I'll sew you

                                                                                                          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...

(Disclaimer: the following is based on my opinion only, it’s about what I think and feel about Knipmode. I respect it’s not the same for everyone) Sewingfriends, an era has come to an end. Actually it already ended in the fall of 2019, when my KnipMode subscription expired and I decided, with a heavy heart, not to renew it. How it began Back in 1993 one of my aunts visited me. She had been sewing for most of her life and was damn good at it. Many bridal gowns in the family were made by her. She also sewed a lot for my mother and she made my communion dress. I have vivid memories of how pretty I felt that day. Now 45 years later, it’s still hanging in a closet because I just can't part with it.  Anyways, we were chatting over coffee and she asked if I was interested to subscribe to KnipMode. In those days I bought a copy occasionally but I liked the idea of getting it on a regular basis, so I subscribed. Around 2005 I got a bit bored with the style of the patterns an...

My first sewingproject of the year 2020 is finished and it’s a raglan sleeve sweater. The original pattern I’ve used is from KnipMode December 2013. Original, because I made quite some changes. In the picture below you can see the original linedrawing of this pattern. See those curved seams? The front and back bodypiece do have this curved seamline (second picture), but the sleeves do not. They're straight at that point. Anyone who has been sewing for a while knows that when you sew a curved and a straight seam together, you create depth. The fabric is no longer laying flat. And that’s exactly what happened when I made this sweater some years ago. Front and back, left and right. I remember I took some time trying to fix it but for some reason I never really succeeded, so that sweater ended up never being worn. Last year I wanted to give it another go and I smoothed out the line of the front and back bodypiece. That did the trick, as was to be expected. No stran...

Happy 2020 everyone! What better time to show my face than at the start of the new year, right? And a polished face that is. After many years of using a black themed blog, I decided it was time to change it to a more fresh-coloured one. The colours I've chosen remind me of spring, which is better than the dreary, rainy, non-wintery weather we're heaving right now in the Netherlands. After a hiatus of 1,5 year, what are my plans for this blog? Well, I can tell you that I would love to write a post every week, but that's a promise that might be hard to live up to. So, no promises. Let's just see how this evolves. One thing I will do is write down ideas for posts and split them up a bit more. No need to cram everything in one post. I also would love to share more of my daily activities. Not just the sewing stuff. And last but not least: I really want to improve the quality of my pictures.  As always the lack of posts was not due to the fact that there was no sew...

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...