Monthly Archive for August, 2010

Trip to Seattle

Published on August 16, 2010 in Creative Stimulation. 0 Comments Tags: , .

After living over 6 years in Portland, and having traveled through Seattle a couple of times, we finally made it: a trip up north to Seattle. Hot temperatures (104 or 44Degree Celcius) couldn’t stop us from exploring the city through shopping. Of course we visited the famous Fish market which to my surprise didn’t only have fish. I was amazed by the variety of egg colors…

I think the whole market has such a lovely distinct color mood. Beautiful!

My sweet cousin from Germany is visiting – for sure the excuse to finally go to Seattle. She’ll be with us for the hottest Summer month (august) and it’s really nice to get to know her better. L pulling faces at me trying on EVERY single hat in the skateshop. It’s quite terrifying that she already knows to distinguish Nike shoes from others…

A stunning sunset at the waterfront.

and impressions from the parking garage. Super old building but I loved the cold color scheme with pops of green, burgundy and organge, the old type that had been drawn and redrawn with layers of color so you had a hard time figuring out which stall number to memorize.

Some Restaurants:
Steelhead Diner, 95 Pine Street (206 625-0129)
Boat Street Cafe, 3131 Western Ave (206 623-4602)
Boom Noodles, 12th Ave and E Pike Street (Lovely interior)

Shopping:
Barneys, Nordstroms, Columbia, REI flagship Store (amazing) and the University Place Shopping Mall where we the currently only westcoast locations for Madewell and Crewcuts (JCrew Children’s clothing). The later two we couldn’t resist…

Stayed at:
Warwick Seattle Hotel, 4th and Leonora, great location, ok. price, clean but not very modern.

Screenprinting

Published on August 13, 2010 in Creative Stimulation, Graphic Design, Handmade and Print + Pattern. 1 Comment

Just a couple of pics from yesterday’s open print studio at Modern Domestic.
I tried my luck with printing white on dark colored cloth. Was pretty hard as the paint was very gooey. But with Susanna’s help I was able to get some good results.

Susanna, MD’s lovely printing instructor, who’s beautiful product is currently available at a trunkshow at MD. So if you are on Alberta, you should check it out!

Purple striped dress

Published on August 8, 2010 in Handmade and Sew beautiful. 5 Comments

Pattern: Self drafted using Built by Wendy Home Stretch
Fabric: Hemp Cotton, self dyed, self discharged

This is probably one of my most favourite knit dresses so far. I made this almost exactly one year ago. The pattern is self drafted using Wendy Mullen‘s Home Stretch pattern book. I had to take the bodice in quite a bit (I could have easily used the smaller size as base pattern). The skirt part is just two rectangles sewn together at the sides and gathered at the top. This was important to me as I wanted to use as much fabric without unnecessary seams as possible. The fabric was so dear to me because I thought it is very interesting and unique. And above all, self made:  I took a class on discharge printing last year and had no experience on self dying or printing at that point. I prepared some Hemp Cotton blend by dying it with an iDye packet I got at Bolt. I was almost shocked when I pulled the bright purple fabric from the washing machine. At least that helped overcome the fear of digging in and experimenting with large scale designs. Below you can see how I first masked off the areas that were supposed to stay dark purple. Everywhere else, I applied discharge paste with a foam roller and waited until the paste was dry. I don’t remember if I rinsed it right away or waited until I was able to chuck it in the washing machine.  Maybe I should re-read the post I  wrote about it last year.

Purple linen jacket

Published on August 7, 2010 in dyed naturally, Handmade, Sew beautiful and Sewing Japanese. 2 Comments Tags: , , .

Happy Homemade vol.1
ISBN978-4-579-11242-5
Style J

I used some fabric from the natural dye class that I took end of last year. And even though the jacket doesn’t look too bad on the photos – nicely styled with the sassy hat – but in reality it looks more like a scrub then a proper jacket. Part of it is surely the color. The dye I used is a Logwood exhaust of a prior dye batch with which I made this dress. I think I’ll try to do some tie dying to ‘save’ the jacket. I am very inspired by Karen’s post here but will need to think a bit more on how and with what I should actually overdye. Maybe tie it and overdye in a stronger Logwood dyebath and modify with Iron afterwards? Or simply use some synthetic black dye? We’ll see what happens – I guess the whole natural dye cycle just started.

All in all though, if I had chosen a better, more interesting fabric, the jacket wouldn’t be bad at all! I have pretty broad shoulders, which is also why it doesn’t quite hang relaxed enough on me. The other thing that bugs me in hindsight: I didn’t have enough fabric to make my own bias tape. So I ran and got some pre-made stuff. Obviously, it was impossible to find the right shade so I ended up with some light grey tape. The tape goes all the way around inside the front lapels and the neck. And is visible when the jacket is worn open and even tied with the belt. I should have used a contrasting or accent fabric to play it up as a design feature rather then an afterthought. The tape is probably synthetic, the body fabric a cellulose fabric, and the thread is poly. So overdying will most certainly bring a complete mishmash out of the style. The sewing is nearly perfect – that’s why I am just hesitating to open it back up again for the fear of butchering.

Oh hey, it’ll just be filed under another lesson learned.

Published on August 7, 2010 in Asides. 0 Comments

Life is short. Time is fleeting. Realise the Self. Purity of the heart is the gateway to God. Aspire. Renounce. Meditate. Be good; do good. Be kind; be compassionate. Inquire, know Thyself. -Sivanandavia

New Figgy’s Patterns

Published on August 6, 2010 in Handmade and Sew beautiful. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

The new Figgy’s patterns are out. I was so happy to get the opportunity to test drive the Tee for Two tee shirt pattern and made these two pieces out of it.

Highly recommend this pattern. To anybody really, but if you like to start tackling knit fabrics and don’t have a serger – this pattern is for you. Even though i am lucky enough to have a serger, I learned a lot about sewing with knit fabrics with the instruction booklet. More info on all the patterns here.

Marie

Published on August 5, 2010 in Handmade and Sew beautiful. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Skirt Pattern: Marie on Burdastyle
Fabric: Pendleton light weight Wool

Top pattern: info here.

And because the pictures look so similar to my earlier post, here a project I finished in Spring this year: The Marie, the Marie. Even though I made this skirt a while ago, it took me until now to blog about it. This one is again one of my lesser favourite styles. Looks good on paper and on photos, but is not very practical in real life. I do have a but. And I am proud of it, but I am not really loving to super exaggerate it. This is what this skirt unfortunately does. The pleats in the back mirror exactly the business going on in the front. Not too cute. Next time, I’ll change the back to darts and add a slit, because the hem is so tight, I can hardly move in it. No running after a toddler for sure. Hach, how practical am I thinking these days?
At least – with this skirt I am forced to gracefully enter and exit a car. Both legs together. Very nice.

Love my stripes

Published on August 5, 2010 in Handmade, Sew beautiful and Sewing Japanese. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

Nonchalant Sweet Clothes
ISBN978-4-579-11300-2
Style C
Striped Helmut Lang fabric found at Mill End

When I first saw this new Japanese Pattern book (blogged here) I knew I had to make this striped shirt. I was totally giddy when I found a very similar striped knit at Mill End. I got even more excited when I realized it was a Helmut Lang remnant. Unfortunately I made the mistake probably every seamster makes in life: I didn’t wash the fabric. It is a synthetic blend (which I usually avoid) and so I thought it wouldn’t shrink. Even though I washed it in cold water, it shrunk more then probably 10%. The other downfall this fabric unfortunately has: it’s not high summer appropriate. Once finished (and it needs a lot of handstitching to be so neat) I put it on immediately. And rode my bike in the summer heat to pick up L. Needless to say, I got heated and I started to smell. Not the nicest combination. The pictures above are post-washing (and after having taken a shower, trust me) Still doesn’t look too bad. And when worn tucked into high waisted skirts, it looks quite hot.

I have to tell you the story about the skirt on the right. We bought it more then 7 years ago in London at Selfridges when we were preparing for our wedding. It’s a Vivienne Westwood and Andy really pushed me to get it. But I felt so alien in it – was just a bit too sophisticated for me at that time that I didn’t wear it for our formal wedding.

I made a long silk skirt and wore this embroidered dragon shirt to our official wedding.

I think I feel mature and ready enough to start wearing the pencil skirt now. I obviously still have the dragon shirt, but there is no way that I fit in it these days. But I love it and it will stay with me for ever.

drape drape – experiments in knits

Published on August 4, 2010 in Handmade, Sew beautiful and Sewing Japanese. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

drape drape
ISBN978-4-579-11253-1
Style #13
Black Soy, Cotton, Elastan blend

For the last couple of months, I have been trying to work with knitted fabrics a bit more. Because truth be told, garments out of knits are the most wonderful, easy care, easy wear, my most favourite things to wear. Pardon the pun – just came out. And i was a bit short of summery tops anyways. This top took me a long time to make. Not that it is too complicated, it’s actually  a very clever pattern, but the serger that I had was very complicated when it came to switching stitch programs. So it hung on my little fit-form for weeks. Then I got myself a new serger, (I know – I just had to take an incredible deal!) a Babylock which is a dream to sew with. The old Pfaff  will still get many uses as it allows to sew double needle hems and chainstitch that the other one doesn’t have. I love being able to have a perfect finish.
Back to the top: I had to tack the cleavage down with a couple of stitches – otherwise it is completely unwearable. And this is one of the issues that I have. Even though the top looks good on the pictures. It can look very unflattering in real life. I realized it when I looked at this pic. Urgh… Well, I guess that is the issue with a couple of the styles I have made in recent months but haven’t openly blogged about. I often like the IDEA of making a specific garment, even though I know that it is hard to wear or pretty unflattering. But for some reason I sew it anyways. No hard feelings, because every time I learn something new. Unfortunately though, the process of making things I am not completely happy with, stalls the progress on this blog. To the point that I feel, I am not really catching up. And then I am getting even further behind. So now, I pledge to finally get caught up. All the pictures are taken and uplaoded. So over the next couple of days, more sewing ‘highlights’ of things that I won’t get much wear out of. But learned a lot. But before I finish this post: Here another treasure:

drape drape
ISBN978-4-579-11253-1
Style #12
Black Soy, Cotton, Elastan blend

What was I thinking? I am not in my 20s anymore! So why am I doing this to me? I did spare you (and me – because it’s probably me who is looking at this blog the most) the view of the side cleavage… Well, at least the pieces are quite large, so I’ll be able to use a lot of the fabric for smaller projects…. soon to come.

Sarouel Pants

Published on August 3, 2010 in Handmade and Sew beautiful. 4 Comments Tags: , .

Pattern: Burdastyle
Fabric: Soy, organic Cotton, Elastane Knit

I love these pants. I have been eying all the dropped crotch patterns for over a year now. They haven’t quite made it to the pacific northwest it seams, but have been popular last summer in Europe. So this pattern is from Burdastyle. Funnily enough it’s almost the same color then the original one. I had a bit of fabric left from my yoga line, seek. I have been wearing these pants to yoga and workout and they are so comfy. I did a couple of changes because the original pant is made in a woven: I omitted the side ties and just used a wide fold-over waistband. Everything else is the same. I was so inspired by the pants, that I made L. one in a smaller version.

And because I just wanted to try myself in drafting and grading a pattern, I share this guy with you. Just click on the picture to the left and a tiled .pdf should download immediately.

Size 90 cm – 160cm
Recommend: Knit fabrics with a bit of stretch, but cut’up tee shirts should be good too!
I included the instructions on the page, but they are admittedly very, very rudimentary. Seam allowances are included too. Hope you enjoy making them and if you do, let me know, send pictures my way. I’d love to see them!

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