And the winners are...

For MyImage magazine: Jessica H

and for Stitch & Sew: the Hillbilly Banjo Queen

I've emailed both to lucky ladies, so as soon as they send me their snail mail adresses, both magazines will be off to new and welcoming homes!

Of course, I secretly hope to see what they make from these magazines at their blogs some day in the near or not-so-near future...

Pattern magazine giveaway

Just over a month ago I was lucky enough to visit the fabric trade show Tex World (orginized by the Frankfurt Messe, but held near Paris. And just doable as a one-day trip from where I live) with M (M is the designer of pioneering eco-brand ecocouture. unfortunately, she doesn't have a webshop but on her site you can see some of her designs, some of which sewn up and all the current ones photographed by yours truly).

While we were there, we came across a Dutch fabric importer who had some sewing magazines at the stand. Pattern junkies we are, we took those with us. But, pattern making junkie I am, the chance of me actually making anything from these magazines is next to zero, and they don't include any amazingly clever details which I want to look at time and time again. At least, to me they don't.

So, I have decided that I should pass these on to a more appreciative audience.

These are not full-size magazines like Burda, but I will show and tell you about them.

The first one is My Image, which was reviewed here, by Melissa from Fehr trade. I think she might be a better judge of this kind of magazine than I am.

Because of her post, I know that this was not a one-of publication in collaboration with a fabric importer, but an actual magazine which appears twice a year. It is published with instructions in Dutch, English, French and German.

It contains these designs, all of them either in size 36 to 44 or in 38 to 46.

And that's according to this sizing table.

The other magazine is called Stitch & Sew and I know nothing about it which is not in the magazine itself. However, to me, the instruction pages, pattern sheets and sizing look a lot like Knipmode's.

Stitch & Sew, despite its title and the text on the cover, comes with instructions in Dutch and German only. The other special thing is that it has patterns not just for women but also for kids. For girls and for boys. Am I right in thinking that boy's patterns can be hard to find?

Without further ado, these are the designs. Top row is for women, the first four designs in the second row are for boys, the rest for girls.

Women's patterns come in sizes 34 to 46, according to this sizing table.

Stupidly, the magazine doesn't include a kids' sizing table but all children's patterns are for sizes 104 to 134. I downloaded this sizing table from the Knipmode website. It's for their children's wear publication Knippie, and I think the sizes will match Stitch & Sew's very well (the women's sizing table is an exact match).

I will give both of these magazines away, and I am prepared to ship them anywhere (it just seems unfair not to...). To participate, just leave a comment to this post. Two important things: 1. you must either have your profile, with an email-link, public to blogger-users like me, or include an email adress. 2. Tell me which magazine you want. I plan on using a random number generator, but, given the relative rarity of children's (and mostly boy's) patterns, I am looking for a way of giving extra chance to those of you who need those. And remember that, to sew from 'Stitch & Sew' you should either know Dutch or German, or not need sewing instructions at all...

You can enter until the first of April.

Quick update

It's been a very busy week here. I picked up E after a week-long trip for his work on Saturday, attended (and took pictures at) a party for my grandmother on Sunday (oh no, I still have to look at those pictures and send a selection to my family...). Went back to work with M on Monday and every day until today, visited the open day (evening) of the local fashion craft school, wrote no less than three job applications (working with M is great, but a volunteer thing), did loads of laundry and reorginised my grocery-shopping routine to compensate for a busy weekend to come.

Now, I have a moment for a quick post. Because of the things I described above, I didn't get any sewing done. Still got tons of ideas though. Including sewing from stash in bright colours. And two fellow seamstresses/bloggers devoted some rather flattering attention to yours truly (watch this spot for more about that, it wouldn't be fair to spoil the surprise).

I was going to take a 'weekly outfit'-picture but the weather is drab and rainy, so I think I'll wait to see whether the afternoon will bring some better light.

First, however, I will eat my lunch and go fabric shopping.

I promised a friend to make her a dress (promissed way back in November) and I still haven't managed to find the right fabric. Even though her second choice of fabric would be as simple as black stretch twill... Ah, those fabric stores of today!! So, I'll be of to try another one.

I will still be very busy this weekend, but I am really planning to finally do that how-to I promised.

There is one thing I promised which I did do this week. Because I still haven't heard from Cashew, I have picked a new winner to the New Year's Giveaway. Congratulations go to: sophie

If you are reading this, sophie, please email me at aichahockxAThotmailDOTcom to discuss things like size and the pattern of your choice.

All in a day's work

Most of the time, I consider myself to be a fairly skilled hobby seamstress/pattern maker, hopefully eyeing up carreer options and supplementary education possibilities in fashion. However, I also spend quite a bit of my time helping designer friend M (who taught me how to draft my own patterns by the way, that's how I got to know her: I took her pattern making and sewing technique course) on her new collection.

Today, however, we went to the 'modefabriek' ('fashion factory'), Holland's largest fashion trade show. This is the place where buyers for retail stores go to see the new collections available to them for the new season (winter 10/11, in this case). And it's the place where all kinds of fashion professionals go to see what everyone else did. We didn't have a lot of time, so we did kind of a quick run-through, concentrating mostly on colours, shapes and textures in women's wear (modefabriek offers women's wear, men's wear, jeans and accesoiries).

Despite the lack of time, it was pretty interesting. There were some small areas dedicated to small brands and up-and-coming designers, which I really enjoyed. With the larger 'main stream' brands, there was some good stuff: a nice shape here, a good texture or great detail there. However, there was also a lot which just really showed that trade fairs are about what you will find in every high street next year, so: not the greatest quality and a lot of stuff which looks like other stuff you've seen before.

I really wanted to write you a nice, comprehensive report, but it isn't really coming together. If I end up making something in the near future inspired by today's experience, I'll make sure to mention it.

On a completely unrelated matter: I still haven't heard from New Year's Giveaway winner Cashew. So Cashew, if you're reading this, please contact me at aicha_hockxAThotmailDOTcom. If I haven't had a reaction by Februari 1, I'll put the other names back in the hat and draw another winner.

And the winner is...

Drumroll please...

The winner of the Petit(e!) main sauvage New Year Giveway is... Cashew!

Congratulations!

Please get in touch with me through aichahockxAThotmailDOTcom (of course changing the capital letter bits for the appropriate symbols, I'm just hoping the spam-bots won't pick up on it this way), and let me know which design you want.

For those of you who didn't get lucky this time: you should know that my New Year's resolution for this blog is to do more, and hopefully better understandable, how-to's. I loved all your great reactions to the Giveaway and I'm planning to make at least one of the designs into a how-to as well.

A happy and creative 2010 to everyone!

verdict and teaser

Thank you all for your comments on my last post! I am wearing those trousers right now, they are quite comfortable and I no longer feel so self-conscious about it. When I was in the fabric store this afternoon, the lady cutting fabric for me asked whether they were self-made, and told me she really liked them (Ok, I was wearing my coat, so she couldn't see the top part).

Unfortunately, it's been another dark, grey day so I haven't been able to take any pictures. I need to, not just for this week's outfit but as illustration for a new little plan of mine, too.

This is it, and how it came to be. Months ago, I send a pattern I made to fellow-seamstress/blogger Melissa, who at that time needed things to keep her busy during a long hospital stay (to which she could bring a sewing machine). Now, she has just posted about the dress she recently made from it. Quite enthousiastically (my old cell phone used to have a 'smiling and blushing' smiley, if I knew how to make that one on my keyboard, I would use it now).

Now, I do rather like to get great reactions to my pattern making efforts, so I thought I'd go ahead and make a pattern for one of the readers of this blog (just to keep it do-able, I'll stick to patterns for knit/jersey things based on Burdastyle's Lydia for sizing). There will be an official post about this tomorrow, outlining the 'rules' for the giveaway and, most importantly, showing sketches and pictures of the pattern options you will be able to choose from.