I'll sew you

As I type this, I only have 1,5 days of vacation left. Oh my…where did those 5 weeks go??  Because of the 2 heat waves we’ve experienced here in the Netherlands, the first 3 weeks went by in a bit of a blur. I really could not do much more than hang on the couch and move as little as possible. It's just not my kind of weather and I’m ever so glad that the heat is gone, altough it’s still above 20°C.  In spite of all that heat I managed to get some sewing done. I bought the fabric for this skirt (KnipMode January 2018 – skirt ‘Yara’) at a fabric fair and it is a wonderful jersey with elastane. The colours are so vibrant, And it has a bit of weight to it so it hangs beautifully. It was a super quick make. I took size 46 and made it slightly bigger at the hip. Jersey can be so clingy to your body and I really want to avoid that if possible.  As you can tell from the picture below, the design calls for an elastic band as a waistband, but I opted for a casing of t...

Anyone out there who likes to sew in blistering temperatures?? No, me neither… It's sooo hot and dry here in the Netherlands and there's no sign of it changing anytime soon.  I have a trip planned this thursday with two friends. Initially we were going to pay a visit to a few city's in the province of Zeeland, but I don't think that's a good idea when it's 35°C. Thursday and Friday are actually the hottest days according to the weather forecast. We will probably be driving on to the coast instead and spending our day at the beach. N ext tuesday I'll be going on a daytrip with a friend to Trier (Germany). It's  booked at a bus-company and I'm really looking forward to that but if the temperatures are still this high (and chances are they will be) than it's going to be somewhat of a challenge to be walking around in a heated city. I hope the bus has airco, that would be a big plus! Okay, I've moaned enough. There are still a lot of peo...

Today is the first day of my summer-holiday and it's gonna last for no less than 5 weeks. There are some trips planned but nothing longer than 1 day, so there's gonna be lots of time left to spend sewing. (And reading, and cooking, and gardening, and doing nothing, and shopping, and sleeping in, and cuddling/playing with my brave little cat-friend). At least that's the plan. But sewing will only happen if the temperatures are gonna drop a bit because it's too hot for me to even move. The 14-day forecast however doesn't show any signs of dropping temperatures. I was allright with that when I was younger but with a certain age comes a dislike of being too hot. I'm sure some of you ladies out there know what I mean, right? There's hardly any green grass left to find. It all looks yellow. Nature is in desperate need of rain. Lots of rain. Nevertheless I really wanted to buy some fabric at the beginning of my holiday and today I received 2 packages with fab...

No I'm not talking about summer fabric with lovely yellow lemons on it... My little cat-friend who has been with me for 13 years has been diagnosed with severe arthritis. (The exact words of the vet: "We don't see this very often"). I noticed that his movement was slower and jumping up and down didn't go as smoothly as it once did but it's an elder cat and I thought that was just normal and age-appropriate. Lately though he seemed to be in pain at times. So I took him to the vet last friday, which actually turned into a very stressful visit for him (the cat, not the vet...) but also for me. They had to give him anesthetics to examin him. Then they decided to take x-rays and there it was, the verdict of arthritis. I wasn't completely surprised, but still.... Now he has to be on continuous pain-medication for 30 days and then try to reduce that to every other day (at least, that's the plan for now) and I can give him special food that will help to imp...

Thát was a quick make! The major part of the work went into adjusting this pattern for my size. This one goes up to a size 46 but for me it needs to be a bit bigger/longer at some places. The fact that the frontpiece has pleats makes it more of a struggle to get it right. But I think I succeeded in doing so. The fit is great. Because of the pattern placement I was limited in the amount of length I could add at the bottom. Otherwise I would have added about an inch. I love patterns that are fairly simple to put together but are special at the same time because of some detail. This is a good example. So yeah, pretty happy with that. I already wore it to a party friday night and today at work. Now the temperature has dropped it’s significantly cooler so it’s perfect to wear this long-sleeved top. The colours of the fabric are hard to capture on my camera. And that's a real shame because they're beautiful. I love the different blue-toned colours combined with t...

First of all a big thank you to those who left a comment on my previous post. It's great to hear from you! In the meantime the tee is finished. Nothing complicated, just a simple project. But isn't it true that those pieces are the ones that get to be worn the most? I thought it would be fun to play a bit with the stripes and added a band at the bottom of the sleeves with the stripes going in the opposite direction. For that I folded a rectangular in half and sewed it double at the bottom of the sleeves. The stripes of the necklinebinding are also placed at a right angle. I'll try to sneak in a little post about how I make a necklinebinding. If you are struggling with the usual method (folding a strip of fabric and sewing it double to the neckline), this method may be the one you were looking for. It works for me every time and I find its much easier.  Back to the tee. I'm happy with the fit. Basically I measured my hips, waist, bustline and uppe...

It’s hard to believe that it has been almost 2 years since I wrote my last blogpost. Time flies at an incredible pace.  The reason why it’s been that long? When I think about this I come up with several reasons: I finally landed that permanent job. But it’s fulltime, sooo... (I’m not complaning, I lóve my new job, its awesome and I’m dead proud of finding a job I had set my heart on and convincing my boss that I’m worth to be there for the long run).  I wasn’t inspired to write about anything, felt like I had nothing interesting to tell and no-one would miss my writing.  The thought that blogging is not popular anymore. Seeing lots of bloggers stop eventually. If the 'great ones' out there are losing readers, then why should I even bother....  And last but not least, I gained some weight which caused me to think that the things I was sewing didn’t look nice on me and I wasn't particularly keen on posting any pictures. (Yeah I know, shame on me…). The fact ...