojo back and I had hoped to make the skirt this weekend, but I’m having a terrible cold and stayed in bed for quite a while today. After a shower and dressing I do feel a bit better, but not clear enough in my head to sew. Hope the cold will go away quickly.

A few answers/reactions on the comments: Kathererine H, thank you for your ideas about fitting the blouse, I will use the ideas on my next verson.

Karin wondered about postage and the time the Style Arc pattern took to arrive: the postage was 25 Australian dollars for 3 patterns. I ordered them on a Sunday and arrived on the Thursday one and a half week later. Postage is something a supplier can’t do anything about, but it’s quite expensive.

Belinda, thank you for your observation on the issue of the sleeve. It’s something I must think about, it might very well be that is an issue.

And I agree with Marie-Christine, that the back might be a bit large on me.

The skirt: the first picture is the favorite for most of you, and mine as well. So that will be the combination I’ll use. I did make the pattern on Thursdaynight, so when my head is clear again I’m ready to go.

For those interested in the Style Arc patterns: I have the Chelsea pants pattern and want to try that soon.

Dries van Nooten inspired skirt

One of the goals of fabric shopping at the fabric market last week was to find fabric for the Dries van Nooten inspired skirt. I wanted something with either black or navy. Brown is not in my wardrobe any more.

Of course I couldn’t find the exact fabric, or even fabric that came close. What I did find was a bouclé fabric in red with black, a plain red and a structured black fabric. Today I found the fourth fabric. The pattern will not be difficult, the base is a pencil skirt, plenty of those in my stash or in Knip or Burda magazines. The combination of the fabric is the more important issue. Some variations below. The top part will be the boucle in red and black, the variation is in the other 3 fabrics. The plain red must nog be too loud in my opinion, therefor I think that either the first or the last picture gives the best impression for me.

From the structured black I bought enough to make something to go with the skirt, though I own a black jacket that will probably work as well.

Style Arc – Jenny blouse

The Australian pattern company Style Arc gets a lot of (mostly positive) attention lately on blogs and reviews on Pattern review. Of course I couldn’t resist and ordered two patterns and got one free. The shipment arrived last Thursday, and you can tell the sewing bug hit me again, as this has been finished on Sunday!

The Jenny blouse is a classic blouse with darts in front and back, collar with stand and cuffs with a sleeve placket.

Some features of the Style Arc patterns:

• Patterns are in one size only. For this blouse no problem for me, but might be more challenging in the pair of trousers I’m planning to make.
• There are no detailed sewing instructions for every step, but a sewing order is given.
  For this pattern detailed instructions were included for collar with stand (good) and the sleeve tab/placket (couldn’t understand it at all, I tried on a scrap, gave up and used David Page Coffin’s placket from his book shirt making). The instructions are on the site too (heading Tutorials)
• A little piece of suggested fabric quality is sent with the pattern, which I like
• Seam allowances are included, but can be different on several points. In this blouse the general seam allowance is 1 cm (3/8 inch), but on the collar, stand and neckline only 6mm. I LOVE this, as I don’t like the large 1.5 (5/8 inch) seam allowances and having the collar with narrow seam allowances from the start worked very well for me too.
• Four levels of difficulty are given: easy, medium, challenging, experienced sewer. This was in the challenging category. In my opinion the last two categories could be switched, this is a pattern for someone with more sewing experience, but I don’t find it challenging.

The result on me, I will wear it tucked in, so I included a picture for that as well.

I used size 12, based on bust measurement. It is just a bit too snug for me, as you can see by the lines in the front. Also my fabric was a bit too thick and I had difficulty pressing it well. Good quality shirt fabric is very hard to find here.

I used a ribbon with a little shine and sparkle on the front.

As said above, the placket by David Page Coffin, not from the pattern. The sleeves are less “puffy” than the drawing suggests. there is one pleat, but no gathers.

The back, also some lines that shouldn’t ideally not be there. Suggestions for improvement welcome!

I do like the end result. For a first, unaltered pattern this is pretty good. It needs a small fba in the front and some change in the back too, but the length of the blouse and the sleeves are good. Or should I have used a size 14?
Also the pattern pieces are drafted well, the notches are correctly placed. My first experience with Style Arc is positive, though the cost of patterns and shipping will make that I won’t buy a lot of them.

Lace sorbetto top + cardigan on me

To complete the posts about the lace twinset knock off, the pictures of the top and cardigan on me. Chilly but sunny weather made it possible to have some outdoor pictures, thought it’s still difficult to git the right impression. To really knock this off I should have used some long pearl necklaces, but I don’t have any, neither did my daughter, so it still looks a bit plain. Next time I go shopping I will try to find something to go with it.

I’m really in the mood again, next project almost ready… stay tuned.

Sewing related weekend

Past weekend I’ve spent in wonderful company. Almost all of the ladies present at the PR Europe meeting in Brussels from April this year met again past weekend in The Netherlands. We even met two new ladies, Lauriana and Lilian (not in the picture).

On Saturday we started at the Gemeente museum in The Hague.

Marta, Sheila, Valerie, Lauriana, Hilde, Joana, Valerie (from OZ), Clare, Samira, Margaret.

Currently in the museum is the exhibition Fashion and Art, which was very nice to visit. Afterwards we went to Amsterdam, where we had wanted to visit the bag museum, but had just too little time after a lunch and very quick visit to Kantje Boord, but Amsterdam is nice to explore. Some pictures from the exhibition, where you are allowed to take them as long as you don't use flash light.

The zipper is under the black center part.

 

These sleevecaps reminded us of the Burda dress that was on the cover last year (September 2010?)

After dinner at my friend Valerie’s house we did an ugly-fabric swap. A standard at PR weekend (though this was not a PR weekend at all, but fun anyhow). This was the ‘ugly’ fabric I ended with. Think it will be a lining for a jacket or vest.

Sunday we visited one of the famous fabric markets. It was an indoors market, with an enormous amount of fabric stalls. Most of us left with quite a bit of fabric. This is my haul. Mostly knits, for not too complicated quick projects. I also bought fabric for the Dries van Nooten skirt, that’s for another post.

 

The weekend was as wonderful as the weekend in April. Thank you all ladies for such a fun time. And of course we were already talking about the next time….