Black, white and a bit of red

 

It helps when you know your color season. Thank you for all your comments last week when I wrote about being in the winter season and asked how you define your colors. The concept has settled a bit in my mind, and when I look at the clothes I have and wear, there is a lot of black and white in them, and in the past I used a lot of blue. In the next period I will add more red and blue again.

Yesterday I went to a fabric shop, mainly to see if I could find coat fabric for the sew along coat (btw, it's going to be the Butterick with some changes, the Vogue coat will be done outside the sew along some time).

No fabric for a coat, but 3 fabrics for summer. Colors: black, white and a bit of red.  Tonight I started on blouse 107 from the June issue of BWOF with the fabric with red in it. Great, lightweight cotton, a breeze to work with. The front and back is done.  Promising to be a great pattern.

Yesterday I also started working on a new bag, but I changed my plan a bit, so that's waiting on an extra notion that I must buy.

BWOF 05-2008-121 finished

Tonight I managed to finish my dress. After completion of the neckline portion yesterday evening, it took me only two hours to finish it. The hem must be done, but I like to leave it for a night, so that it can set.

If you want to see larger pictures, click on them.

The sleeveband I also constructed a bit different then the BWOF instructions tell you, mainly because I wanted to use my serger and sew the sideseam and band in one pass.

What I did is:

	Sewed the sleeveband till the marking with a small zigzag stitch.
	Pinned sideseam and sleeveband, turning the seam allowance of the sleeveband outwards as much as possible.
	Serged the seam. The I made a small clip halfway the sleeveband part of the seam, so that one part of the seam allowance could be turned away from the other part. Then I folded the sleeveband.
	Topstitched on the edge of the sleeveband, and this way it was attached too. The result: a great summer dress, that in the end was not so difficult to make.

My take on BWOF 05-2008-121

	Till now I've seen three versions of this dress: Tany made it, and on Patter Review there are reviews of Merteuil and Kay Y. All of them are lovely and from the first time I saw it, thought I would make it. I did have the fabric, that I intended for a dress from the moment I bought it and didn't want to leave it till next year. In all reviews, the construction of the front was regarded as difficult. I decided to trace the pattern and do it my way, because I had a similar experience with another BWOF dress last year. What BWOF wants you to do is make the neckline and add the band over the front. What I did was take the part from the band off the pattern for front and back. I made the neck band completely separate and after it was finished attached it to the front and back. Let me show you what I did with the neckline.
	I joined the pattern pieces for front and back neckline at the shoulder, so that there would only be a center back seam. The neckband is cut twice. BTW: I made the neckline 3 cm higher, BWOF often is too low for convenient wearing without a camisole.
	One side interfaced with knit fusible interfacing (no black in my stash, white was only a bit left too, therefor the line on the shoulder), and sewed center back and center front of both the front and facing neckband.
	Center front sewed exactly till the seamline.
	Front and back neckband were sewn together, right sides together. Trim and clip as needed before turning. I then topstitched the center front and neckline. The neckband is ready.
	After sewing the shoulder seams (careful gathering is needed, as Kay Y mentioned in her review) the neckband was attached to the front and back. To be continued... as is my I wear what I sew series. Today it was tan linen pants with a rtw white camisole and blouse.

I wear what I sew (1)

Inspired by Dana (blog Lean Mean Sewing Machine) and Kristy (blog Lower your pressure foot, which I only discovered this week) I start taking pictures of what I actually wear. I do think that I mostly wear clothes that I made myself.

A complete picture I placed in this online album.

My clothes today:
Jalie top (no. 2449, previously shown in this post). Confess to wearing it for the first time, as the print felt a bit uneasy at first. But now I wear it in this combination, it feels fine.

Linen BWOF 02-2006-109 pants, that I reviewed here. I love the waistband detail on this pattern. This is such a favorite pair of pants, only difficulty is that it's white, so that after one day of wearing it usually must be washed.

Vogue 2634 + colors

These are pictures from my finished blouse. I showed the first phase a few posts ago, and it has been finished for more than a week now, but only now I have real pictures.

I made a size 12 with FBA and tapering to a 14/16 at the hip. And I quite learned some nice finishing, I think it was Summerset who told me about finishing an armhole with bias binding.  The binding also serves as a very small sleeve head, which is nice. This is the inside:

 

Colors

Last Friday I had my colors analysed, and the result, to my surprise, is I belong in the winter color scheme. Lucky me, also black and white are in that color scheme, and I have quite a lot of black/white clothes. Also dark blue and teal, which are favorites are in that scheme. But the pink and tan as in my blouse above is out! Of course I won't do away clothes or fabrics just because they don't belong to the winter color scheme, and I'm still wondering if the other colors are really not good for me.

Question: how do you define your color combinations? And if you're a particular season, do you always stick to the colors of your season?

On sewing again: the pink skirt a made was not a success, and my sewing spirit has been gone the last days. Hope to have it back soon.

Parting shot, a small vase with flowers from my garden.

Read patterns

Lindsay T has an amusing story of "reading patterns" in her student days and a nice poll on her blog about which sewing resource you use most. Her post inspired me to write this.

It was a difficult choice for me between online resources and sewing books (I voted online resources).

I did learn a lot from the sewing books I bought the last two years ( and these I bought mostly by recommendations of other bloggers), and from the 25 year old Burda book that still regularly helps me out. But as those of you who read my blog for some time already know, I'm quite fond of all resources that can be found on the internet on blogs or websites like Threads magazine. This magazine is a wealth of information too, I bought 4 older issues this week on E-bay, amongst which the issue on the construction of a Chanel jacket.

Pattern reading is something I do when I use a Vogue or Butterick pattern (which is not so very often), usually to see whether there is something special to learn. Last year I wrote a post on how much I learned from those patterns when I got to know them in the 80's. Here in the Netherlands those patterns were hardly sold at the time, and very expensive. (They still are very expensive, the price for a Vogue pattern is 15-19 euro, which is US $23-29, for less than that I can buy 2 BWOF magazines with a lot of patterns in each issue, luckily the Butterick coat pattern was in a half price sale this month).

There's not so much reading in a BWOF or Knip mode instruction. I mostly don't read them and do rely on "the part of the brain where sewing information is stored" (as Lindsay called it so nicely), but when I get stuck or just want to know if there is a better way, I rely on the books and tutorials on the internet.

This is a picture of my small collection of sewing books, and as a picture can not be made of the internet information, I just give a reference to my site with links to tutorials (to advertise it a bit, the main work on it is done).

Knock off top - second muslin

I finished my second muslin for my knock off top. My first muslin you can see in this post.

This time I used a cotton knit, which had less drape than the first fabric for the muslin, which you can see clearly. And I sewed one seam on the front to the outside. Well, it's only a muslin.

I took out a bit too much width in the top of the back and could take out a bit more in the lower back. The most important change is the space I took out in the lower part of the front, this is an improvement to fit. With a fabric that has more drape, a centimeter or two added at bust level and a bit added to the back I think I can make it from a good fabric. Now to find a good knit with a lot of drape!

Speaking of fabrics. Today I received my fabric from Textile Studio Patterns, which is the prize I won for the jacket in the  Knock off contest on Pattern Review in March. Its a beautiful fabric. Marsha (of Textile Studio Patterns) doesn't say too much with this description: "Bundles of tan, latte & gray threads are randomly woven through a soft white boucle ground. Simply stunning!"

My daughter said: "That's a cool fabric mum, and those colors are beautiful". Those of you with teenage daughters know that is a huge compliment.

(And let me add that it's nothing to do with Marsha that I received this fabric end of May! It took me a long time to decide which fabric I wanted, and then asked her to delay sending it till after my holidays).