Maternity make – Cute Cara

In November I asked two of my closest sewcialist friends (Hanne and Caroline) to take pictures of all my maternity makes at once. I didn´t get round to taking photographs by myself due to the horrible weather and the lack of indoor location. I also never got round to blogging about the makes BUT because I really enjoyed looking at other people´s maternity makes while I was pregnant I´ve decided to blog about all my (favourite) makes now. You´ll see more maternity makes popping up in the upcoming weeks while I edit pictures and write posts.

Maternity make – Boysenberry Bettine

It’s not a secret that I’m usually not a fan of the cutesy style of Tilly. But when she released Bettine I was sold. I didn’t need a new dress pattern but still I couldn’t resist. I blame early pregnancy hormones.

I sewed and wore this dress at the end of August. I took pictures the same weekend but since I took them inside they are no good (even after 3 tries). It was my first attempt at getting back to blogging but I didn’t want to go outside and take pictures, so I used our wardrobe wall… The only thing I like about these pictures is my hair… Before the hairdresser chopped off way too much 😦

Maternity make – Cosy Colours Cardigan

First on my list of maternity makes was this cosy oversized cardigan. I’d spotted it in the new September issue of Knipmode and it seemed perfect as a nice oversized maternity cardigan.

Fall/Winter 2015 Maternity Capsule Wardrobe

I wanted to blog about another wrap dress I made but the weather and a teething 20 month old got in the way for now. So while you eagerly await those pictures, let me tell you about my sewing plans for this Fall/Winter.

My maternity makes were all over the place last time and I’ve ditched them all. There just wasn’t anything special about them and they didn’t coordinate at all. I’ve been meaning to make a capsule wardrobe for ages but so far it’s proven harder than I expected , seeing I like to start from scratch but I don’t want to throw out any of my clothes…

So with almost no maternity clothes left and Fall just around the corner, I’ve decided to do a quick brainstorm on what to make.

Sunny Sunday Morning Wrap Dress

Well, it’s been a while since I’ve written an actual finished outfit post. No excuses, just life I guess.

For months now, I’ve been looking for the perfect wrap dress pattern. If I could afford a real DvF dress, I would wear only those. The pattern itself was also way above my budget… There must be millions of other patterns out there (and a few in my stash) but none of them really spoke to me. I was either dreading the tracing, the taping or the altering. I gave the Style Arc Kate a try, but didn’t get any further than cutting out the pattern and realising it would be too big (and waaaay too long), so I folded it back into the enveloppe. I tried the one from my Famous Frocks book which is loosely based on a Farah Fawcett Dress.

I got as far as assembling the top but the facing kept flapping up, the collar wouldn’t lay flat, the armholes only looked nice on the mannequin so I called it quits before it made me even angrier. Somehow I had made this dress 4 times before and only now realised that the drafting and instructions are ridiculous.

I finally settled on Burda 6957 which is a maternity wrap dress. (btw I’m pregnant) but my pregnancy brain must have blocked out the fact that I hate hate hate hate adding seam allowance to knits. It would have worked apart from the fact that they tell you to close the wrap with snaps… I’ll let that sink in for a moment… Closing a maternity wrap dress with snaps… So, it’s totally adjustable. Ofcourse with a faux fabric wrap belt to top it off. Back in the enveloppe it went.

I finally came to my senses and realised that I had already pattern hacked the perfect maternity wrap dress by combining two of my favourite designer‘s patterns. I returned to the Alissa maternity top and Cascade wrap skirt.

Since I wanted a real wrap dress this time I decided to lower the wrap portion of the Alissa so I could extend it in the wrap ties. Since I didn’t want to fiddle with any binding and I found an article saying the DvF dress had a cut on facing. I decided to go with that. (I’ve been looking all over the internet to find the article again, to no avail.)

But without further ado, here are some pictures 🙂 I cannot take any credit for these pics as they were taken on Lieke‘s Birthday picknick. Caroline takes lovely pictures and Lieke and Anneke made me forgot there was a camera 😀 Sewing friends really are the best!

 

I love the dept of the wrap. It’s sexy without being revealing.

I opted to make the ties really long so I could wrap them a few times around my body. I just used the entire width of the fabric for each tie. I inserted them between the main dress and the facing so all would be nicely finished on the inside.

As you can see I’m unwrapping my dress in a public park. The things I do for my readers. But as you can see as well, the waist doesn’t really sit at the same level as the wrapped ties. This is mostly due to the sheer weight of the skirt. The viscose knit drapes beautifully but it’s heavy. So I’ve already shortened my bodice pieces for the next one.I was trying to photobomb Anneke while Caroline was taking pictures of her sweater. She’s way better at photobombing than I am. I love my scarf with this dress and I’ll probably wear it like this once autumn arrives.

It was such a lovely day and we couldn’t resist getting our feet wet, ofcourse add shallow water and a camera to three sewcialists and you’ve got a splashing party all around.The dress held up pretty well in the water although it grew 15cm in length due to the weight of the water.Needless to say I ended up completely soaked but the dress has proven to be chic and playfull at the same time 🙂 Perfect for running after my toddler!Look at the three of us in our handmade outfits! Ah, to be young, wet and happy on a Sunday morning. Life is good 🙂

Details:

Patterns: Megan Nielsen Alissa Maternity top and Cascade Skirt
Size: Both were cut in a size M
Alterations: Lowered the wrap on the top, added a cut-on facing and ties. Shortened the back of the Cascade to match the side seams.
Fabric: Viscose knit in Cherry-Plum, 3m

Spring and Summer sewing 2015 part 2

I like to plan my sewing, I spend more time planning than actually sewing and then I want to kick myself for not putting my words (or drawings) into action.

I told you about my Spring sewing plans, I finished the copy of the dress and love it, but haven’t gotten round to taking pictures yet.

But just the colour scheme wasn’t enough. My drawing went into overdrive and I experimented a bit in Photoshop. I wanted to try my hand at creating a beautiful capsule wardrobe (there’s a lot of clothes, ‘cuz I don’t do minimal)

 

These were just the ‘in between’ ideas, but you get the gist. I finally settled on the pieces of clothing I wanted and the fabrics to use…. Most of them from stash (yay for me), I even wrote down the place to find the ‘new’ fabrics for future reference (Yes, I’m that organized – when it comes to sewing)

I’ve bought most of these fabrics by now (somehow, some unplanned ones jumped into my bag as well – bad fabric) and having them here really inspires me, I love looking at the colors, touching and stroking them and they really give me a ‘Spring’ feeling! If you’re wondering about the weird numbering, it corresponds with the picture below (I numbered them by hand and not on Photoshop and I really can’t be bothered to fix that but basically top left is 1 and so on…)

I’m sure you can spot a few familiar patterns 🙂 I might not use the exact same patterns but I’ve began experimenting with what works and what doesn’t. I tried my hand in drafting my own perfect Spring/Summer t-shirt to turn into dresses and tunics and so on. I’ve never drafted anything before, I’m more a ‘hack from pattern’ kinda sewist, but it’s been fun and it’s given me the chance to use the ‘less pretty’ fabrics in my stash for wearable muslins 🙂 Now those fabrics finally feel loved as well.

Now before you go on saying how pretty my drawings look and you wish you could do the same: Keep reading!

I’m not very good at drawing but this series of blogposts inspired me to give it a go anyway! I suggest you read them if you want to make your own outfit drawings but are afraid you can’t draw.

I actually cheated by copying the line drawings of all the patterns I wanted to use, scaled them to be the same size and then started mixing and matching. Those of you who follow me on Instagram, know how much fun I had a few weeks ago. (Note that fun should always be accompanied by The Doctor)

How is your planning going?

PS I want to thank you all for the kind words on my last blogpost. I feel a lot better now that it’s out in the open. I’ve taken my life back into my own hands, Konmari‘d my entire house to get rid of the mess and I have a new co-worker who’s awesome! (And has a blog) She’s basically been acting as my personal therapist to get me to like my job a bit better…. So far, it’s working 😀

Spring & Summer Sewing 2015

It’s February and I can’t wait for Spring to begin so I can start sewing my warm weather wardrobe!

Sure, I’ve got a massive backlog of winter sewing to blog about but since those clothes are on constant rotation they are never available for photographing when the light outside is somewhat decent. Truth be told, they’ll probably never make it onto the blog but I’m not going to feel bad about it 🙂

A few years ago I bought a dress, it was relatively cheap and the amount of ironing it required drove my mother insane. But I wore it until it had holes (which didn’t take long since the quality was quite crappy). Then I gained some weight and stopped wearing it. I couldn’t get myself to throw it out and kept it aside to save the fabric. I’m glad I kept it because it fits again (yes, holes and all) and I want to recreate it. I’m still looking for the perfect pattern as I can’t get myself to take it apart and rubbing it off turned out to be impossible (too many details and gathers)

Yes, I know, my drafting skills are spectacular 😀

Apart from wanting to recreate the dress, I wish I could get my hands on the fabric because I’m in love with it and it inspired me for my Spring/Summer palette.

Suggestions are always welcome! Have you ever found such inspiration in an ‘old’ piece of clothing?