I'll sew you

From when I started sewing in my early teens, up until a few years ago, my hometown had a fabricshop which I visited frequently. When the shop closed it was the time that real fabricshops were becoming very scarce and online shops were starting to bloom. I've done my fair bit of online shopping but it can NEVER replace the real deal. Looking directly at the fabric, seeing every detail of the fiber and the print. Feeling how soft, flimsy, sturdy, stretchy, warm or breezy it is. Stroking it lovingly whilst coming up with ideas for patterns you want to use for it. I miss it. Very much. That's why I'm so happy with the big fabricmarkets that are organised twice a year, in spring and fall. Last spring I had my hopes set on the fabric market that was to be held on the 18th of March, only half an hour's drive away from my home. Well, as you probably already guessed: it all fell through because of covid-19. In september however, when things were starting to look up a bit, a ...

Actually this blog should be about the #4 (and last) fruit of my sewcation back in spring, but that one is about pants-fitting and I still haven't taken the right pictures for it. I do however have pictures of other projects to show. This summerdress is one of them.  (Pardon the blue shoes I'm wearing. They are not matching very well with the dress, but at this point my head was almost exploding with a headache and the shoes were the last thing on my mind. I don't know why I chose one of the hottest days of summer to take pictures of 4 different outfits.........) Image from KnipMode August 2017 As you can see in the linedrawing, the original pattern  is a jumpsuit. The first time I saw it in KnipMode I was immediately drawn to the designlines. But a jumpsuit is just not for me. However, it was clear to me that I could easily hack this pattern and make a dress of it by turning the pants into a skirt. All I had to do was extend the vertical seamline of the pants at centerfron...

From KnipMode January 2018 This is the last one of my makes I sewed way back in the beginning of May. The fabric I used has been in my stash for quite some time. It was part of a fabric surprisebox and altough I liked the fabric from the beginning, I didn’t have plans for it for a long time. But when I started to think about spring- and summersewing earlier this year, this fabric popped up in my head more than once. So the search for a pattern started. I knew I wanted to make an easy dress  and I wanted to use the side of the fabric on which the pattern gets darker, as a feature. I found a pattern that seemed to check all the boxes and decided to place the darker pattern of the fabric at the bottom of the dress. For a few moments I thought of placing it at the waist but boy, am I glad I decided against that! I fiddled with the pattern a bit to get it to my liking (sleeves a bit wider, shorter and more bended, added a bust-dart, widened the waist, took out some fullness of the skirt...

Last week I was enjoying a much needed vacation, which in fact has been a sewcation, just as planned. The muscles in my neck and back are sore from sitting in an unhealthy position. (Note to self: must do something about that position!) I managed to sew a cardigan, a skirt, a dress and I took some time on pants-fitting. Each item will get its own blogpost because I’ve decided that, apart from informing (inspiring?) you, I want this blog to be a documentation of what I have sewn. So let’s start with the cardigan in a fuchsiapink, very pretty lace jersey. ( Here you can read about the first time I made this cardigan. ) The colour is almost a neon pink, but surprisingly enough it is totally wearable and I like it on me. Here I'm wearing it with a lilac tanktop.  A colourful combination!  without the belt (I prefer it closed though...) I’m still on the fence about wether I like it as a garment  In other words: if I will wear it or not. The major pro...

                                                                                                          Normally this is a chronological blog, but with this cardigan I'm breaking that rule. This was already made in december. Animal print is a trend that has been here for a while and is probably not going anywhere soon. I still have to get used to wearing it and feel very selfconscious if I do. Especially when half of my body is covered in it. But it was not made to hang in the closet so today I was 'brave' and wore it to work. At least, it's perfect for casual friday. It is a simple pattern and a simple make. I took my time with the front- and necklineband. The only thing I changed was the armscye. T...

In my earlier years of sewing I didn't have a fabricstash. I bought 1, 2 or max 3 pieces and sewed them up, before I bought other fabric. Then the internet came and I started reading about other sewists who bought lots and lots of fabrics. Pictures of enormous fabricstashes....it made my mouth water....and yes I must admit, influenced me! Slowly but surely I started buying more and more. You could say that's where my addiction started. My plans couldn't catch up with the need  want of new fabric so I started buying without a plan. And that was a mistake. If I look at my stash now I see some pieces that have been there forever. And guess what? Exactly! Those were the ones I bought without any idea of what to do with them. I came to the realisation that that was just not the way to go for me. So nowadays I'm back to planning most of my fabricpurchases. Trying to be sensible about it. (I'll make an exception for pieces out of the remnant bin though....) It doesn'...

Yesterday I finally finished the culotte on which I have been working on and off for a few weeks now and that has been on my sewing-wishlist for quite some time. In fact it has been there ever since this pattern was published in December 2017. The fabric I bought at a fabric market and at the time I forgot to ask what kind of fabric it is but I’m pretty sure there’s polyester in it. (I should do the ‘burn-test’!) The weight is heavy and that's a very good thing for this design, because it elongates the pleats in the front which makes all that extra width stay in place. The original design has a paperbag-waist. I would never wear it like that (don’t need all that extra bulk at my waist) and decided to eliminate the piece above the waistline.   It’s a loose fitting design (and very comfortable to wear!) so I could get away with my normal size 46 and had to add just a little bit at the sideseams at the waist. I didn’t make the fabric tie belt either. I’ll be using a small s...

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...

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 ...

Hi, Just a short post to show the second t-shirt I made with the same Ottobre pattern I used for the black-and-white shirt. I just couldn't let the stripe-trend go by without joining it. The fabric I used is maybe a bit too thick for a t-shirt (punta di roma) but all in all it is ok to wear. The stripes are darkblue and cream-coloured. The sleeve with a piece of elastic sewed on the inside. (My arm isn't as gigantic in real life as in this picture haha....) Making this shirt was not exactly a pleasant journey. About everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I even forgot to match the stripes at the sideseams when cutting the fabric. So I was very, very lucky that they did match after all. You want to be hasty and then you forget the most basic things... At first I finished the neckline the same way I did with the black-and-white shirt, but that resulted in a disaster. No matter how hard I pulled the binding, it was just too stiff to lay flat. I guess that's w...