Tuesday, May 30, 2017

A new shoot at men shirt refashion - a jumpsuit for Eva - Ottobre 3/2015 #14

Refashion sound like such a fun game to play ... how to resist it even with my huge stash. I wanted to go with a different shirt my DH ruined at one sleeve but he rescued it at the last minute.
He asked me why not use of the the new fabrics I bought - I have some really cute think denim that might really work great with it so I might do one more - specially since now I have more inside on how this fits in woven...
 I used Ottobre 3/2015 #14 jumpsuit with a little extra width and length in the lower legs and now I wish I would have added some for knees as well.

I added a collar and facings to finish the neck line and I didn't do the scooped back though it might have been cute with dome string tie but I wanted the 3rd button to fit in since I kept the buttons closure for the back and not is finally easy to dress.
We took it for a test drive:

Monday, May 29, 2017

New peplum - lekala 4177

It's been really hard to find time to sew lately! The kids need me around all the time and the weather is fine so we are mostly outside. I did had an unexpected free afternoon this weekend and I couldn't miss the chance to sew something. It had to be something simple so I could finish it. I really loved wearing my 2 red peplum tops and the ease seamed generous en ought to try it in woven so I made a rayon version with long bell sleeves.
I do not like cap sleeves so I used the ones from New Look 6432. The long sleeves make it nice to wear at the office during the summer since air conditioning always make me want to stay away from short sleeves and this saved me the trouble of having to wear a jacket over. The color, fabric and ease also make it easy to wear during summer and not get to hot in it.
Lekala 4177 
I wanted to try new ideas so I added  a new seam in the top part of the center front panel and inserted a ruffle in it.
Lekala 4177
All margins finished with the cover machine:


Monday, May 8, 2017

Royal blue and white dress - McCall's 7538

I needed a dress for the weekend that just passed. I could have probably bought one but that would not have been fun. And finding a dress to buy it's still time consuming. I just realized close to the deadline that I will only have a few hours in one afternoon and maybe small chunks later in the week but not much more then that so I needed something that would not be very time consuming and hard to sew or fit.
    I have spend quite some time browsing fabric and patterns  I had trying to come up with a plan and then another quick trip to the fabric store and coming home empty handed witch is a rare thing for me. But the only fabrics I liked were really really expensive - like 5-10 x my usual purchases and I was still unsure what pattern would work with those so I decided to make my huge stash work.
   I had this royal blue fabric for more then 5 years. It had a discreet shine and nice stretch and I always envisioned it as an elegant outfit. But I didn't had much of it - I think only 1.5m so most of the pasterns I had in mind would not have worked out. On the pat minute I decided to go with  McCall's 7538:
It was the last pattern on my sewing table and I just did a simple tee muslin to check it out. I wanted to go with only solid fabric and let the fit and flow of the dress to make the dress but I was not able to do it. The color blocking was just calling for me and I could not resist the temptation for a little drama. I liked the texture of a recent white fabric I bought and I thought that adding a little white to the dress would help transition to white accessories and would go nice together.
   Doing all the wait pieces in white seemed a bit to much and extreme so I did my own fabric for those pieces by sewing together 3 stripes of fabric - 2 white and one blue. I went for even stripes but now I think even like this is still a bit to much white and having made the blue stripe twice the width of the white ones might have been better. But to late for that...
   Even if the weather warmed up here is still cold at night so I went for the long sleeve - view A and simple upper front - view C and the flared skirt option - View B & D.
  It might not have been the best dress at the party or the best dress I could make but it really felt good to have it made it myself in the short time frame I had for it. I also loved the skirt for dancing.
McCall's 7538
McCall's 7538
I have managed to take some quick photos this morning with the T-shirt I made 1st. I really love it all but the print defect on the fabric.

McCall's 7538
McCall's 7538McCall's 7538

2 new items , with the tee,  and 2 new fabrics so -86 items sewed this year.