Further Confessions of a Fabric Junkie

As you may have noticed on several occasions my name is Geri and I am a fabric addict. I just have to be in the same part of town as the fabric store and soon after I am finding myself with some yardage home and a blank period in my head...
Two days ago I promised myself I have to sew first all the stuff I have and today I woke up in a dear need of a blue viscose jersey...
So here are the weeks finds:
First - remember the colourful tetris flower fabric I made a T-shirt of? Found same in black and white. But it is not a knit - it is a stretch cotton this time! I think it could be a cute dress...




Still flower themed there is this cute knit which will be a top in a later reincarnation.




Another very soft viscose jersey meant for a T-shirt, but I think I have enough for a dress.




Pretty dotted cotton batiste - maybe similar blouse (maybe with a pussy bow instead of the ruffles) :




And here is the place to mention my personal manbitch (Matthieu). I was buying my blue viscose jersey when I just saw this fabric today. It was a real love - I loved the graphical flowers, loved the black yellow combination and the best thing about the fabric to me is the fact that the black is a lack print. I found that is really cool - like the cool in "coolness".
Then Matthieu came home after work and said to me (I didn't even asked him!) - "Oh what an awful fabric! Looks like a shower curtain!". Well I never!




I still love it though.

Sweatshops all over the world!

So I came around to make the tutorial about how to make the Sweatshop T-shirt. You can download a basic tee pattern for free here, but beware that the arm cycle may be too large as Christina mentioned (I never used this one, just drafted a tee pattern from a shirt I had).
p.s. Click to enlarge.

Done long ago

I never posted this wool skirt, but I did it like in February. I think today is the second time I wear it and outside is really a hot day. Speak about timing and logic...
Originally I wanted to use this pattern but I saw it is quite simple (basically a quarter circle, a cake piece, cropped with another circle in the middle). So I didn't even bother drafting or cutting a pattern but just cut the fabric. It got fuller as the original and I didn't really thought of bias cut. That was stupid but I actually like the result. Love the colours.



My camera battery was dying so I didn't manage to do better photos, but they somehow are funny. Make you feel the time pressure of the camera being away any time soon...



I put some in-seam pockets too, so I don't have to carry my hands all alone. The dress I am wearing over it is this one. Done it some time ago.



Hmm, seeing the photos make me think that wearing a voluptuous skirt under a dress makes you look a bit like a marshmallow.
I already decided on the bwofys piping but more in the next post!

Black BWOFy

So this weekend I am starting a new project. It is getting kind of summery here but I still want to make a light wool jacket... Weird I know, but I think it can be very useful on chilly evenings so I am up to it!
The original version is this one.



It has been perfectly made and extremely helpfully explained by Tany. And there are some other great version1 and version2. Showing all these I must confess I am going to change the model - I tried to accept it, but this lampshade sleeve just didn't grow on me. And I am a bit dull in being afraid to get cold with shorter sleeves...
This is what I am making:



A bit boring indeed but the versatility is appealing to me. Or I need something more demure in my wardrobe for the moments I go for the unnoticeable yet chic casual way.
The fabric I am going to use is labelled a wool linen addressing the way it is woven. It's black:



It is soft and quite thin so I might not be too warm on the other side. Don't know what lining I will use. Lets live and see.

Update: Just got the idea to maybe funk it up with some piping. Don't know what colour or material though. Any suggestions?

Yet another update: 75% of the votes till now go for pink. Guys, sorry but I am not the pink kind of girl (yes, I know, I like it in graphics) but I actually own only one pinkish T-shirt and it is more fuchsia... And I wear a lot of black. So I am thinking maybe grey or even silver piping. Or even gold (I treasure gold for its kitschy potential). Maybe black lack piping but this can get cheesy...

An encounter

I didn't sew this one, but it was so funny and cool - I had to share. It was a close encounter of the third kind! You can click the images larger.

Just warming up:


A bit of being inapproachable teasing:


Spinning around for the camera:


Staying professional even if a wind blow from behind is being some hindrance:


Posing with a perky look in the lens:


Some friendships for life were made:


Actually he was a good sport doing the job for around twenty minutes getting me a bit weary...

Cape Dracula Final 5.6 ...

So I finally came around to finish this pattern. Pattern finishing is connected with some drawing and indication adding which makes it time consuming. And I have a bit of enough of my own pattern publishing for some time. It is a lot of fun but I am lazy.

Will relax by making some BWOF next or easy patterns that I don't draft in computer - I have a newborn appreciation for that!

You can download the pattern here. It is 38 BWOF size but it is quite easy to adapt since it has to fit only at the shoulders and you define the waist with the belt. You can just add your measurements there.

Some explanations to the pattern - all the additional pieces as lining, interfacing and facings are drawn in.

The lining:
(you can enlarge the images, the lines are drawn in the pdf)




The interfacing:
(forgot to put the back facing - it is interfaced too)




The facings:



The connections:




I have a thing for fancy diagrams...

P.S for Stephanie - the amount of fabric is around 1,5 meter.

Disco Dress

I visited some fabric stores at home but actually I couldn't really find something to catch my eye. And the alfatex store I have in Kassel is actually cheaper. Off course I bought the satin wool for my mum and I both this cotton knit only to be told it is German... So I went all the way to Sofia to buy a German fabric.
The fabric is black with a multicolour boucle touch. Kind of 80s disco hype tamed down.



I sewn a dress using the model 123 from Burda 2/2008. I loved the great version Christina did - off course I cannot beat her owl fabric, which is just awesome. I did the blouse version for my sister but forgot to photograph it. It's pretty much the same but with larger collar and waist bands.





The bottom part is just two A line pieces without any darts the top width being my waist measurement.

All in all I will say it is very easy and comfy summer dress. Something that is quick to sew and quick to wear.

And to keep things fair here a photo with the dress and my other nephew and niece. Not easy to get the three of us looking at the camera... And actually I am just wearing the dress over my other cloths checking the fit...

Presents

The first present I made was a skirt for my mother. The fabric is a fine wool that has a glossy satin side. It's dark gray. I made the pattern myself using a burda pattern as starting point.






I am not very good on zippers and on the zipper the stripes aren't matching. Guess I was happy to have it OKish in and afterwards it was too much to rip and align it.



On a different matter - Colette tagged me. As far as I get it I must take the next book and look at page 123 and write the fifth sentence. Sitting here with my computer the next book is one belonging to my nephew. It is in french (since he is a little Canadian from Montreal) called "Jouons avec Leon". I don't speak a word french. It has 8 pages split in two horizontally allowing some combination. I guess I will just take the last page:


"Leon...
... s'ennuie!"

Honestly I have no idea what that means.

The proud owner himself:




I invite EVERYBODY from my blogroll to feel tagged and carry this one on if they want to have the fun!

Kind of Back...

I know I was swallowed by a black hole for some time, but now I am kind of being spit out. The black hole was my family and my holiday is almost over. I have a lot of working waiting for me back in Germany, so there will be a lot of blogging too...
In this post I am showing the final leg-of-mutton dress. As you can see in the photos my staying home involved a miraculous lot of eating... Was great!





I put some plastic boning in but I had no caps - it is poking a lot when I sit down. I may as well remove it if it gets to unnerving or add caps. I basted the sleeves at the upper end a bit - they were too sloppy.
As you see I made the square neckline. I wore the other unfinished version around the house for few hours and the truth was that the fabric is too thick and too stiff. I was getting choked by my dress. So I cut it. So I won.

So some photos from Sofia - made on a rainy day, one of my first here.



A museum and the old palace. Small one, but Bulgaria is very small country - not that small as area but as population - imagine last time they counted 8 million. I mean that is something like double Berlin... Sofia is around 1,8 million.



Looking from the palace in the back you see the Vitosha mountain - it is around 2000 meters and I was skiing there since I was 6 years old! Sofia is slowly climbing this mountain...

So more in the next post!