Simplicity 2147 again - or what you can make of a potato sack

So, it seems my favourite pattern so far is Simplicity 2147, despite its tendancy to look like a sack. It's all in the choice af fabric, people. To avoid the sack go for a cotton fabric. Here's a blouse I sew thursday night, just because I wanted something new to wear for our trip to mom. I used the 2147 view C which is tunic length, but I went for short sleeves (summer's on the way!).

I also chose this project to be my first where I use French seams. It wasn't hard at all and it looks so pretty on the inside! I used the twin needle for the hem, it always looks very professional. The hem is a bit larger than the pattern says. I think it says 3 cm but I made it 6-7 cm instead, so it would look more like a blouse than a tunic. I'm very happy with the result.

And here it is from the front:

And the back:

I don't know if it shows in the pic, but there are only two pleats in the back instead of six. I tried to omit the pleats altogether, but I didn't change the pattern enough (did not make my sturdiest effort in calculating how much to take out), so I had to make two pleats. But I'm not unhappy with that since it looks good. I also added about two inches of extra width at the bottom.

My mom and sister liked it so much that they now want me to make them one each! My mom was also gracious enough to donate four (!) bags of fabric from her attic stash (she has several cardboard boxes). We'll see what I can make out of that.

I have also recieved my Colette Ginger pattern. Yey!  So toworrow I will make a skirt. I have a lovely striped cotton fabric in blue, red and white and I will make view C.

Bye for now,

Johanna

Pictures of Kalle wearing his new dog coat

This past weekend we went to visit my mom and my sister and her family. And I got to give mom's dog his new coat or jumper or what you want to call it. He was SO CUTE with his hair trimmed short. I just wanted to cuddle with him all the time. After a while he got really tired of me and started avoiding me, crawling under the sofa and so on...

Well here's how lovely he looked in his jumper/coat:

I'll be back later with another post, about a new blouse.

Bye for now,

Johanna

Simplicity 2147 and 2245 - me wearing it!

So, I finally have some pics of me wearing the two dresses I've posted about before, Simplicity 2147 (the non-potatoe sack-version) and Simplicity 2245.

I made my son help me take pictures. He looooves borrowing the camera and taking photos of everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. So far we have photos of my ironing board, the floors, the TV while it's on etc. But he's totally excused because he's only five and totally adorable and not to mention helpful! (I didn't want to ask my husband to take photos, because I suspect that he thinks this blogging business is a bit lame... :)).

Here they are! First the 2147:

And here's the 2245 (I love those pockets):

I must say that blue and green dress is my favourite out of these two.

On another note, I couldn't help myself but had to order the Colette patterns' Ginger skirt yesterday! It cost me a whopping 170 SEK/£17 including P&P. I hope it's worth it and my expactations are high after reading posts on it from LLADYBIRD among others. *Standing by the mailbox 'til the mailman comes*

Well, bye for now,

Johanna

New sewing patterns

A few weeks ago I ordered some patterns from Sewessential. I was so glad to see that they had patterns to reduced prices. That NEVER happens in Sweden, it's ALWAYS full price. So I found five I liked, two of them only cost £1.85 each! And the others were £4.15 each. And the postage wasn't too bad either, so totally worth it.

These are the ones I got:

Simplicity 2702 - I like this type of silhouette, I find it flattering for my hips (which are not 46 inches, but 44!). The patterns looks very versatile too, with all the sleeve variations.

 Simplicity 1878 - another Lisette pattern. They are so cute. I was looking for a A-line dress and this one looks fab.

 Simplicity 2363 - I think the front yoke looks interesting, with the possibilities to embellish in different ways. Also many sleeve variations.

 Simplicity 2219 - This also looks very flattering for big hips. But I think I will save this for when I get an overlocker/serger.

 Simplicity 2444 - I have seen many versions of this dress, but this one by Cynthia made me want to make one myself. I have no clue if this type of dress will look good on me, since I have no waist and big hips. But I will make one anyway. I like green a lot and think I have enough of some cotton fabric I got at the local charity shop. It seems kind of the same shade as the one on the envelope. Well, I hope I can muster the energy and make this my next project...

Bye for now,

Johanna

For another tiny little friend - dog coat

So my mom has a dog, Kalle. He's a pekinese and almost twelve years old. He has all these medical problems (poor dog), and among them there's eczema. So to be able to treat the eczema mom had to get the dog's coat trimmed.

Before:

A whole lot of hair!

After:

Now he's just a skinny little thing and will probably freeze his little behind of and so my mom asked me if I could look for dog coats and what they cost up here. But I thought "How hard can it be...?". I browsed the web to get inspiration or find a free pattern. Found this one which looks great and seems quite easy. But later found this dog coat for sale, and was inspired!

I went to my local fabric shop and picked up 40 cm of apple green fleece fabric. I already had some turquoise cotton knit at home for lining.

I drew a pattern from the measurements of mom's dog.

Cut the fabric, sew it together, topstitched, found a solution for the "arm holes" and sew on the velcro. TA DA!

I even found a willing model to try it on...

I will take pics of the recipient with coat on this weekend since we're going to visit my mom (240km away).

Bye for now,

Johanna

Where it all happens...

I'm very curious about people's homes. To see how other people think about home decorating and find solutions to space issues and organise (hope I'm making sense). So I think it's interesting to see pictures of other people's sewing spaces, what their creative spaces look like. And here's mine....

Ok , this will be it for tonight!

Bye for now,

Johanna

Clothes for tiny people

I really enjoy sewing for myself, but it's also fun to sew for the little people and I don't mean my kids but our fashion dolls ( I say "ours" because I enjoy them as much as my children do). We have six of them, three girls and three boys and also three children, but they are just too tiny to sew for.

First out, the very first dolls we got. Here's Steffi and her husband Kevin. Steffi is wearing a pink dress, which I designed myself. Kevin is wearing a jacket made of felt, jeans and a stiped t-shirt. I made the pattern for the jacket by tracing a vintage Ken jacket.

Secondly, there's Barbie and Ken. Ken is wearing a t-shirt, board shorts and a beanie. Barbie has a knitted dress and a scarf. I found the pattern for the dress this fantastic web page. It's a Swedish page, but the patterns (hundreds of them!) are available in many languages. The dolls are both thrifted on Tradera (sort of a Swedish E-bay).

And finally, we have Midge and Alan (I think his name's really Ken, but the kids get confused, so we call him Alan, since that's Midge's husband in Barbie world). Midge is wearing a strapless dress, actually made of the same fabric as my dress. And now for my masterpiece... Alan is wearing a black suit, which I'm so proud to have made. It doesn't look like much but the fit is great and he looks really handsome wearing it. Midge and Alan were found at one of my local thift stores.

I think it's more of a challenge to sew for male fashion dolls and also there aren't as many outfits to buy as there are for female fashion dolls. Except for the doll clothes I have made myself I think I have bought the rest second hand on Tradera. And SHOES!!! My daughter, especially, looooves to play with the little doll shoes. There's another challenge, to find shoes for male fashion dolls. Now, we have quite a few, "she says proudly" :). I'll take a pic and show you. (If you look closely, you'll see that there are different shoes in each picture!)

Now for the rest of the clothes I made for these tiny people ( I know! Maybe I shouldn't call them people, but I've watched too much Toy Story...).

Here's Barbie wearing a long-sleeved t-shirt and a skirt. Steffi has striped leggings, a jean skirt and a sweater made of a sock!

And to finish, we have Barbie in a halterneck top and black pants (same fabric as Alan's suit) and Midge is wearing a lycra dress and belt (made of old work out pants).

If you, like me, enjoy crafting for your dolls check out this page. This is also a great page to get inspiration for fashion doll clothes, it's in both English and French.

Well, bye for now,

Johanna