Stuff...

I've finally done some actual sewing  today. I write this because it seems I haven't sewn much lately. But I did get some new fabric and patterns.

But first, sewing... Today I completed a muslin for the Ottobre dress I've written about before, it's "the Stitch details dress".

source: ottobre design

I haven't taken any photos yet of my dress, but hold on, they'll get here... It's a wearable muslin, but I'm not extatic about it. I'm thinking of making it up in some jersey fabric next.

A while ago I actually made a muslin for the skirt I've mentioned from Ottobre, but I never got round to blogging about it. It's "the Aztec skirt", but as with the dress, I'm not totally happy with it.

source: as above

Ok, now to my new fabric. I got six different fabrics two weeks ago when visiting my sister. One lovely smooth wool fabric, which I pretty much ruined while pre-washing, not so smooth anymore as felted.... Two dark trouser fabrics, three different kinds of dark blue jersey fabric (I know... but there weren't any other colours and blue suits me...). I also celebrated my pay raise by buying even more jersey fabrics, three different kinds, each more than 3 metres.

I have also ordered two new patterns, from Onion this time.

Source: shoponion.com via Johanna on Pinterest

Source: shoponion.com via Johanna on Pinterest

I hope the patternsland in my mailbox tomorrow! I have already fabrics lined up for both of them! Yay!

Bye for now,

Johanna

Long time, no post...

It's been a while since I posted here, but I've been stuck in Undecidedville for a very long time. I just haven't been able to decide on where to go next, Trousertown, Top village or Dressfield... :)

I've felt like making trousers for a while, but I didn't have any good fabric at home. Yesterday, I went to one of the local fabric stores, where I haven't been for a while, and I found a black stretchy fabric that felt nice and which seemed like it would be good to use for trousers. I bought 2 metres and also 2 metres of some navy cotton fabric that also seemed good for trousers, so now I'm going to make two pair of tousers! Now I only have to decide on what model to make. I'm thinking some wider, sailor-inspired model for the blue fabric and a skinnier version for the black fabric. I'm looking through all my sewing magazines to find suitable patterns. Or does anyone have a pattern recommendation?

While at the fabric store I found another fabric that I just couldn't resist. Let me show you....

This fabric would be great for a short jacket and a skirt, sort of a suit, buuuuut..... Since I wouldn't wear that, it's no use, so I'm thinking a Spencer-dress, like this one from Burda style:

Source: burdastyle.com

On Burdastyle this dress is labelled as an "A-line jumper"... ? Ok....

Well, anyway, those are my plans for now, let's see if I follow them or not... I'm great at making plans, but not always so good to follow them. :)

I'll be back soon, I hope! Bye for now,

Johanna



Giraffes and helicopters

I never did anything with those t-shirts for the kids yesterday. Today I've felt like s**t all day, tired, woozy, a bit nauseous, plus I hit my wrist really hard on a doorway... Not a good day...

Anyway, come evening, I felt a smidge of energy and sat down to finish the first t-shirt. It went really well, and when I came down with it, to try on, the other kid screamed for the other t-shirt. So I had no choice but to make that one too, which took about 45 minutes! (I had already traced and cut the pattern pieces.)

I must say that I'm not friends with the overlocker yet, but we're definately getting to know each other. Geez, you can sew fast with that thing....


I LOVE that helicopter fabric...

Some details..

OK, so feeling better about my day and myself now... Should have remembered that sewing makes me feel better whenever... :)

Bye for now,

Johanna

Too much...

Yes, it has actually been too much lately... Too much of a lot of things, good things even, but I get really tired from that too. This week, we've been to Orust to visit my sister and her family and then we got a visit from my husband's brother and his family, and it's only Friday. All this visting is really fun, but I get really tired from being around people all the time. So I haven't had the energy (or the time) to get going on a new sewing project, not even to use my new overlocker! Or blog about the fabrics I got while visiting Orust (some seriously cute knit fabrics for me - and the kids!).

Now we don't have any plans for a week, which feels really good. So I hope I can gather some energy and use my new overlocker and make some t-shirts from my new fabrics and get going on the dress from my last post.

Off to bed now, to get some sleep=energy... :)

Bye for now,

Johanna

Decision anguish

I've been thinking and thinking about my next sewing project, and I just can't make up my mind...

After getting my overlocker, I wanted to use it for making some t-shirts, but I just don't have the fabric for that, and I don't feel like going out and buying some just because.

I also wanted to use the fabrics I have bought lately and also the patterns. But even though there are some great combos there, I just chicken out, because I don't want to use fabric I like and then regret it... Does this sound weird?

Most of the times when I actually make something, it's either because it's such an obvious combination between pattern and fabric (bought for each other) or I FORCE myself to get started on something. For example my first Burda Easy blouse. I feel weird...

Anyway, tried to get out of my sewing paralysis by talking to my best friend when she was here on Friday. I showed her my new fabrics and patterns and she suggested this combo:

Simplicity 1882 and the cotton satin from Stoff and stil.

The fabric is black and white and I was thinking of making the collar and pocket flaps (?) black as on the pattern envelope. And I'm also thinking short sleeves, sleeveless just isn't me and 3/4 sleeves just get bulky when you're wearing a cardigan over.

What do you think? Is this the way to go?

Even though we're in the middle of summer, I'm having a hard time thinking about sewing summer clothes. I'm already thinking of autumn and winter, and also I like my clothes to be wearable the year around. But at the same time I don't feel like sewing the Ginger denim skirt I've been talking about for months, since it feels more like autumn....

OK, I'd better stop now, because I'm really starting to sound whiny, and I don't want that.

Bye for now,

Johanna

New fabrics and patterns

A few weeks ago I thought I'd try ordering sewing patterns from sewingpatterns.com, which is located in the USA. They have Simplicity patterns for $1.99! I chose five patterns and a PDF-pattern as well, which was only $0.99!

Here's what I found in the mailbox today:

The last picture, the bolero,  is the PDF-pattern, which I still have to figure out how to print... :) (Oh, just found that it's no problem when using IE instead of Firefox.)

Going home from our vacation we made a stop outside of Gothenburg, where there happen to be a large fabric store, Stoff och stil, which I frequently visit on the web... :) I've never been to the actual store and it's always nice to be able to feel the fabrics before you buy them, so we went in and I came out with this:

This is pinstriped stretch denim, 2 metres. Skirts or a dress...?

Here's some light-weight cotton, 1 metre.

More light-weight cotton, 2 metres.

Here are the two light-weight cotton fabrics combined. At the store they had made a dress combining the two, and I totally stole the idea, they looked so cute together.

And finally, some cotton satin, 2.5 metres. There might be some stretch in there, but I'm not sure. It's black with white flowers. I'm thinking...dress.

Bye for now,

Johanna

Vacation headscarf and upcoming dress

I thought I'd make a new headscarf for our upcoming vacation. Always nice to have something new for when you're going away.

I used some lightweight cotton fabric from my stash, originally from my mum's stash. The pattern is the one I drew up myself using a Christine headscarf as a template, see my first version here.

Not the greatest photo, since I had to take it myself in front of the mirror...

I must say it's a relief to be able to make these scarfs myself, to get the fit I want, because I feel the bought ones can get a bit stretched out and then they're just too big and sort of float on my head instead. The ones I make myself, I can make them a bit tighter and get a better fit.

I'm actually working on a dress as well, from the navy polka dot fabric I recently bought. I traced the pattern of Simplicity 2363, a pattern I bought from Sewessential a while ago.

I will make the shorter dress with short sleeves. But I probably won't have time to finish it until after our trip.

Bye for now,

Johanna

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