Unselfish sewing part 4 - Onion jersey dress for my best friend

My best friend Eleonor has her birthday in the beginning of March and I decided to make her a dress. I chose Onion 2017, which I've made for myself several times and is made from jersey fabric, so I could make the dress without measuring my friend. I made her a size small which was perfect!

She was visiting me on Friday and I took the opportunity to take some photos of her wearing the dress!

I chose this colour combo to make the dress office-friendly, since Ellie (my nickname for her) works at an accounting firm.

I'm so glad she liked it and I hope she will get a lot of wear out of it. She is so nice and thoughtful and kind, truly such a good friend, so I really wanted to do something nice for her. She likes crochet and if you want to see what she's made, check out her blog: virkligen.blogspot.se. She makes the cutest amigurumis.

Bye for now,

Johanna

MMM '13 - week 1

It really is only half a week so far in MMM '13, but so far it's a breeze! My commitment was to wear at least one handmade garment everyday, so it's not very hard, but May has 31 days so we'll see how I feel towards the end of the month... :)

Wednesday 1 May

Burdastyle t-shirt,  recently finished Burdastyle trousers (to be blogged later) and Vacation head scarf. Free from work, celebrating May 1st.

Thursday 2 May

Cropped trousers. Normal workday.

Friday 3 May

Onion jersey dress and Ottobre cardigan. Visiting my sister's.

Saturday 4 May

Laurel dress. Celebrating mum's 60th birthday.

Sunday 5 May

Ottobre cardigan, Kirsten kimono tee (which I noticed right now I haven't posted about) and Burdastyle trousers (same as May 1).

I hope all the participants of MMM '13 are feeling as good about their decision to join as I do.

Bye for now,

Johanna

Happy New Onion - another jersey dress

I REALLY like my Onion jersey dress pattern (Onion 2017) and have now made a third version, version one here and version two here.

Yesterday I decided to finally do something with the lovely striped jersey fabric I have. There was one metre each of hot pink and grey melange, both with white stripes. Originally I had planned to make some t-shirts, but I got the idea to make a two-tone dress and use the Onion pattern. Well, here's how it turned out...

I'm happy with the dress although I was a bit ambivalent right after finishing it. I didn't know if I liked it in two colours or if I should buy more fabric and make two dresses. But now it feels good and I like it.

I made the dress like my first version, with separate waist pieces. I like it better that way. For my next version (yes, I alreday have another one in mind) I'm thinking of shortening the back bodice and lenghtening the front bodice with a few centimetres. I also like the just-below-the-knee length, usually I feel kind of frumpy dressed in that length but not with this pattern.

The left-over pink fabric was used on a dress for my girl, who loooooooooooves pink. I thought that we could match each other on New Year's Eve, but nope, she went for a RTW-dress with pink fox faces (sounds weird, but it's super cute).

BTW, I'm wearing my brand new headscarf from Christine Headwear which I ordered from Simply wigs, the "nearest" place to get Christine headwear. Simply wigs is great though, they give excellent service. The scarf is made out of lightweight soft dark blue denim (chambray?).

Don't forget to enter my GIVEAWAY, open to everyone around the world.

Happy New Year everyone!!!

Hugs,

Johanna

Merry X-mas!

Hope everyone's having a great Christmas. I'm kind of glad that Chistmas Eve is almost over, it's just so busy. Christmas Day and Boxing day are more mellow and enjoyable.

Anyway... Two days ago I decided to make a new dress for Christmas. I bought some grey velour fabric at one of the local fabric stores and used the Onion jersey dress pattern no. 2017 again. This time without a separate waist piece.

It's very cosy and perfect on a day like today when you eat most of the time... My only problem was that about an hour after putting on the dress I sprayed myself with milk/flour when making the shrimp omelette that has become part of our Christmas smorgasbord. I got it all over the sleeves and the top, I thought I managed to get it off, but no.... The dress is now full of stiff stains... Yuck! Hope they don't show in the photos.... (S**t... They do... Well, now it's done...)

 

The black thing is not a stain, but a wonky butterfly brooch....

Happy holidays everyone!!!!!

Johanna

Onion jersey dress

Recently I bought two patterns from Onion. One was a trouser pattern, no. 4026, and the other was a jersey dress pattern, no. 2017.

Source: shoponion.com via Johanna on Pinterest

I really liked the waist part, that you could create a belt-effect with contrasting fabric. But as it turned out, the waist part WAS a sort of belt/sash, and since I don't feel very comfortable with belts/things tied around my waist I altered the pattern a bit.

Here's how it turned out... (please excuse A) the bad photos (my 6-year-old took them) and B) my bad posture (totally my own fault)) :)

 

 

The fabric is some light-weight cotton stretch jersey. I couldn't resist it at the fabric store even though I know this is my colour, light mustard yellow. I mean, who can resist polka dots?! Not me evidently...

 

 

 

I thought I would take away some of the yellow-ness by putting in contrasting black edges at the neckline and the sleeves and at the waist. And there's where I altered the pattern, I divided the skirt pieces into skirt and waist pieces. It worked out fine, I just put the pleats below the black waist band insteadof directly below the bust.

 

 



The dress was super-easy and super-fast to put together. I traced the pattern and cut the fabric on Tuesday morning and sewed it up Friday night in between dinner and putting the kids to bed. It almost feels like it takes longer to describe the time consumed then it took to make the dress. That's how fast it was.... :)

The length was really good for me, I made the longest version, and I will surely make this again. I wore it to work yesterday with thermotights (it's cold in Sweden) and a black bolero from HM. It was supercomfortable and I got several compliments!

Here's a bonus photo of me with our new parrot cat on my shoulder.... Apparently she likes sitting on people's shoulders, I'm not the only victim... :)

I'm thinking of making something new to wear for Christmas, but I'm not sure of what to make... Any suggestions anyone?

Bye for now,

Johanna