Yoga is my favourite sportif activity (Maybe because it doesn’t always feel like sport) And if you do Yoga it is good to have some pairs of nice Leggings. My newest ones are made of Jersey with a flowery print. (Made from my TNT pattern “Roxy” from La Maison Victor Autmn 2014)
Finally I made the Sierra Bra from the free Pattern by lovely Madalynne. It’s my first attempt at sewing a bra (or underwear in general). But her sewalong was very helpful and left me very proud of my first piece of underwear. And it is so comfy that I like to wear it everywhere… and do Yoga.
The third piece of my new Yoga gear is a simple shirt for keeping me warm during Shavasana. It is based on my selfdrafted hi-low shirt. I just added a wide band to the hem and left the sleeve hems and the neckline undone to give it a casual look.
And before I forget… the finale of Me Made May…
See you next May! (Well, I promise to show you some of my creations before that 🙂 )
I call this dress French Trench since it is a trench dress from the magazine La Maison Victor (wich is actually Dutch…) Like my Leggings (1 & 2) and the Top of my last Christmas outfit the pattern is from LMV Autumn 2014.
I bought the fabric several years ago in Porto, Portugal. I have no idea what it is. Something synthetic with some stretch. It took me a while to gather all I needed (even if it just were 3 buttons and matching thread). But the sewing process was rather fast (the magazine has good instructions with many pictures)
The styling tip says that this dress is good for women with a small breast because of the shoulder piece. And I, as a woman with a small breast, can say that it sits well in this area. I just had to shorten it a little bit (as a woman with short legs)
We shot the pictures when I was on a work trip in spain.
And here are some behind the scenes shots. I was told to shake it off, because my pose was too stiff… so I shook it off…
I wore this dress on day 21 of Me Made May (it was the 60th wedding anniversary of my grandparents)
Black and merry might sound a bit weird together but it’s the truth. These pants are black and I am merry… and the pattern is called ‘Merry Melon’. It’s another make from my beloved CUT magazine (No. 13). Everytime I get a new issue I browse through it and want to make almost every pattern (there are just about 3 patterns per issue… but over time that sums up). I like the mix of simple silhouettes and special details. This time I was sold on the darts that transform into pleats.
You might ask yourself ‘what is she talking about?’ I confess that black fabrics are not very photo-friendly when it comes to showing details. And the fabric isn’t even plain black. It has a subtle Paisley pattern (Did I mention that I went to university in Paisley (Scotland) one summer… my campus was right across the street of the museum where they show the history of this pattern… but it seems that nobody there cares much about that famous pattern… ) So I tried my best to create some enlighting detail shots.
Yes, that’s a Welt pocket. My first one. Because of the detailed and pictured instructions I dared to give it a try. Not that bad for a first try, isn’t it? (Why can’t Burda take those instructions as an example? Most of the time I just get their wording after I figured out how to do it by myself.)
As you can see in this picture from the magazin, these pants are supposed to be ankle length. I don’t know if a dwarf like me could wear this length. (My culottes were a similar case…I just left them long.) But this circumstance saved me from having to shorten the legs, as I have to with every normal length pants.
I wore these pants a lot. They are very very comfy. There is no zipper behind the flap. You can just slip them over because of the elastic in the back.
This is a cutout from pics we shot at my companies christmas party (isn’t it sweet how they hunker down to not let me be the smallest one 🙂 )
And I wore them in South Africa (I even climbed the Table Moutain in it…Yes I know that there is a cable car… but why always take the simple way…) Here are some pictures from the Diaz Beach at Cape of Good Hope:
Right now I am dreaming of a summer version in a lighter fabric and with the cropped length… but there are some more CUT (and other) patterns on my to sew list…
Do you have favourite pattern brand or magazine? Recommendations welcome 🙂
I know that it has to be ‘Three Drapey Dresses’. But I liked the alliteration and my native language is German so I dared to mix it 🙂 I’m pretty sure that soon there will be four of them and then no chance for an alliteration anymore (Well… maybe Four Fancy Fummel… Fummel is German again… means rag… but the dresses are way to beautiful to be called rags.) Enough play on words…
The dresses are made from the Great British Sewing Bee’s Drapey Dress pattern. This Pattern is part of the book ‘The Great Britsih Sewing Bee 3 – Fashion with Fabric’. I thought about buying the book just because of this one pattern. But I already have several sewing books. There is much content that is covered in almost every book. And I didn’t even read the general stuff in any of the books because I learned it the hard way before I had the books. And sometimes, if you wish for it very much… a free download comes your way. I knew which fabric I wanted to use for the first dress. But I was afraid it wouldn’t be enough, since everyone who made it before stated it is so roomy. I digged through my fabric stash but couldn’t find a satifying fabric to combine with my favourite printed jersey. Because of my fear of getting lost in the finished dress I used my special grading trick. I printed the pattern at 90% and used size XS. Voila, perfect fit – no alterations!
As you see, I managed to make the whole dress out of the printed fabric. I just had to do the back in two pieces instead of on the fold.
The cat liked the dress too 🙂 And if you wonder why I wore a longsleeved dress in summer… this was the end of November! (okay… it was South Africa… ) It just matched the coulour of the pool so well and my pale skin doesn’t like the sun anyway.
Not only the south african cat liked the dress. My mother was so excited that she wanted one too. And again I squeezed one out of the remnant fabric from another dress. As you see, it’s an awasome autumn dress!
Usually you don’t want somebody to wear the same dress like you at a party. But we both liked it so much we wore it to my aunt’s birthday.
But the excitement wasn’t over. My mother wanted to have another version she could wear in winter (you see… soon we have one for every season). Together we chose a velvety knit fabric in dark blue.
My mother and I don’t seem to be the only ones really loving this style of dress. Way before I saw the dress from The Great British Sewing Bee, I saw a similar one at COS. The only difference are the sleeves.
Image from COS
Another clue for this beeing quite popular at the moment is a new pattern from StyleArc. Again just the sleeves (and the back) are slightly different.
Image from StyleArc
And talking about beeing popular… I feel a bit famous, too. I’m in the Burda Style magazine again 🙂
How often do you sew a favourite pattern? Is four times enough? 😉
I’m back again! Me Made May is always a good reason to take up the blogging again. Today I’m going to show you a little bit of what I’m doing at work. At least the sewing related part. As I work in a video production company sewing is no part of my job description. But from time to time I get to use a sewing machine. We shot a fitness DVD and I quickly made some bright pink curtains for the background.
The studio provided me with an old Pfaff sewing machine. I never used a machine like this. There was no manual and no one I could ask. But we got along quite well.
My colleague did some behind the scenes pictures of me while sewing
I know that you normally don’t use black thread for pink curtains. But well, it was the only thread available and the seam was out of frame. The Pfaff and I enjoyed working together. Another thing I sewed were some super hero capes for a mineral water commercial 🙂
But since this blog is usually about the clothing I make for me and people I like, let’s talk about the jacket I’m wearing in these pics. In fact it is only a wearable muslin. I made the pattern for this jacket by tracing a RTW jersey jacket I own. I like the shape and fit of this jacket. But it is orange with black lapels and that’s why not very versatile to combine. The fabric was not the best choice for a muslin. It is very very soft and stretches easily. So the pattern pieces got a bit bigger than supposed. I didn’t mind because it were only scraps of leftover fabric from some dresses. But the jacket turned out to be a nice cardigan, even away from the sofa.
The original jacket has no seams in the lapel. My limited amount of fabric forced me to improvise. Also the lapel never lays flat because both fabrics are so soft and drapy and I’m interfacing lazy (Does this word even exist? But I really almost only use interfacing when sewing bags or purses)
We used the opportunity of having a well lit studio to shoot some pics of my second version of this jacket too. I made it to wear to my class reunion (yes, my A-levels are 10 years ago now). Back then I designed the t-shirt everyone wore on the last day of school (a little alien standing on a pile of books that reaches from the earth to the universe, to symbolise how far our education will get us…very pathetic, I know 🙂 ) I wasn’t sure if I really got something to compete with my fellow pupils (Well, I studied and graduated as engineer in multimedia technologies and I have a job I really like… but you know there are always these doctors and people working in big companies and stuff like this) So I thought probably no one of them would fit in the t-shirt from our last day at school. I planned to wear it with my comfy pencil skirt . There was some green jersey in my stash that matched the green of the t-shirt. I dug a bit deeper and found some remnants of the skirt fabric. When placing the pattern pieces onto it I couldn’t mind the grain of the fabric. So I had a hard time sewing the two types of more or less stretchy fabric together without getting wavy seams. Some time after I finished my second version Schnittchen released the pattern Mona. It would have saved me quite some work to just buy this pattern instead of making my own. Although my jacket has some different details. It has a round, kind of princess seam in the front that works like a bust dart. The back is longer than the front but in contrast to the Mona jacket it is rounded in my version and has no seam/vent. Now you are curious to see the jacket in action? Well, here we go: Yes, it was the shooting of a fitness trampoline DVD and no, these shoes are not adequate to use it…
If action meant class reunion to you… I took off the jacket soon because it was to warm in there. But I have this re-creation of our former class photo as an evidence I actually wore it.
And If you made it all the way through this post just because you wanted to know how my Me Made May went untill know, I will not let you wait any longer. I wore the jacket on day 06. The last couple of days I didn’t have a photographer at hand. I’m not a selfie person but it’s Me Made May and I want to document the outfits on the day I actually wore them.
Thank you for stopping by!
This dress is a make from last summer. It was very hot. I covered all my windows and didn’t leave the house on this day. Good preconditions for stash busting 🙂 I had some thin jersey in a vibrant blue left from the dress I made for my mother. It almost screamed ‘perfect summer swing dress‘ at me. And isn’t there a better colour to rescue you from summer heat than a cool blue?
I prepared the pattern following the tutorial. Since I didn’t have very much fabric I decided to add a pleat and a panel of a contrasting fabric to the back. The pleat was repeated in the sleeves (you might know them from here or here or here or here). It was a quick make that helped me to survive some hot summer days. Only the day we took the photos, the sun wasn’t shining that much anymore. But I’m sure you believe me that this is a nice dress for sunny days.
You might recognize the patterned fabric from my white dress. Till now, I only used it to accentuate simple one coloured dresses. I purchased a bit more than 2m of it. So why not make something that showcases this amazing print a bit more.
I found this easy pattern for leggings called ‘Roxie’ in the latest autumn issue of La Maison Victor. I know you could easily draft leggings with your own measurements, but I was too lazy. I traced the pattern in size 34 (XS) and just had to reduce length and width at the lower leg. I love these leggings. I wear them to my yoga classes and of course together with the white and the blue dress!
Sewing really helped my to discover and build my own style. Surely it might be satisfying to finish a garment with a lot of details, couture techniques and/or delicate fabrics. But for me, what counts the most is what I actually like to wear. And most of the pieces I wear regularly are simple and comfy ones. Nevertheless at the moment I’m working on a designer pattern with some tricky details. If it turns into the garment I imagine it to be I will score in the skills and in the style department 🙂
What do you find the most satisfying in sewing? Challenging yourself and your skills or to make the garment you want to have and you probably couldn’t find as RTW (as simple as it may be)?
Recently I sewed a lot of cosy and comfy things. Wearing them makes you want to hang out on the sofa or take relaxing walks in the park… just enjoying lazyness. So it’s easy to forget that they aren’t even blogged about or photographed yet. I finished this coat back in october and wore it a lot since then. So it deserves to be finally introduced to the blogosphere.
I intended this coat to be something like a bathrobe, but a bit more soft and cozy and more appropriate to wear in semi-public (a.k.a. open the door for the postman or take out the rubbish). In the end I would even wear it as a real coat when it gets warmer outside.
Once again this is a make from my beloved CUT Magazine . It is based on the coat from their issue No. 6.
They called this coat ‘Grinch’ but I have no idea why. It’s a simple coat with raglan sleeves and a pleat in the back. Originally the sleeves are lined. I dropped the lining, because I like to have the soft backside of the fabric against the skin. Usually after tracing and cutting the pattern pieces I do my SDA (Skinny Dwarf Adjustements… making the pattern tighter and shorter where needed). But since this is a wide coat per se there was no need to narrow anything. I did not even shorten the hem or the sleeves. I wanted to use these extra centimetres for hemming. The instructions tell you to leave the hem raw (as incomprehensible as the name…). The sleeve hems would be finished by attaching the lining (which I dropped). So I could use the extra length as hem allowance there too. One last adjustment was to separate the pockets. It surely was a nice idea of them to put the pockets and the front and back in one piece. But that way you couldn’t fit any other pattern piece next to it when working with regular wide fabric. By cutting the pockets as an extra piece I could squeeze the whole coat and a matching belt out of 2m fabric.
Again I have no idea what my fabric actually is. I bought it at the fabric market because I liked it’s texture, it’s pattern and it’s feel (well and the price… 3€ per metre) It’s a bit like a sweatshirt fabric especially in thickness and fluffyness of the backside.
I used my serger for all seams and finished the collar and hems by hand (something I could do while hanging out on the sofa)
This coat has no closure. So I quickly sewed a matching belt from the remaining fabric.
Meanwhile this coat is my go-to outfit for sunday mornings. But the photos were taken when I wore it to work. We were shooting in an old factory building and I knew it would be quite cold there once we turn off our spotlights. My colleague and I used a shooting break to do ‘our shooting’ in the hall in front of the studio.
As mentioned before, this coat is not my last piece of ‘lazy wear’. I took two pairs of jogging pants and made a cosy pullover dress from it. Soon to be blogged 🙂
First there was this beautiful sequined jersey I bought some time ago. I always knew that it should become a skirt. After some research and several nightmares I read about sewing sequined fabric I decided that it has to have no more seams than absolutely necessary. My fabric has metal sequins. I was afraid that they would kill everything that touches them… needles, blades, scissors. I found this tutorial on a single seam skirt made after your own measurements. Perfect. So I drafted the pattern, cut my fabric, removed the sequins from the seam allowance and stitched it together. Well…I added some centimetres for the hem on top and bottom. But I forgot to add the actual seam allowance to the centerbackseam. It could have worked since my fabric is a knit with a good amount of stretch. But the thread that holds the sequins isn’t elastic. I would not declare myself beaten that fast. I ripped the seam for about 10 cm from the top so I could get into the skirt and sewed some hook and eye closures to it. Since the skirt got quite tight without the proper seam allowance, they held the skirt together but you could see my skin in the spaces between them. Finally I found a small zipper I had removed from some old pants. I sewed it in by hand. First because zippers on jersey tend to get wavy and second because I didn’t want to have to remove so many sequins again. After I knew that I could actually wear this skirt I invested some time in sewing the waistband and the hem by hand. For the hem I used the un-sequined selvage of the fabric. So the sequines wouldn’t stick to tights I will possibly wear with the skirt when it’s colder.
The actual cause for finally starting to sew the skirt was the invitation to a wedding. Because I couldn’t attend the event just wearing a skirt I had to make a matching top. It was not going to be made of the sequined fabric too. That would have been to many sequins (and to much work 😉 ). I chose a lightweight jersey from my stash. I used it before for one of my hi-low dresses.I wanted something simple with only a little bit of sparkle. Therefor I drafted this V-neck top. It’s the same in the front and back (the advantages of having small boobs). The sparkle comes from a necklace I attached at the shoulders and in the center with some stripes of the same fabric. I had this plan before I had the necklace… I wanted it to be rosegold to match the skirt and the sequins. The desired colour limited the number of choices. Almost out of despair I bought a necklace at H&M that had several rosegold strings held by one closure. My plan was to remove some strings to make it look lighter. When trying to loose them from the closure I realised that each string was made of little elements that hold each other like the fingers of a hand. That way I could have one necklace and adapt it to my desired length by joining two strings to one. I almost did a little happy dance.
I even managed to make a little pouch out of the very few remnants of the fabric. It’s just a tiny sack with another part of the necklace as the handle.
Later this year there was another wedding invitation. Since it wasn’t that warm anymore and because I decided that it might be better to cover the areas where the skirt sits a bit too tight, I made another top. The fabric is a goldish shiny jersey. Not the best quality as I discovered while sewing it, but it matched the skirt and it was cheap. The pattern is a peplum top from Burda (#114 08/2012) I made it before as a top and twice lengthened to a dress (1, 2) I shortened the front of the peplum to show more of the skirt. Because I’m short I have to be aware of proportions to not look like a dwarf as much. Again I didn’t use the original sleeve. I used the one from my last Burda easy dresses ( like here: 1, 2, 3 and 4). I just like the little pleat in this place.
Meanwhile I wear the top more often than the skirt. I pair it with tight black pants and a cheetah printed head scarf.
This is a shot from the wedding photographer. I don’t have a name or contact to link to. But this picture is her work and she did a great job on this day. It is also nice to show you some details. The pleat on the sleeve, the necklace that I made out of the remnants from the first top’s necklace and the headband I covered in the sequined fabric to match the skirt. It such an easy hairdo. Just tucking your hair around the head band and securing it with some bobby pins.
Doesn’t I just look like I belong to this villa in the countryside back in the 1930ies 😉
My Christmas outfit makes progress. I finished two of three garments. Plaid flanell is involved in everyone of them 🙂 Meanwhile the latest issue of the magazine “La Maison Victor” arrived and I can start with the last one.
Well, it was a bit more needing than dreaming 🙂 In summer I was invited to a big birthday party with dresscode ‘white’. I don’t have a white dress in my closet because I thought I am very white myself and I probably look like a corpse when wearing white. The dress should definitely have a bit of colour as a little accent and to proof that I’m not naked. I did some sketches and hacked it from the well tested ( 1 , 2 and 3) Burda easy dress. Which means omitting the drapy front thing, altering the neckline to a round one and adding the triangles of contrasting fabric.
I even got a picture from the dress in action on the dancefloor. I really like my white dress but it was a strange feeling beeing around all these white dressed people. It felt a bit like accidentally getting into a sect.
To insert the triangles I cut them from the pattern piece and added seam allowance to both the white and the coloured pieces. I thought it would be a nice feature to end the skirt triangle some centimetres above the hem. Therefor I hemmed that pieces before sewing it onto the white skirt pieces.
As I present my projects not only here on my blog but also on Burda Style it happend that I got chosen to be featured, with my laced up Pants and my wrap blouse. It is not the first time this happend and like always I didn’t even notice it myself (because I usually don’t scroll that far down the front page). But some kind Burda member notified me in the comments.
Although I still have some garments sewn but not posted I started working on my Christmas outfit. The sketch is ready, I have all patterns (2 of 3 already traced) and fabrics are chosen. I even finished the first garment. Hope to keep the pace so I can finish it in time. Do you have Christmas sewing plans? Are they maybe already finished or do you still work on it on Christmas Eve?
As you might have noticed I’m a repeat offender when it comes to patterns that I like. But not every repetition ends up in my own closet. This is another garment for my mother. I did the dress from Burda easy Autmn/Winter 2013 in a caramel coloured rayon and in black jersey with a flowery accent.
My mother wanted the skirt to be longer and the neckline to be higher. I added elastic to the sleeve hems so she can wear the sleeves high or low. Both fabrics are lightweight jerseys.
Now we just have to wait for the summer to come back so we can wear out comfy and chic dresses again.
Schmidt happens 