Blazer Frazer

I made a blazer! I never thought that this would happen. But I fell in love with the ‘Blazer Frazer’ from the german magazine ‘CUT’ (issue #8). All the blazers I tried in shops made me look like a ship captain. I felt like it would be different with this one. And I wanted to make it out of jersey for a more casual look. Jersey might not be the best material for a blazer. It’s even more unsuitable when it’s very very soft and cuddly. But well … i didn’t care.

The soft jersey drapes a lot (you can call it wrinkles … but they are not permanent and they move with you … I call it drape )

The original blazer is made of non-stretchy fabric, lining and leather:

CUT magazine always has very clear and simple step-by-step instruction with pictures for every step. And the sizing started with XS (I love them for that). The only adjustment I had to make was to shorten every pattern piece (except the parts of the sleeves) by 9cm (otherwise it would have been a coat for me). Another nice feature are the pockets … I love pockets on every garment!

For the lining and the back yoke I killed a blouse I got from my boyfriends mother recently. It’s voile with the structure of ostrich leather … no ostrich died … just a blouse. So if you like a challenge once in a while … just sew a blazer out of super soft and stretchy jersey and non-stretchy lining.

My sewing machine isn’t that much into challenges. That’s why it wouldn’t do the button hole on this fabric. I tried on a remnant. But it either got wobbly or stucked in the machine. It seemed like clever folks of CUT magazine knew that before and included instructions for button holes by hand in this issues basics section. I did not only the hole by hand but the button too. I formed a button from FIMO (polymer clay to harden in oven) and put 6 holes in it, so the yarn will form an anchor.

And since it’s still May the last days of Me-Made-May’13 so far (today I wore the blazer, of course):

Happy MMM everybody!

Comfy Pencil Skirt

Many of you liked my colourblock dress. Today I wore the matching pencil skirt (the pattern is similar, it’s BurdaStyle Stretch Pencil Skirt 02/2012 ) I made this skirt over one year ago. When I saw Sophie’s (Cirque Du Bebe) rusty version some weeks ago I was tempted to make a more colourful version quite soon.
Back then we took some funny pictures in an exhibition.

Here’s a shot where we tried to capture the design-lines … well, we tried …

I know you believe me. But here is the evidence (and what I wore the other days of Me-Made-May’13)

I was on sick leave the past days (“just” a cold). I thought I can make the best of it and sew the whole day. The bad thing on beeing ill is … well … beeing ill. Most of the time I just laid there and waited for it to be over. But as soon as I felt better (yesterday) I started to cut and sew a blazer … I’m so excited to see it finished … it seems like it’s becoming the first blazer that actually suits me …

Happy Me-Made-May my dear readers and stay healthy!

Colourblock T-Shirt Reincarnation Dress

This is one af my favourite dresses! I made it last year in february ( I didn’t have a blog back then). I wore it today for the 13th day of Me-Made-May.

I used Dress 117B from BurdaStyle 02/2012 (this is a link to the pattern on the german Burda website because it’s not (yet?) available on the international one). This time Burda was so kind to start with size 34. I “just” had to shorten it in the bodice and at the hem. I instantly fell in love with that dress once I saw it in the magazine (it was definitely the pattern, not the colours … black, bright yellow and beige are not my favourite combination … ) Another thing I fell in love with, was the artwork of a befriended artist called Herr von Bias (www.herr-bias.de) He designed the interior and some t-shirts for a local streetwear shop. But the t-shirts were only available in men sizes (again … ). Well, all the refashionistas out there surely know: the bigger the shirt the more fabric to work with …

XXS girl in XXL shirt

The dress went together better than I thought. The only tricky part was the zipper in the back. When I installed it the first time the dress started to wobble … I ripped the zipper out again, ironed on some stripes of interfacing (I usually don’t work with interfacing unless absolutely necessary … like in this case) and put the zipper back in place.

And now the evidence my beloved dress on day 13 of MMM’13 (and what I wore the other days)

How’s your Me-Made-May going?

May-Made Shirt

The Me-Made-May works well for me so far. Everyday another selfmade garment with no repetition yet. Now I managed to actually sew something new for me. Lovely Katarina, another  Berlin based blogger, inspired me to try this pattern, BurdaStyle V-Back Top 106 09/2012. I liked her Mockblood version. I decided to do the piping as well. In the end I made no real piping, just folded jersey stripes inserted in the darts.

Katarina wrote, that she chose a size bigger than her usual size to get a slouchy look. Since normal sized tops look slouchy on me anyway I did the opposite. Once again smallest size available was a 36. As my usual SDA (Skinny Dwarf Adjustment) I omitted the seam allowance to grade it down. I didn’t add volume interfacing to the collar like the instructions told me. Why would I want to force the collar to stick out? My fabric was way lighter than the fabrics Burda used for their versions. It’s more a light everyday top than a jumper.

V-back of the V-Back Top

Fake piping in shoulder seam and darts

Today was a holiday again. We went on a hill and then to a lake. And yes I went into the lake … at least ankle-deep

And now the recap of my Me-Made-May so far

I really enjoy taking part in the Me-Made-May. I got so much encouraging feedback and discovered so many inspiring people. A big hug to the whole sewing community!

Forget-me-not Shirts

It’s me again. You probably didn’t expect to see something new here so fast But the truth is, I even finished these shirts last weekend. I just couldn’t post them before the parcel tracking told me that one of the shirts finally reached it’s destination. Some weeks ago my friend Steffi texted me that she is wearing the striped shirt we both have and that she is thinking of me. We used to work together but now she works at the other end of the country So I decided to make us some ‘Forget-me-not shirts’ for her birthday.

You may guess what pattern I based it on? Maybe I should start giving the variations names … for now it’s just ‘number 6′  (and 7) …
Because there were two shirts it would have been a bit tricky to take pictures outside. Either I would have had to change in public or run home after the first round of shooting. We only have one room in our flat that has enough daylight. So my boyfriend asked me if I have a bigger piece of fabric we could use as a backdrop. It seems like he wasn’t realising that we are literally living in a fabric stash …

While adding the triangle at the lower part of the shirt was relatively easy, the detail at the neckline was more complex. I spent some time positioning the two triangles and pinning them in place. If you have used your twin needle before you know that’s the diva of all needles … and you could imagine what it’s like to get the diva smoothly around that asymmetric neckline while fastening the triangles where they belong …

I hope Steffi likes her shirt as much as I like mine (I kept the darker one) …

Since today is the second of May it means that’s already Day 2 of Me-Made-May! So here comes the evidence:
The first of May is a holiday here in Germany. There is a big festival in one part of Berlin with lots of music and food and fun … I chose a casual jersey dress. The pattern is Dress 125 01/2011 from BurdaStyle. I call it the Darkwing Duck dress You can find my project at BurdaStyle here. It looks a bit like there is a long neck contest going on between me and the blue guy in the background … well … he won.

For the second day I wore my Swimming Pool Dress to work.

Did you join the Me-Made-May too? I will probably manage to wear something me-made everyday … I just hope I will find the time to make something new as well … so stay tuned!

Beauty and the beast

Today I finally show two garments I mentioned before. The first one is a dress for my mum. It’s always difficult for her to find nice clothes in stores because she is tiny (She is actually smaller than me … just 1.46m, about 4.8 feet …). I made her a wrap dress from the Hope Dress Pattern (It’s FREE!). For the sleeves and the collar I used a jersey that’s almost like lace. I thought it might be hard to work with … but it wasn’t. The slinky off-white jersey I used for the rest of the dress gave me a hard time. I used it in two layers to reduce transparency. She plans to wear it to a beach wedding so we bought a necklace with pearls and seashells and matching sandals.

From the leftover fabric I made her a matching bag. For the lining I used some plain cotton. It had to be a non-stretchy fabric to make the bag stable.

That was the beauty. And now to the beast … I mentioned this nightmare of a shirt in my last post. I used the Hot Cocoa Sweater by Dixie DIY  (it’s FREE too ) as a base. It was in no way the fault of the pattern that it didn’t turn out very well … it were my decisions and alterations … First I decided to make it tighter, since she described it as quite roomy. That was no bad decision … but using a non-stretchy rayon for the sleeves was one … it just didn’t work. But I hadn’t enough of the olive green  jersey to make sleeves from it. That’s why I wanted to make the sleeves half olive green and half dark blue. So why not make a fancy border between them (well, maybe because it’s hard to sew … but that’s what I knew afterwards). And why not making it even harder by adding zippers to the sleeves … The original collar looked a bit odd, when it was broken by the zippers. So I decided to turn it inside and topstitch it. That looked way better but then the neckline stood away from the neck … I reworked the front part of the neckline and now it’s okay … as long as I stand still and straight … once I start to move everything gets out of place again. So I have a new shirt to wear at home The photos show the shirt on my selfmade dressform. I made it myself because there aren’t many skinny dwarf dress forms out there.

Tomorrow is the first day of Me-Made-May!!! I’m excited … hope to make it through the full month …

Filling other people’s closets

It’s not like there was nothing happening on my sewing table lately…I just didn’t find time to write about it. In order to increase my blogging frequency I will join the ‘MeMadeMay2013′. I hope I have enough wearable me-made garments in my closet yet.
Most of the items I sewed in the last weeks were for other people. Well, I made myself a shirt out of jersey remnants…I learned a lot from it…but I don’t have a wearable shirt in the end. Maybe I will be brave enough to post it next time, once I fixed the neckline…
I planned to sew a dress for my mum to wear to a wedding. I even made a muslin and bought the fabric. But then the dresscode for the wedding was revealed and we had to start over again. I’ll post the dress soon. I just have to finish the matching bag.
My colleague asked me, if I could sew her a long dress for summer. She had two similar dresses that started to fall apart because she wore them a lot. I bought some very nice rayon for this dress. I was very pleased when I managed to transfer her measurements into a pattern for the dress. But soon I realised that there wasn’t enough fabric for the lining. I had some similar rayon in my stash. But it had a quite dark lavender colour. So my dear friend bleach was back in the game again. The colour changed to a soft pink that was light enough to not shine through the pale rayon of the dress.

soft pink lining

lining finished with a tiny hem

The dress fit her perfect. We just had to adjust the length. (I couldn’t test the length on myself, because even with my highest shoes I’m not as tall as the average german woman)

ready for summer!

Because there wasn’t any sign of summer and I didn’t have any measurements I opted for the approved hi-low shirt when I planned a birthday present for another friend. I know that she likes stars ( at least I think so, because she has one tattooed in a very prominent place) I divided the pattern in different pieces and added a pocket again. I put some paper stars on one piece an sprinkled it with fabric paint (no bleach this time… I tested it, of course…but it didn’t work the way I want it). As always I would have kept it for myself if she didn’t like it…

Hi-low shirt number five

Stash busting in it’s nicest form

I hope to give you something new to read and see quite soon!!!