Simplicity 2147 again - or what you can make of a potato sack

So, it seems my favourite pattern so far is Simplicity 2147, despite its tendancy to look like a sack. It's all in the choice af fabric, people. To avoid the sack go for a cotton fabric. Here's a blouse I sew thursday night, just because I wanted something new to wear for our trip to mom. I used the 2147 view C which is tunic length, but I went for short sleeves (summer's on the way!).

I also chose this project to be my first where I use French seams. It wasn't hard at all and it looks so pretty on the inside! I used the twin needle for the hem, it always looks very professional. The hem is a bit larger than the pattern says. I think it says 3 cm but I made it 6-7 cm instead, so it would look more like a blouse than a tunic. I'm very happy with the result.

And here it is from the front:

And the back:

I don't know if it shows in the pic, but there are only two pleats in the back instead of six. I tried to omit the pleats altogether, but I didn't change the pattern enough (did not make my sturdiest effort in calculating how much to take out), so I had to make two pleats. But I'm not unhappy with that since it looks good. I also added about two inches of extra width at the bottom.

My mom and sister liked it so much that they now want me to make them one each! My mom was also gracious enough to donate four (!) bags of fabric from her attic stash (she has several cardboard boxes). We'll see what I can make out of that.

I have also recieved my Colette Ginger pattern. Yey!  So toworrow I will make a skirt. I have a lovely striped cotton fabric in blue, red and white and I will make view C.

Bye for now,

Johanna

Pictures of Kalle wearing his new dog coat

This past weekend we went to visit my mom and my sister and her family. And I got to give mom's dog his new coat or jumper or what you want to call it. He was SO CUTE with his hair trimmed short. I just wanted to cuddle with him all the time. After a while he got really tired of me and started avoiding me, crawling under the sofa and so on...

Well here's how lovely he looked in his jumper/coat:

I'll be back later with another post, about a new blouse.

Bye for now,

Johanna

Simplicity 2147 and 2245 - me wearing it!

So, I finally have some pics of me wearing the two dresses I've posted about before, Simplicity 2147 (the non-potatoe sack-version) and Simplicity 2245.

I made my son help me take pictures. He looooves borrowing the camera and taking photos of everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. So far we have photos of my ironing board, the floors, the TV while it's on etc. But he's totally excused because he's only five and totally adorable and not to mention helpful! (I didn't want to ask my husband to take photos, because I suspect that he thinks this blogging business is a bit lame... :)).

Here they are! First the 2147:

And here's the 2245 (I love those pockets):

I must say that blue and green dress is my favourite out of these two.

On another note, I couldn't help myself but had to order the Colette patterns' Ginger skirt yesterday! It cost me a whopping 170 SEK/£17 including P&P. I hope it's worth it and my expactations are high after reading posts on it from LLADYBIRD among others. *Standing by the mailbox 'til the mailman comes*

Well, bye for now,

Johanna

New sewing patterns

A few weeks ago I ordered some patterns from Sewessential. I was so glad to see that they had patterns to reduced prices. That NEVER happens in Sweden, it's ALWAYS full price. So I found five I liked, two of them only cost £1.85 each! And the others were £4.15 each. And the postage wasn't too bad either, so totally worth it.

These are the ones I got:

Simplicity 2702 - I like this type of silhouette, I find it flattering for my hips (which are not 46 inches, but 44!). The patterns looks very versatile too, with all the sleeve variations.

 Simplicity 1878 - another Lisette pattern. They are so cute. I was looking for a A-line dress and this one looks fab.

 Simplicity 2363 - I think the front yoke looks interesting, with the possibilities to embellish in different ways. Also many sleeve variations.

 Simplicity 2219 - This also looks very flattering for big hips. But I think I will save this for when I get an overlocker/serger.

 Simplicity 2444 - I have seen many versions of this dress, but this one by Cynthia made me want to make one myself. I have no clue if this type of dress will look good on me, since I have no waist and big hips. But I will make one anyway. I like green a lot and think I have enough of some cotton fabric I got at the local charity shop. It seems kind of the same shade as the one on the envelope. Well, I hope I can muster the energy and make this my next project...

Bye for now,

Johanna

For another tiny little friend - dog coat

So my mom has a dog, Kalle. He's a pekinese and almost twelve years old. He has all these medical problems (poor dog), and among them there's eczema. So to be able to treat the eczema mom had to get the dog's coat trimmed.

Before:

A whole lot of hair!

After:

Now he's just a skinny little thing and will probably freeze his little behind of and so my mom asked me if I could look for dog coats and what they cost up here. But I thought "How hard can it be...?". I browsed the web to get inspiration or find a free pattern. Found this one which looks great and seems quite easy. But later found this dog coat for sale, and was inspired!

I went to my local fabric shop and picked up 40 cm of apple green fleece fabric. I already had some turquoise cotton knit at home for lining.

I drew a pattern from the measurements of mom's dog.

Cut the fabric, sew it together, topstitched, found a solution for the "arm holes" and sew on the velcro. TA DA!

I even found a willing model to try it on...

I will take pics of the recipient with coat on this weekend since we're going to visit my mom (240km away).

Bye for now,

Johanna

Where it all happens...

I'm very curious about people's homes. To see how other people think about home decorating and find solutions to space issues and organise (hope I'm making sense). So I think it's interesting to see pictures of other people's sewing spaces, what their creative spaces look like. And here's mine....

Ok , this will be it for tonight!

Bye for now,

Johanna

Clothes for tiny people

I really enjoy sewing for myself, but it's also fun to sew for the little people and I don't mean my kids but our fashion dolls ( I say "ours" because I enjoy them as much as my children do). We have six of them, three girls and three boys and also three children, but they are just too tiny to sew for.

First out, the very first dolls we got. Here's Steffi and her husband Kevin. Steffi is wearing a pink dress, which I designed myself. Kevin is wearing a jacket made of felt, jeans and a stiped t-shirt. I made the pattern for the jacket by tracing a vintage Ken jacket.

Secondly, there's Barbie and Ken. Ken is wearing a t-shirt, board shorts and a beanie. Barbie has a knitted dress and a scarf. I found the pattern for the dress this fantastic web page. It's a Swedish page, but the patterns (hundreds of them!) are available in many languages. The dolls are both thrifted on Tradera (sort of a Swedish E-bay).

And finally, we have Midge and Alan (I think his name's really Ken, but the kids get confused, so we call him Alan, since that's Midge's husband in Barbie world). Midge is wearing a strapless dress, actually made of the same fabric as my dress. And now for my masterpiece... Alan is wearing a black suit, which I'm so proud to have made. It doesn't look like much but the fit is great and he looks really handsome wearing it. Midge and Alan were found at one of my local thift stores.

I think it's more of a challenge to sew for male fashion dolls and also there aren't as many outfits to buy as there are for female fashion dolls. Except for the doll clothes I have made myself I think I have bought the rest second hand on Tradera. And SHOES!!! My daughter, especially, looooves to play with the little doll shoes. There's another challenge, to find shoes for male fashion dolls. Now, we have quite a few, "she says proudly" :). I'll take a pic and show you. (If you look closely, you'll see that there are different shoes in each picture!)

Now for the rest of the clothes I made for these tiny people ( I know! Maybe I shouldn't call them people, but I've watched too much Toy Story...).

Here's Barbie wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and a skirt. Steffi has striped leggings, a jean skirt and a sweater made of a sock!

And to finish, we have Barbie in a halterneck top and black pants (same fabric as Alan's suit) and Midge is wearing a lycra dress and belt (made of old work out pants).

If you, like me, enjoy crafting for your dolls check out this page. This is also a great page to get inspiration for fashion doll clothes, it's in both English and French.

Well, bye for now,

Johanna

Simplicity 2147 - also known as the potato sack...

I was reading one of the blogs I follow when I stumbled over this post about Simplicity 2147. It looked so comfy and the right type of dress for me. I later read some other posts about this pattern, and more than one called the dress "a shapeless potato sack". I both agree and disagree with that, let me show you...
Agree:

Disagree:

The first dress is made of some heavy polyester/cotton blend. The second one is made of cotton and somewhat stiffer. I also think that it has more shape due to the blue part at the bottom of the dress. If I make this again (which I already have, but I'll save that for later...) I think I will put som kind of lining or interfacing at the bottom to get some shape.

Please, have a look at the seams I made with the twin needle. I'm SO proud, it looks really professional, doesn't it?! Top-stitching also makes such a difference, I think.

It was really easy to make, and wise from my mistake with the potato sack above (which is size EU44/Am20) I adjusted the size to EU40/Am18 which turned out really well. I also changed the width of the dress by adding 5 cm/2 inches on each side of the front and back pieces. The original length of the dress is of course too short for me, so I added about 10 cm/4 inches (actually, the blue bit at the bottom equals the length addition).

OK, now to one of the great things about this dress, the fabric only cost me about SEK40 (about £4)!!! The fabric I used is the cheapest that you can get from IKEA (SEK19/metre). I originally planned to make a green dress, but got some blue fabric as well just because it was cheap. When I got home from IKEA I saw that the colours were really good together. So I decided to make the dress blue and green, and I'm happy I did!

Well, that'll be it for now.

Bye,

Johanna

Simplicity 2245

At the moment I can't remember where I found this pattern, probably while browsing here ( a good Swedish site to buy sewing patterns). It looked so pretty in the pictures on the cover. Since I imagine that I don't look so good in 3/4 sleeves, I wanted to make a short sleeved dress, so I combined view A with the sleeves of view B/C.

I went to one of my local fabric shops, Tygfabriken, and found this cute fabric in hot pink (?) with black dots. I wanted something else for the neck part, so I chose a black fabric of the same type with tiny white dots.

This is the dress with one of the sleeves and cuffs finished. But suddenly the cuffs didn't feel quite right, so I removed them (by this time I had already finished both). And I just hemmed the sleeves instead. What do you think? Was I right?

The dress was quite easy to make. It took a couple of days, since I have to make pauses for cooking, playing with the kids, etc. If I would make it again, which I probably will, I will totally omit the loops and buttons and just sew the two back pieces together all the way. I confess, I didn't make the loops on this dress, just an ordinary button hole. Couldn't be bothered with the loops...

I love the pockets on the dress! I don't know why, but it's just comfy to have pockets (somewhere to put your hands I guess..). Well, here is the final result, which I have worn once.

And here's the back:

Oh, by the way I lengthened the dress by 10 cm/4 inches, since I'm 175 cm/5 feet 10 inches tall, and HATE too short dresses. I like them to finish just above the knees to feel comfortable. About the sizing: I usually wear size Eu 46/Am 22, so I chose size 22, which was too big, so I had to take it in under the arms. The thing is, I have (according to me) HUGE hips 115 cm/46 inches, no waist and kind of big boobs (100 cm/40 inches), so it's hard to find the right size.

Well, it seems I have rambled on for quite a while, so I will stop here.

Bye for now,

Johanna


P.S. I'll try to take some pictures of the dress with me in it.

Sneak preview

Found a pic of three of my latest project on my mobile (if the pic quality is bad, that's why). The two dresses on the sides are from the same pattern. Well, I'll tell you more tomorrow hopefully (you never know with two kids home from child care to avoid them getting the stomach flu...).

Bye for now,

Johanna

Me, starting a blog...? I guess so.

Ok, so here's the deal. I wasn't into blogs at all a while ago but then I googled for dress patterns and found this fabulous blog by Jessica. I wound up reading often. Also found this great sewing community (or whatever it's called), which is so inspirational and has led me to some other great sewing blogs.

My aim with this blog is to try and post about things I sew or craft, and maybe someone will find it useful or perhaps inspirational (I wish...). But since I don't have much time to sew, I hope that any readers won't be disappointed if I don't post that often.

So, hopefully I will be back tomorrow to do some posts on my latest, finished projects.

Bye for now,

Johanna

P.S.  I LOVE dresses, and make them mostly for myself....