I'll sew you

   KnipMode - february 2010 / pattern # 19 There's something about this top - that I made for the 3rd time now - that I love very, very much. I think it's the fact that with minimal effort you get a great result. This top is really super easy to make. The fabric I used is a knit which holds it shape very well but don't ask me which fibers it's made of. I bought this on the fabric-market and I always forget to ask. When buying via internet at least you have that information. The fit is a bit snug. If I were to make this again in the near future than I would make some alterations for that.  But it's alright to wear as it is. I wore it already to our company's Christmas-lunch yesterday. Good thing I remembered to take a picture afterwards so I could blog about it, or else this post was post-poned just like all the other ones. Sigh..... Like I said, I made this for the third time. You can see the other versions here and here . I am a bit out ...

Hi everyone!!! Wow, it has taken me (too) long to get back on this blog. There's no particular reason why I have been away, but it's just that the longer you stay away, the less you feel the urge to come back. At least, that's how it works for me. It had nothing to do with a lack of ambition to sew. On the contrary. I must have sewn 6 or 7 items in the meantime. I think I'll just pick up where I am now, and maybe save blogging about those items for times when my 'sew-news-flashes' are more scarce. To fill in the gaps, so to speak. Right now, I just finished a fun little project this morning. The project itself is fun but the process was not! My sewing- and lockmachine are really starting to show signs of fatigue. I guess it's time to take them in for service. It's just not fun when you are in the middle of a full-automatic buttonhole and the machine just freezes. Gone is the automatic program, out comes the seam-ripper. And if you have to do that l...

This is the picture of my 'hoodie'. (KnipMode 2010-08 / 19b - linedrawing in my previous post). I already finished sewing it more than a week ago and even wore it in the weekend. It's great and I love it. Putting it together was very easy. The one thing I changed from the original pattern was using a facing in the back of the neck. I think I'll have to pay the fabricshop another visit and buy the same fabric but in a different colour. It was great to work with and it's just thick enough to wear as a cover-up. I'd even consider to sew this pattern again. If I do I will make the sleeves a bit longer though. The hood is finished with a double-folded seam and is attached between the front and the neck-facing. The buttons are quite.....euhmm..different but I like them very much. The hood itself is not too big and actually is there just for the fun of it. I don't see me wearing it in real life... There's no close-up picture but you see a white ...

First of all, thank you everyone who left a comment on my latest post. As always I'm very grateful for the fact that people (you!) take the time to read my blog and even react on it. And a big thank you to Hilde for offering to use her scans of KnipMode via 4Shared. That's gonna save me a lot of time! And now, as promised I want to show you my newly bought pieces of fabric. Only 3. I'm not a hoarder and am trying to go back to my initial way of working, which is choosing a project and thèn buy fabric. Not the other way around. This just works best for me. I am in love with all three of them (heart jumps happily up and down in chest..) The baby-bleu on the left is a fleece with a very soft inside. The stripes are a polyester-viscose jersey. This colourcombination is actually quite a bit out of my comfortzone, but I chose this fabric just for that reason. Gotta try something new once in a while. The most beautiful is the cobalt blue. It's a cotton with str...

It's been a bit quiet around here lately, but I have been sewing a few things. And yesterday I bought new fabric. So I'm still (sort of) productive but just nog blogging. Free time is limited and I'd rather spend the small amount of time I have behind my sewing-machine than behind my computer. But last week I finished a summerblouse and I just want to show it to you. So here you have it. Linedrawing: There's a lot I like about this blouse: - The feminine style - The fabric, a lovely creme/purple mille fleurs cotton (one of the three swatches I bought for € 5 in total) - The little purple buttons - The slightly curved neckline with the tie-bands - The fit (sleeves that don't cut off my blood-circulation, yay!) - It's summer-appropriate breeziness. Quite thin fabric but actually not very see-through. Alas, there are also a few things I don't like: - The tie-bands are way too short to tie them like the pretty bow in the linedrawing. In t...

Finally a picture of my latest project: the skirt. (And my previous project, the top). I liked the design of the skirt from the very first moment I saw it and knew that I wanted to make it. And so I did. The picture above is not showing the details very well, but here's a linedrawing, a close-up of the topstitching and a close-up of the skirt. I played with the idea of putting in the zipper at the front but in the end chose not to. I wanted to keep everything symmetrical. I used topstitching, to emphasize the nice design but also to flatten the seams. It would be a right mess on the inside otherwise. I don't like a zipper on the side so I put in a seam in the back yoke and placed the zipper there. The fabric I used is a black stretch jeans. It worked great and the corners of the frontpanel gave no hassle at all. Everything was behaving nicely this time. I took these pictures last thursday after wearing this outfit all day, which explains the wrink...

When I was young, let's say 16 years of age, I didn't exactly lead a glamourous, interesting and exciting life. Not that I was longing for such a life, but in my head I liked dreaming about it. When I was even a bit younger, let's say 12 years of age, I remember my mother had some old 'Libelle's' (a Dutch women's magazine) in the house. They were from the 50's or thereabout. Those magazines were the start of my interest in fashion. Those women looked só stylish and feminine, which was a huge contrast to the fashion of those days: punk and disco. (We're talking 1978 here). One of the first things I sewed was a pencil-skirt way below my knees, inspired by that style. Quite different from what the other girls wore, but I felt very confident in it. With that interest came the fun of sketching and designing. With the bold 80's around the corner, it was just more fuel on the fire. I loved designing so much that I wanted to become a fashiondesigner....

My favourite TNT-pattern is this one: Burda 2008/10 - 119            Two thumbs up for this one! I tried it several times and every time I was pleasantly surprised at how quick it is to assemble and how great the effect is. It's total love and I'll probably be making more of this. This is my latest project: Apart from the sewingpattern being easy and quick, I can't get over how much I love this fabric. It's jersey with velvet on some parts of the flowers. The colours are very rich but demure at the same time. Funny thing is that I received this fabric by accident. I actually ordered other (almost the same) fabric on the internet but apparently it was mistaken for this one. Well, absolutely no harm done. When it was time to topstitch and hem, I was already reaching for my black thread. But then I thought it would be fun to use a brighter colour for that. I had the perfect purple in my stash so I used that. ...

Pheww..!!! That took me wáy too long! So I'm glad I'm finally done with this. But I must say I'm pretty pleased with the end result. (And I'm sure my pants will start to fit better once I shed some pounds...) What you see is cardigan pattern #7 from KnipMode December 2011 and pants pattern # 129 from Burda February 2007. You can find the linedrawing of the cardigan here . This is the linedrawing of the pants.      I used size 46 and eliminated the pockets. I wanted the lines of these pants to be as smooth as possible. (The cardigan is a size 44) That pants-size 46 is really doing my head in. I know I'm tall, but honestly....do I look like a 46 to you?? (Please tell me I don't...) The fake-fur collar is the main feature of this outfit. I could eat this stuff! It feels so soft and luxurious. I didn't read the instructions very carefully, or else I wouldn't have fiddled that long with attaching the collar to t...

The world lost another icon, too young, too soon. Goodbye Whitney. You will be missed.

Thanks everyone who left a nice comment about my top. Stephanie asked if I could show a close-up picture of the collar. I completely forgot about that request and just read it again. I'll do that in my next post. That's a promise! After the top, I made black trousers. But silly, silly me. For years on a row now I am a size 44. Since I've gained some weight in the last year I'm more of a 46 now. So I thought it was only logical to sew a size 46 and then I would end up with perfect fitting pants. Only one 'small' problem, I forgot that most of the years I have been a size 44, I already cut extra seams and width (and therefore probably cut a size 46 already!) to make sure pants and skirts would fit me. So what I actually did now was cut exactly the same size and ended up with some tight-fitting pants. It's wearable, the fabric stretches quite a lot, but it's a far cry from the perfect-fitting pants I had imagined and I'll always have to wear somethin...

Yay!! By the size of this picture you can tell that my technial problems are solved. I have to say a big thank you to Katie Kadiddlehopper  for pointing me in the right direction. Check out her comment in my previous post if you are having the same problems.  And also thank you to Baking Soda from Bake My Day . I might give posting via Windows Live Writer a go one day but now I can go back to my usual way   I think I'm gonna stick to that a bit longer. And to be honest, I have a big fear of losing my blog if I change anything, so..... But I will remember the advise. Now, about the picture. What you're looking at is pattern #3 from KnipMode 08/2008. It's the second time this one has seen the light. It is só easy to make. I like the fact that with minimal effort you have a great effect. I must admit that the fit is quite snug. Especially on the arms but also in other places. It's wearable if I just make sure I wear the right things und...

Thank you soooo much, everyone of you who left a nice and very encouraging comment on my last post. I felt like I opened a window by posting about my blogging-troubles and was finally able to look outside, but it felt even more like I finally let you look inside. Sometimes it's good to ventilate what you're going through, because there will always be people kind enough to lend a 'helping hand'. And your comments were helpful and proof of the fact that there áre people out there enjoying my writing. You sometimes forget that. Which is kind of strange because I myself read and enjoy so many blogs you all are writing. So one more time an heartfelt: Thank You! Now, moving on to the sewing: This was truly an easy job which is not surprising as it's an easy pattern. The fabric was great to work with. I did a bit of handwork on the ties that go around the front and the neckline but otherwise this was sewn in no time. Most of it on the serger. I'm ...

Finally I've decided what my next project will be. Black trousers! It's been a while since I sewed my last pair of trousers and I'm kind of excited to make another pair. I cut out some patternpieces tonight but was then cruelly interrupted by a cat that needed attention. Lots of attention. Anyway, I'll pick it up later. There was something else I still had to do: take care of the fit of my burgundy cardigan. I took in the sideseams a bit and placed darts in the back. And now I'm totally happy with it. Pictures will follow soon. I will also show you the creme sweater I made after the cardigan and the details of both projects. That's right folks, my blog has been sort of silent, but my sewing-machine and I spent some quality-time lately. I did make a picture of the creme sweater before it was finished, so I'll give you that as a sneak peek. Maybe you recognise it as I made it earlier in a grey knit. So there you have it. I'm actually quite productive ...

When will I ever learn. Ending almost every post with a promise for the next one. And most of the time I change my mind and write about something else instead. But hey, that's a bloggers prerogative, I guess. This one is no exception. So no cardigan yet, but a skirt that I meant to show you for quite some time now. As I wrote earlier, this skirt was part of a little SWAP. But I never told you that I changed my mind about the pattern. My original choice was a skirt with rounded sideseams but I must say I shied away from that when the time came to cut the fabric. So I switched to another pattern. A pattern I like very much. And I can say that in all honesty because I used that pattern some years ago for a jeans skirt. It got a lot of wear and I remember feeling great in it. I also remember feeling sad when it no longer fit. Since then I went from a size 42 to a size 46. Mmm..yeah well I'm working on that. OK?? But it fits, I love it and I'm very happy with it. It's ...