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

Unselfish sewing part 6: Everyday skirt for my sister

This is the skirt I made as a Christmas present for one of my sisters. She wore it the last time we met and I managed to remember to snap a couple of photos...

It's made out of navy blue medium weight cotton fabric, might be cotton sateen. It's a little wrinkled in the photos but you get the idea anyway.

My sister seemed pleased with it (I mean, SHE WORE IT!!! Yay!) and it suits her. Navy blue looks good on her. The length also turned out good, always tricky to hem a skirt for someone who's not present...

More Everyday skirts to come since I finished one more for me and I also have another one cut out ready for sewing!

Bye for now,

Johanna

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

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

Unselfish sewing part 3 - Simplicity 1699 for my grandma

Recently I've been feeling that it is really OK to sew for others, something I wouldn't have done six months ago, I guess that's progress for you... :)

My grandma (on my mother's side), who is 86 years old, asked me a few months ago if I could make her a dress. She knows I sew a lot. She wanted it to be blue because that's her favourite colour.

I said I would do it, but not rush it. And now I finally felt like it was the right time for me to do this project. I found some cotton fabric, that I was going to use for curtains like 15 years ago, but never did. It's dark blue with big red and yellow flowers and green leaves on it. I thought that it would be good since I didn't know how much my gran would wear the dress anyway. So two birds with one stone: unselfish sewing AND stashbusting! Great!

I decided to use view A from Simplicity 1699 which I recently ordered from sewingpatterns.com.

Source: sewingpatterns.com viaJohanna on Pinterest

The construction was pretty simple, but I changed the order of some things to make the dress more adjustable-friendly. The pattern called for putting together the bodice and then the skirt and then joining them. But I sewing up all the front pieces and then all the back pieces and then sewed them together at the sides. I don't know any of my gran's measurements so the dress needs to be easy to adjust. My gran doesn't live near my, but in the same town as my mum so she will be the one to make the adjustments if needed. And I wanted to make it easy for her.

Anyway, here's how it turned out...

The zipper wasn't long enough, so I put it in a bit lower and added a hook and eye at the top.

I overlocked all the pieces before sewing them together. The inside looks very neat!

I cut a size EU44 because it was the smallest size on the pattern. I can put on the dress and zip it up, but I can barely move in it. I thought I would make one for myself, but I think I have to go up a size then.

I like the sleeves because they're raglan sleeves and not set in sleeves, which I find hard to move in. The scalloped detail on the sleeves is very cute, but I'm not sure I would make them again because they were kind of hard to get even, we'll see... :)

I would recommend the pattern, the style is cute and not hard at all to put together. Other alterations I made was to cut the front skirt on fold instead of cutting two pieces. I put in the zipper another way than recommended. And for my next dress I would lower the neckline which is very high.

I hope to get photos of my gran wearing the dress, but we'll see.

Happy Easter everyone!!

Johanna

Unselfish sewing part 2 - onepiece for my daughter

Since I like to be fair, I also promised to make a onepiece for my daughter. (If you missed my last post, a onepice is a kind of overall/jumpsuit used as loungewear. Acceptable on kids, not on adults.)

She got to choose the fabric herself and of course she chose pink... She's in a very pink period at the moment, the Hello Kitty period has lasted very long. I swear it's true, the third thing she could say, besides "mum" and "dad", was "Hello Kitty".

Anyway, this time the sewing took exactly two hours, started at 6 o'clock and was finished right before 8 o'clock. Everything was already cut out, so I could start sewing right away. The only problem was that i almost forgot the pockets, but I remembered just in time and only had to rip up the seam about 10 cm.

Can you see the cute fabric I used as lining? Yep, those are Dala-horses in different patterns. I'm planning to make a dress for my girl out of that fabric.

She looooves her some pockets...

Little sister and big brother.

Yeah, let's dance with the cat when mum's taking photos!

The fabric I used for both onepieces is velour and printed jersey for the hoodlining, both very easy to sew with. The two things I changed on the pattern were: 1) I added lining to the hood and 2) I added ribbed jersey cuffs to the sleeves and legs, instead of turning over, sewing and putting in elastic.

I'm happy with the result, and definately the kids, but right now I'm not thinking of making more onepieces... :) Nope, onto other plans! Do you have any sewing plans for spring?

Later,

Johanna

Unselfish sewing - onepice for my son

Two weekends ago I was in town with the kids and my son wanted to go to H&M to see if there were any onepieces for him, he's been wanting one since Christmas. If you don't know what a onepiece is, well it's a kind of overall/jumpsuit that you wear as loungewear. They are very popular in Sweden at the moment and they are both for kids as well as adults. On kids they look alright, but on adults.... NO THANK YOU! I'm all for loungewear, but I draw the line at onepieces for adults. They make you look like a big baby.

See what I mean about looking like a big baby...

Source: onepiece.se via Johanna on Pinterest

Anyway, my son wanted one and I thought that was OK, so we went to H&M, but the only decent one we could find was too expensive (I thought). So I suggested we'd go downstairs to the fabric store and he could pick a fabric and I would sew a onepiece for him instead. He thought that was OK so I let both Big Red and Little Red pick fabrics.

I looked for patterns in my sewing magazines, but couldn't find anything useful. But when googling onepiece sewing patterns I found someone who used the pattern from Stoff och stil and thought they were good because they were pre-cut! Oooh, I liked the sound of that so I ordered two patterns, size 104 and 128, along with some loooooong zippers.

Source: stoffochstil.se via Johanna on Pinterest

It was easy enough to cut and sew and I think the whole process took about 3-4 hours. The pre-cut pattern was awesome to work with, it was made of some kind of non-woven stuff, not paper.I didn't even have to use pattern weights because the pattern pieces stuck to the velour I was working with.

I mostly used my overlocker to sew it together, but off course I used my sewing machine for the zipper and topstitching. I added lining to the hood, I already had the perfect fabric for it!

Yep those are helicopters on the lining fabric. Cute fabric right?!

Cute kid too right?! :)

My son was SO happy with his onepiece and asked if he could wear it to school today. That's a satisfied customer for you!

If ever in need of inspiration for new blog photo poses, look at my son... He's got it down....

And yes, the zipper is supposed to go that far, don't know why though...

This was not stash-busting, but at least it was sewing for someone else as was the challenge this month in the Stash-busting sewing challenge.

How about you, do you sew mostly for yourself or for others often?

Bye for now,

Johanna