Selfish and unselfish sewing

Hello there! It's been kind of quiet here over at my blog, but I've been sewing. Here are some FOs from this week:

• A striped Giraffe dress for me:

• A striped Giraffe dress for my sister Charlotta (on the left):
• A Washi dress for me (on the right):

Look at that shirring in the back! So pleased with the result.

My first time shirring ever!!! It was way easier than I thought, so I will do this lots more now.

That's all for now! See you later,

Johanna

Another giraffe dress... what can I say?! I love them!

So far, I've made a few (many) Giraffe dresses. What can I say... I just love them...

I have one that is grey with yellow and white flowers that I haven't blogged yet. Last week I made one in light grey with white dots. And this weekend I made one in medium grey for one of my sisters (the one in the collage above). That makes a total of eight dresses...

Or maybe nine, since I finished another today...

As you can see, it's black. But since I don't like dressing all in black I had to put some colour on it, so I added bands on the sleeves and around the neck. The bands are also black with neon green polka dots.

I have tweaked the pattern a little; the dress is alittle tighter over the bust, less gathers under the bust and the sleeves are a tiny bit longer (still kimono-version). I have also drafted a neckline facing, so now I can choose to finish the neckline with a facing, a band or just fold over and stitch.

Yes, I also made the boy in the photo... :)

Ok, enough of giraffe dresses for now.

Later,

Johanna

Dreamy dress - Simplicity 1699

During the summer I made a lot of Giraffe dresses, the original blue one, the one in black and white, the striped one I made for my sister and one more I haven't posted about, yet. BUT I didn't make only Giraffe dresses, I did make another Simplicity 1699. My first version was a dress I made for my grandmother. That one turned out very pretty and I wanted to make one for myself.

I had the above fabric in my stash and wanted to use it for a dress. I thought of Simplicity 1652, as seen above, but it's made up of something like 15 pattern pieces and I got the advice to make something simpler to show off the pretty fabric. And that's how I decided on Simplicity 1699.

I had already traced the pattern in size EU44 which is a little small for me around the waist (especially after the summer...), but I used it anyway and added about 4 centimetres to the seam allowances around the waist. And that did the trick. The fit is good and during construction, I left the side seams to last so they can be modified if needed in the future (like if I lose my extra "summer weight").

Since I had a pink zipper, and I love pink, I decided to let the zipper show to give the dress a little extra something.

The length is perfect if I only overlock the edge and turn over a centimetre, which means if I should make a nice-looking hem I have to cut the dress longer. Maybe I'll do that if I make the dress again.

The fabric is 100% cotton from the brand Tilda which can be found at Panduro here in Sweden. I love the fabrics from Tilda, the quality is fantastic and the prints are unbelievably pretty.

I'm onto other projects, like autumn/winter sewing plans. :)

Bye for now,

Johanna (and Siri the Cat)

Unselfish sewing part 5 - Striped giraffe dress for one of my sister

I did some unselfish sewing the other day, Sunday actually. I had already cut out a giraffe dress from the same fabric as my striped maxi dress, but when my sister really liked my giraffe dress and the fit was good, I decided to sew it up for her instead. It was a very nice coincidence that she haad thought of buying some striped fabric so that I could make her a dress, and then I already had a dress cut out! :)

It was fast and easy to sew up the dress and I used only my sewing machine, and not the overlocker, so I can show her that she also can sew with knits/jersey fabrics using her loaner sewing machine (one of mine, a fairly useless plastic Singer).

I also cut out a rather big heart out of a scrap of fushia jersey and put it near the hem with my label inside it. It turned out pretty well and my sister really liked it!

I only have one photo to post, but here it is (I think she's wearing two(?) tank tops underneath):

BTW, my sister had surgery, a gastric bypass, in September ans since she has lost like 35 kilos!!!!! She now weighs less than me, which hasn't happened since we were toddlers! I'm so glad that she feels better and that she's in less danger of different health issues. I love you Lottis!!!

On a totally not different note, my other sister and her family is coming to visit us tomorrow and will be staying for a few days. Let's see what she would like me to make for her (I have to be fair!). I love you too Emmis!

I'll be back soon with a new version of Simplicity 1699.

Bye for now,

Johanna

Maxi dress (Butterick's 5837)

A while ago I saw the lovely maxi Tiramisu made by Cation Designs and found that I wanted a striped maxi dress too! A maxi Tira would be a great idea, but instead I found  Butterick's See and Sew 5837 and decided to try it. This is how it turned out!

This dress is über-comfy and it feels (and maybe looks) like you're wearing a nightie all day long. It's perfect when the weather's a bit on the chilly side (even though we're having great weather at the moment) because it covers the legs.

I think the detail in the back is really cute, but for next time I would make it more round instead of oval. The instructions were easy to follow, but to avoid hand-stitching (SO tedious!) I followed a tutorial for another maxi dress I found here at Melly Sews. This tutorial made it very easy to get away from said hand-stitching.

The arm holes are a little big, but it doesn't bother me much, so I'll just keep them as they are.

The bodice is lined, to get a nice finish, I guess. I just used what I had in my scrap bin, but of course you can use your "good" fabric. It was just that I had enough fabric left for another dress if I used other fabric for the lining, so that's what I did! White in the front and flowery in the back. :)

I already have fabric lined up for another maxi dress from this pattern, so of course I recommend the pattern if someone's thinking of using it! Size-wise I cut a US16 for the bodice and a US18 for the skirt, it is no problem matching up different sizes for the top and bottom since the skirt is gathered. I also cut the length of the pattern and didn't hem the skirt and that turned out to be the perfect length for me, I'm 175 cm (on a good day :)) which I think is like 5 feet 10 inches (correct me, please, if I'm wrong).

Well, that's all folks, thanks for stopping by,

Johanna

Giraffe dress

Have you ever walked in to the fabric store and felt the sudden and compelling urge to have a black and white giraffe dress?

I have...

Went to the fabric store to get something completely different, can't even remember what now, and saw and touched this fabulous black and white giraffe-print jersey. And I just had to have it as a dress.

This is THE most comfy summer dress and I've worn it so much since I made it. The pattern is the same as the blue House of Lola-inspired dress. I just moved the gathers up about 10 centimetre/4 inches, which turned out to be about 2 centimetres/an inch too high, but I'll fix that on the next dress!

Bye for now,

Johanna

A dress inspired by House of Lola

As I've written before I have a colleague who sells clothes from the fabulous brand House of Lola. The clothes are comfy AND pretty!! But, they are pretty expensive, so I take inspiration and make my own clothes instead.

This dress is inspired by a dress that I can't find a photo of, which is pretty good because they don't look much alike.

The fabric is, what I think is called French terry. In Sweden it's called sweatshirt fabric. I used the wrong side as the outside to make it look more like the original dress.

The pattern is something I came up with myself, sort of.  I combined some different patterns to get the look I wanted. The gathers are a little low compared to the inspiration dress, I think it's fine, but if/when i make it again I will raise them.

I used the twin needle to finish the arm holes, the neckline and the hem and i used white thread to make it a little more interesting.

The dress is really comfy and I've worn it loads already.

Bye for now,

Johanna

PS. I found a photo of the original dress on my colleagues blog Bland annat:

I know there's a big ruffle at the bottom of the dress and I had one on my dress too, but it looked like crap so I took it off.

Vacation wardrobe (Simplicity 2363 revisited)

Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to come with my class on a trip to Mallorca. Well, they asked me if I wanted to come along already in January, so I had known long that I was going. That also meant that I had quite some time to prepare some kind of vacation wardrobe, you know, shorts and stuff.

Lately, I've really been into sewing trousers, for example skinny denim trousers in blue and pink, so why not shorts too?! I found a good pattern in Sömnadsmagasin.

I made two pairs, one in dark blue with white polka dots and the other one striped in white and dark blue/black. I used jersey fabric for the waistband and that makes them really comfy, but at the same time they don't look too casual either.

I changed the stripes on the pocket.

I just love this cover stitch on my sewing machine. I used it on the pockets and on the hems.

I aslo decided I needed a sleeveless dress and wanted to make Simplicity 2363 again. Since the first dress turned out so big I altered some of the pattern pieces to make it smaller from start and it turned out pretty well. I went from size US18/20 to US16.

I used green bias tape round the arm holes instead of lining the whole bodice, I didn't have enough fabric anyway, I even had to make the pockets from another dark blue fabric.

The fabric I used is from my mum's stash, given to me last year, and I've been waiting to find a good project for it, and this was really good! I'm quite happy with the result. :)

Erm, just so you know, the photos are not from Mallorca, but from my garden... :)

See you (real) soon,

Johanna