So much to do, so little time

Hi everyone, I'm back! I really didn't mean to stay away for so long and I could come up with several fairly decent excuses but the bottom lines are: 'life getting in the way of blogging' and 'perfectionism'.

Anyway, I'm back and I would like to show you some of the thing I've been up to. You may have seen my posts about my two pairs of trousers in charcoal grey wool (blogged about here and here). They were made from the same piece of fabric. I bought four meters of it (standard discount at that store is 4 meters of thin wool or demin at 10 euros). The two pairs of trousers used up somewhere between 2 and 2,5 meters. So I made a jacket.

I made my own pattern. It's from my 'normal, contemporary' jacket block (I'll explain in a later post, I don't have pictures of the other one now) but this time, I added shoulder pads. I think for the first time. They are rather small pads, so they don't really stand out, but to me, the shoulder really does look more angular and a bit boyish (in a good way).

Then, I only had 0,5 meter left, plus some scraps. So that could

only be a skirt (or a vest, but I never got those to look nice on me). Usually my leftover bits of fabric are a bit longer and a bit narrower and have to become staight skirts, so this one was definately going to be a wide skirt. So it became a pleated skirt.

Irregular pleating scheme made up by me, the same on front and back. Center back zipper (hey, there is only one seam, so how could I have put it anywhere else...)

However, working with M on her latest collection (and maybe reading Dress a day for, I don't know, ever) means that by now, I've been well and truly bitten by the pocket-bug. This skirt just had to have pockets. If I had had more fabric, I would have made scoop pockets but all I had left were some long, narrow strips. So I made bound pockets.

This means, perhaps perversely, that every single item I made form this fabric has some form of bound pocket... Double welts on the sides of the skirt, double welts with button loops at the back of the belt pleated trousers and coat-style single welts on the jacket and the back of the flared trousers...

I guess I shouldn't even try to contemplate what that means about your humble savage seamstress...

Weekly outfit nr.15

It's still cold outside, so trousers just tend to be more practical for now. These are the flared ones which I made recently, worn with a black poloneck and a blouse/jacket which I made last summer. It is fairly short, has a collar with rounded lapels and puffy sleeves (it is also, embarrassingly, the one item in my wardrobe which closes the wrong way, left over right instead of right over left. I didn't notice my mistake untill after I had slashed the buttonholes). I never quite liked the look of it in summer, but as soon as the temperature had dropped, it seemed to come into my comfort zone.

Shapes of grey

It's been a while since posted about anything I have made. Which doesn't mean I didn't make anything. Not at all.

In my wardrobe, most things are made by me with the notable exeption of t-shirts. Untill I bought my serger, sewing jersey was an absolute nightmare, that's why. This winter, I noticed I needed more fun basic pieces for layering.

I have loved making jackets ever since my first self drafted one a year and a half ago, and I love dressing down my shapely, formal jackets by wearing them over t-shirts. I had two old t-shirts, one bought, one a recycled band-shirt which belonged to my boyfriend in its previous life, doing that job.

So, I needed more. And I could use a simple cardigan with long sleeves (I often make cardigan-like things from odd bits of fabric and that always seems to result in three quarter length sleeves at the very most).

The fabric I used is a cotton double knit jersey. It was for sale at the market (2 euros a meter, but only 1,20 m wide) in a very limited choice of colours. I ended up buying (over the course of several weeks) 2 m of each of the fairly dark and grey colours (this is the lightest, I already made a dress out of the blue/lavender/grey and the dark grey/brown is still in my stash).

I made the cardigan first. The pattern is based of my knit sloper, I just opened it up along the center front and cut out a deep, wide V-neck. I was going to do a 'normal' closure, with a buttonband along the straight bit of the front, but decided on differently when I had sewn together the body parts and tried it on.

Not wanting to put a partly cut length of fabric back in the stash, I moved straight on to making t-shirts. One has cap sleeves and wide neckline, the other is a bona fide skinny fit tee. Even before I cut the fabric, I realised that what I really wanted for under my jackets, where printed, or otherwise decorated shirts. So, I decided to do something which I hadn't done in quite a while: decorate.

Cap-sleeves has a 'necklace' of miss-matched mother-of-pearl buttons from my grandmother's box. Skinny T sports a drawing (in black textile marker) of an anatomical heart. I'm rather pleased with both of them and looking forward to find out how they will perform in real life.

Weekly outfit nr.14

Of course, after all the excitement of the holidays, it is now time to return to normal life, and as far as this blog goes, that means a return to regular posting. So here is my first 'weekly outfit' post for 2010.

I made this bias cut skirt in December 2008 (I remember wearing on Boxing Day that year) and the sweater a bit later. Oh, and yes, the checks on that skirt do match at the seams.

I really like the look but I hardly ever wear this skirt outside because knit lining I used, tends to stick to thights or stockings and the hem has a habit of snagging on any kind of extremity on my shoes.

By the way, if you are new to this blog, and have come here through Burdastyle, fehrtrade, Dress a day or any of the other great blogs which link to this place now: welcome! I hope you'll like it here.

I have to confess straight away that I'll be very busy until the 20th of January. So, despite my resolutions, I don't think I will have time for elaborate how-to's very soon. Regular posting will continue though.

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!

Weekly outfit nr.13

This skirt was the first item for which I drafted the pattern myself. I made it when I was taking a course in pattern making with M 2,5 years ago. It has a high waist and curved pieces set into the sides. The fabric was a wool remnant I bought at the fabric store. I wanted some good material for my first real own garment and it is. However, that also meant I had to make do with a small piece and was limited to making a fairly narrow skirt. It really is a winter skirt and I still love it.

The cardigan is one of a pair I whipped up last year from what was then a mystery fabric, which I had been able to buy very cheaply. On closer inspection, it turned out to be cooked wool knit. It's warm, a bit bulky and it doesn't fray or curl up. For those reasons, this cardigan is one of very few of my creations to have unfinished edges.

Cold snap

When I posted last week's 'weekly outfit', I fully expected the snow to be gone pretty quickly. That was why I took the effort to take the picture on my balcony. Usually, any snow we get here melts within two days. Little did I expect what happened next. On Saturday, the snow didn't melt and on Sunday, it was snowing again. We had snow all day on Sunday. It ended up being a layer of between 10 and 20 cm. In The Hague, the Netherlands! I haven't seen this much snow in my hometown for at least 5, but more likely 10 years. I know it's pretty pathetic compared to a lot of other places, but it's pretty impressive here. There were no trains on Sunday. A collegue of mine was stuck in another city and didn't get home until Monday afternoon.This is what it looked like from my kitchen window on Sunday morning (the layer of snow got thicker later on).

The snow is slowly starting to melt now, but might freeze up again tonight. Luckily, I can walk to work. Normally I ride my bicycle, but I'm not biking on slippery surfaces. Now, I walk through an eerily quiet city (the trams are still not back to their usual timetable). The pavements are covered in caked snow, the roads are muddy slush. You can't actually see where the one stops and the other starts, so I take big steps over the snow/slush mounts at the edges of the roads.

As M says, it has been great weather to stay indoors. Which is just what E and I did on Sunday. That gave me the time to do some sewing and look through my stash materials. I didn't really get to my fabrics because I spend a lot of time looking through this, and another (less picturesque) box like it.

My grandmother gave me her old boxes of buttons last year. There is no really fancy stuff in any of them, but I just love the stories these little collections tell. Similar buttons are oftern threaded on pieces of string, to keep them together. With the small ones, they often don't all match. It seems that some ladies in my family would cut the buttons of all worn-out, un-salvagable pieces of clothing and kept them in these boxes. As organized as possible. I used some of those not-quite-matching little mother-of-pearl button for my white shirt, and as always, told myself to come up with a design which would make use of some of the more eye-catching buttons. There are two other, very small boxes holding old cufflinks, plastic broches and a belt clip. I'll show you those later, hopefully when I use some of their contents.

I just love sewing supplies with a history. Do you have any of those stories as well?