Fabric finds!

I went into to town for some shopping today and found that one of my favourite shops, Panduro, had included fabrics in there summer sale. Yay! They have adorable cotton fabrics, especially from the brand Tilda.

Normally the fabrics are expensive there, about £10-14/metre, and now they had loads for half price!

Here's my haul:

Well, actually, the fabric at the bottom of the picture is not from Panduro, but my local fabric store. It's some knit fabric that I will use for a dress. It's dark brown with dots in beige and petrol.

So, here are the fabrics from Panduro:

Navy blue polka dots, enough for a dress, 2.3 metres. As soon as I saw the fabric I knew it had to be a dress. So lovely!

This is black fabric with tiny, tiny, tiny dots. Cute! I'm thinking a dress, maybe the Burda panel dress. What do you think? I have 2.5 metres, so there should be enough. :)

I don't have any plans for this fabric, but it's totally adorable so I had to have it, 2 metres of it! What do you think? A blouse?

What do you think about this?! So cute, right?! The picture doesn't do it justice, the colours are much brighter IRL. This will be a blouse I think. I bought 1.5 metres.



Well, I'm very happy with my purchases, and I feel inspired!


Bye for now,


Johanna

Meringue muslin - totally wearable

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I've been working on a Meringue skirt from the Colette sewing handbook (love that book!!). I actually finished it last week and took some pictures, that I wasn't very happy with. So I thought I would take some new ones and then write the post, but now six days have gone by, without taking new photos, so I'll just write the post anyway and put in the photos I have....

My plan was to make a denim Meringue (which I posted about here). The sensible thing is to make a muslin first, even though I'm figuring out that my Colette-size is US16, so I found a piece of fabric in my stash wchich is really sweet, medium-weight cotton in cream and light blue stripes, very similar to the Meringue in the sewing handbook.

First I thought that I would make it size 16 at the waist and 14 at the hips, but I decided to try a straight size 16, which turned out perfect! The only alteration I had to do, was to narrow the seam allowance at the waist into half.

There's a hem lining for the scalloped hem, according to the instructions you should attach the top of the lining to the skirt using blind hem stitching. I just couldn't be bothered by doing it by hand or figuring out how it worked on the sewing machine, wish I had had this great tutorial by Sarai at hand, so I resorted to fusible hem tape, which worked just fine. But it sure felt a bit like cheating... Well, it's "just" a muslin... :)

For the photos, I was also wearing my Midsummer Burda blouse, maybe not the greatest match...

(Excuse the massive pile of clothes on the right... :))

I didn't have a white invisible zipper, so I just did a centered zipper.

 The adorable scalloped hem!

I'm very happy with this muslin and the pattern for sure. BTW, according to mum, who bought the fabric, it's from IKEA!

For my next version I will make two alterations:
1. Add 1-2 inches (2.5-5 cm) to the length, and I'll feel more comfortable.
2. Make FBA. NO, not a Full Bust Adjustment, but a Flat Butt Adjustment :), i.e. lengthening the back darts. My behind is quite flat which made the back darts stand out a bit, so i will adjust that next time.

OK, time to spend some time with my kids before bedtime.

Bye for now,

Johanna

New look on the blog

Since I'm getting a little bit more used to blogging and handling and understanding the tools of Blogger, I thought it was time to change the look of the blog a little.

As you might understand, two of my favourite colours are pink and turquoise (teal?). The new fonts are easy to read, I think, and I've been thinking about making tabs with additional pages for a while.

Hope you like it!

Bye for now,

Johanna

The winner of the giveaway!

Ok, so I have now drawn a winner of the giveaway. But before I announce who it is, I just have to say thank you to everyone who has participated and written a comment. It's fun and useful to read them, so I know how to continue with this blog.

I must say that I'm surprised that so few have participated, because I have had over 200 pageviews since I posted about the giveaway. Are people afraid to leave comments? Hmmm....

Well, I am glad for those of you who have written and now I won't hold out on you any longer.

THE WINNER IS.........           Angela!!!!!!!!!!!

Congrats Angela, and please e-mail me your address so I can send you the fabric.

To draw the winner I used a random number generator, which I found through another giveaway post here.  Here you can see Angela winning, as commenter number 1.

Stay tuned for an upcoming post on the fantastic Meringue skirt from Colette patterns.

Bye for now,

Johanna

24h countdown

Just a reminder that there's now only 24 hours left to leave comments in the Celebration GIVEAWAY!

I will draw a winner tomorrow at 10 am CET. Exciting!!!

Bye for now,

Johanna

Celebrating Midsummer in a new Burda blouse

Today we celebrate Midsummer here in Sweden, one of the big holidays here (for some almost as important as Christmas...). My family is here celebrating with my husband, my kids and me. It's my mum, my sister, her husband and their two children. I'm so glad they're here with us.

Midsummer is VERY Swedish, decorations go in blue and yellow as the Swedish flag and we eat pickled herring and strawberries. It's always nice to have a special reason to create a new garment, and so I thought that Midsummer was a reason as good as any.

I got some yellow cotton fabric from mum when she cleared out her stash. It has white flowers on it and is very sweet... almost too sweet... But I thought that it would make a comfortable blouse for the summer, so I started making another Burda Easy blouse, because I'm so happy with the one I already have.

I wanted to make some changes, so it wasn't exactly like the first one, so I thought about finishing the sleeves with bias tape or something. In the box where I keep my bias tape I also had the cuffs from my hot pink hot pink Lisette dress (Simplicity 2245). They're black with white swiss-dots. They were a perfect fit for the blouse, both in size and colour!

I matched the cuffs with a black button at the neck closing and a tiny black bow in the front. I'm quite happy with the result. I made this version about two inches longer than the first one, since that one turned out a tiny bit too short. Otherwise no other changes.

On the first Burda Easy blouse I used ribbon for the neck closing, but in this one I took some thin elastic to make a button loop (got the idea from one of my daughter's dresses). Unfortunately, it's not very visible in the picture.

Today I matched it with my Ginger denim skirt, for that Swedish blue and yellow-look... :)

Have a great day, I know I will! :)

Bye for now,

Johanna

P.S. Don't forget to participate in my GIVEAWAY!

Celebration GIVEAWAY!!!!!

Hey, everyone! Today is the two month-anniversary of my blog and I want to celebrate that and the fact that in those two months I've had OVER a thousand pageviews! I never thought that would happen when I started this blog as sort of a therapy for myself. Yay! I'm actually very proud of myself.

So here's how it's going down.... If you want a chance to win some faboulous fabric, look through my blog, find the post you like the best and write that in a comment to this post. You can name whichever post you want up til this post, so anything posted after this is cannot be voted for. By this I hope to get some help to keep my blog interesting and worth reading. You have one week to comment, I will not consider any comments made after 10.00 Am CET Monday June 25.

I will draw a winner of all the people who has commented. No use to make several comments, you will only have one chance to win.

So here's what you can win:

Pretty, isn't it?! It is some kind of polyester crepe, I think (no guarantees). You can see the size of the dots in the second picture. The piece of fabric is 93 cm/37 inches wide and 218 cm/2 1/3 yards long.

I am willing to mail it to any part of the world, so anyone is welcome to participate.

I also want to put in a special thank you to my two most loyal commentators, Angela and Katy. Thanks so much, it means a lot to get such encouragement that I've got from you!

So, check out the blog and leave a comment!

Bye for now,

Johanna

No busy bee on the blog, but elsewhere

Just wanted to check in and say hi... Hi! So that you don't think I've gone missing or something because it's been so quiet here on the blog.

I've been away for my cousin's graduation, last Friday, and I did wear the graduation dress (Simplicity 2444) but only for a few hours out in the pouring rain, then it was wet and damp, so I had to put something else on for the reception. So I can't really say that I've worn it properly yet.

This week I have been so busy at work. I work at a school ("junior high") which will, next school year, be totally renovated. So we have to move the whole school, wee not the actual buildning, but EVERYTHING in it to a temporary school. And now we're at the final stage of packing and I'm responsible for my desk, my things and also the things in my classroom. But I think I finished today. Yay!!! Which means that I soon can focus on some sewing again.

I had some ideas and made some sketches while on the bus/train going to and from my cousin's graduation six hours away. I'm still pondering some of them and we'll see what will become of them...

BTW, I ordered the Burda style sewing handbook yesterday after reading some good things about it. I just LOOOOVE the Colette sewing handbook and I hope this will be just as good (if possible). I have also resolved on taking part in the Colette sew-a-long 2.0, but only making the patterns I want to.

Oh, almost forgot... Check out my blog on Monday, when I will post about a GIVE-AWAY!!!

Bye for now,

Johanna

I MADE these! Myself! - An approach to stretchy knits

Yesterday in my post about my new wig, I mentioned that I was venturing into the scary world of sewing in stretchy knits. I had found an easy end cute pattern for a t-shirt in one of my crafts magazines, and had some striped knit in my stash, and after reading this great post by Lauren (Lladybird) with tips about sewing knits, I set out.

I know I should have, but I didn't pre-launder the fabric I used, I don't think it will shrink that much and besides it's really stretchy. It's in black and white stripes. I cut a size EU 46 and the only alteration to the pattern that I made was to lengthen it with an inch.

The instructions were simple and nothing was difficult, but I had to pin carefully because the edges curled otherwise. The instructions called for strips of fusible interfacing around the neckline, before hemming which made it very easy to get a nice, even neckline. I really recommend it. I used zig-zag to sew the pieces together and the twin needle for hemming the neckline, sleeves and bottom.

And here it is, my first me-made T-shirt ever: (Please excuse the lack of make-up on my face... :))

Click the pictures to see bigger pictures and details.

I was so happy with the result, even though I busted my twin needle in the middle of sewing the neckline (I never seem to learn to take out the pins and not just run them over when sewing). So, I just had to make another one straight away, so while I went to the fabric store to pick up a new twin needle I also bought some more knit fabric!

I made some changes for the second T-shirt. I changed the top half to a size EU 42 including the sleeves, which I also lengthened with half an inch.

I almost can't believe that I have MADE my own T-shirts! And they look great too. I'm really glad I dared to sew knits. Maybe I will make some T-shirts for the kids too....

On another note, only a little sewing-related, I bought a new pair of jeans today, since I couldn't be bothered to try to make my own. They are perfect! High waist, stretchy, narrrow legs, nice colour and great pockets that draw attention away from my hips!!!!! I really recommend the store Zizzi if you live in Sweden or anywhere else you might find it. They have clothes from size EU 42, so it's for bigger women, like me... The jeans cost a small fortune, but totally worth it! So I just have to show them off (with new T-shirt tucked in, and please excuse the lack of belt):

Anyone who have actually sewn jeans for themselves? Anyone who have tried, and maybe given up, like me? Does anyone have a favourite T-shirt pattern to recommend?

Well, I'm off to watch the next episode of Alcatraz.

Bye for now,

Johanna

Totally sewing-unrelated post

This has nothing to do with sewing, but I still wanted to post some pictures of my new WIG! Yep, that's right. Normally, I don't like to wear wigs very much because they itch like crazy, but last week I got a wig cap (which looks like a pantyhose-style sock for your head) and TADA! no more itch! The wigs still sit crazy tight around the head giving me headaches, but at least the itch was gone.

And because of that I thought I'd try another wig, have two from before, but not a curly/wavy one, and that's what my own hair used to be. So here it is, one picture with the hair down and one with up.

(Don't my eyes look a little crazy in these webcam photos...?)

I took a chance with the colour, because the colour cards on the website were really weird. This colour looked light blonde/greyish, but it's not IRL. I'm pleased though, because it turned out better than I expected.

Oh, and on a sewing note, I have cut out fabric to make a t-shirt out of stretchy knit fabric... Yikes! How will it go...? You'll see in my next post.

Bye for now,

Johanna (aka Baldy) :)

And I'm back in the game! - Blouse from Burda Easy (spring/summer issue)

It's been such a long week for me, sewing wise, because I have all these projects lined upp and somehow I just froze up and couldn't make myself get started on anything. All this even though the projects aren't difficult or time-comsuming. I started hestitating about the fabric choices and that became an obstacle.

But today, I finally made myself put out the pattern pieces on the fabric and cut! And this is what happened:

I found this cute blouse in the latest issue of Burda Easy, model no. 4. In the magazine there was one version made of fake suede, a dress version made of crepe and a sleeveless dress version made of knit jersey. But since I like cotton I stuck with that. The fabric comes from my stash, it's one I got from mum. A very light cotton, dark blue with tiny white and red flowers, so sweet.

There are two pleats at the front neckline.

 The instructions called for a button closing in the back of the neck, but I put some ribbon in instead to tie a bow. It turned out well I think.

I was able to make French seams everywhere, except for the hems of course.

I'm really happy with this and I will make this pattern again. But next time I will lengthen it even more. This time I added about 2 cm, but next time I will have to make that 7 cm, because it is a tiny bit short for my taste. Otherwise, it was really easy to make and I totally recommend to go out and get that magazine and sew one for yourself.

About sewing magazines, I really like them, you get a lot of patterns for very little money and there are many inspiring pictures inside. It's can be really boring and sometimes hard to trace the patterns because there are so many on the same pattern sheat. Burda Easy was great that way, that the sheats ressembled regular sewing patterns. How about you, do you like sewing magazine patterns or do you prefer regular sewing patterns?

Well, I'm happy to have gotten over my sewing freeze and hope to be on to my next project tomorrow already. Have a lovely evening!

Bye for now,

Johanna