Recent creations

Yesterday, I promised you a post about stuff I made when I wasn't posting. Well here it is. It's not a huge amount but I have been busy with other things and with 'assignments' from two friends, which require fittings. The good thing however, is that the things I made for myself over the past two weeks all go well together.

I love that first pair of belt pleated trousers which I made a few months ago. I have been thinking about making another one for a while, and now I've done so. True to form, I did make some changes, largely to try out a slightly different shape but also because this piece of fabric was barely enough. It's a brown/grey/olive woven stretch fabric, given to me by a fellow student of M's advanced

sewing/pattern making class almost two years ago. There was just 1 meter of it.

For these trousers, I dropped the waistline a bit (to be able to fit it onto the fabric and to try out the somewhat sloughy look I've been seeing in magazines for this kind of trousers). I also made the pockets deeper (the only flaw on the other pair, in my opinion, were the too high scoop pockets) and adjusted the top part with the pleats to the new waistband. I also tapered the leg more towards the knee. In the first pair, it's just a straight line from hip to ankle.

The fabric is very comfortable to wear, but was extremely annoying to sew. I didn't make bound pockets at the back because I really didn't trust that set up with all the stretch.

The t-shirt is something of a crazy experiment.

I bought the fabric on sale at the market. Thin, not very stretchy cotton knit in a burgundy/aubergine colour. And about 3 meters of it. So it is ideal for experiments.

This shirt has the sleeves and upper back cut in one piece, in a way which I have seen a lot in knitting patterns for shrugs but nowhere else. As I have stated before, I'm slowly getting into experimenting with roomier shapes, but I like to tweek them to flatter my shape. Being rather flat-chested means that a lot of the wide kimono-sleeve stuff, avaible for the past seasons, is not for me. My solution here is to have shirt wide down to the waist. Not lower.

I think this shirt turned out to be a fun shape. Of course, I pull it up when I lift my arms, and it doesn't go with everything, but still, I think I'm happy with it. I have yet to wear it out though (it's not warm enough yet).

The third thing I made is another tiny shrug (I also made one as a present for my sister, two weeks ago). I still want to make a long sleeved version, but this was another case of severe fabric constraints. I actually made this one with a shoulder seam, just to be able to get it out of a scrap.

This fabric, a black knit with silver lurex threads in it, was part of a large bag of fairly big scraps thrown out by a local artist/fashion designer M knows. I can never pass up free fabric, so I sorted through the bag and took this stuff, among other things (including several bits of jersey suitable for lingerie, or it's muslins and linings).

So far so good. I've got loads of ideas but the in-between wheather makes it hard to decide on what to make NOW.