30's inspired skirt

Erinnert ihr euch an den Sketch, den ich zu der 30er Bluse gemacht habe? Da gehörte ja auch noch ein Rock dazu. Also habe ich ungefähr eine Woche, nachdem ich den Post geschrieben habe, den Stoff (Polyester Crepe) dafür geholt. Den habe ich dann in die Wäsche geschmissen und prompt die Bluse, plus ein paar andere weiße Klamotten, leicht pink eingefärbt. Ups... Zum Glück hat es die Bluse nicht zu schlimm erwischt, und auch die anderen Kleidungsstücke haben die pinke Färbung nach ein paar Wäschen wieder verloren.

Ich habe (am Anfang) wieder VeraVenus' Tutorial für Röcke benutzt, allerdings wollte ich 6 statt 8 Bahnen, also habe ich nach einer Weile meine eigenen Berechnungen angestellt. 

Remember the sketch from the blouse? I wanted to make a skirt to go with it. About a week after that post went up, I went and got the fabric (poly crepe), threw it in the wash, and promplty dyed said blouse and a couple of other white garments kinda pinkish. Oops... Luckily, the blouse wasn't hit too badly, and everything else lost the pink stain after some more washes. 

I (kinda) used VeraVenus' skirt draftig tutorial, only I wanted 6 instead of 8 panels, so I did my own math after some time. 

Ich habe mal wieder vergessen, nebenher auch Bilder zu machen, also kriegt ihr stattdessen ein Foto von dem Stoff auf meinem Wäscheständer :P

I forgot to take construction pictures again, so you get a picture of the fabric on my drying-rack instead :P

Ich hatte keine Lust, die Godets so einzufügen  wie im Tutorial beschrieben, sondern habe sie auf meine eigene (faule) Art eingesetzt (man nähe ein Godet an die linke Rockbahn und behandle dann Rockbahn und Godet wie ein einziges Stück, wenn man die andere Rockbahn annäht). Ich bin mir außerdem ziemlich sicher, dass ich eines der vorderen Seitenstücke falsch herum eingesetzt habe, aber da der Stoff relativ dehnbar ist, scheint das keinen großen Effekt zuhaben. Die Nahtzugaben habe ich alle relativ kurz geschnitten und mit einem Zickzackstich versäubert, außerdem habe ich alle Nähte noch einmal von rechts abgesteppt. An der Seite sitzt ein Reißverschluss, und den Taillenbund habe ich länger gemacht als nötig, damit ich Taille bei Bedarf etwas enger machen kann (und damit ich eine Schleife binden kann. Schleifen sind cool).

I opted to forgo all the construction tips in the tutorial on how to insert godets and sewed them in my own, lazy way (attach to one side and then treat as a continuous piece when attatching the other side) and I'm pretty sure I managed to turn one of the side-front panels around, but since the fabric has a bit of a stretch, it doesn't matter. I cut all seam allowances pretty short, finished them with a zig-zag-stitch and topstitched along all seams. The side closes with a zipper and the waistband is longer than necessary, so that I can tie a bow (because I wanted to be able to adjust the width a little bit. Also, bows are cute).

An der Schneiderpuppe sieht das Ganze etwas traurig aus, klar, aber das ist auch nur ein schnelles whatsapp-Bild. An mir sieht es besser aus ;)

Looks a bit sad on the dressform, I know, but it was just a quick picture I sent someone with my phone, it does look better in person ;)

Den Saum habe ich mit einem Shell-hem (Muschelsaum?) per Hand versäubert, der hätte wahrscheinlich an einem dünneren bzw. weicheren Stoff besser ausgesehen. Ist aber nicht so schlimm, dafür kommen die Rüschen unten jetzt besser raus.

I finished the bottom by hand with a shell hem, which probably would have looked a bit better on a softer fabric, but whatever. It makes the flounced bottom stand out more.

Ich mit Fingerwellen, einem Faux-Bob und dem kompletten 30er Outfit an einem Sonntag, an dem ich nichts Besseres zu tun hatte und keine andere Möglichkeit, Fotos zu machen. Ist die Schleife nicht niedlich?

Ich habe den Rock auch schon mit anderen, modernen Blusen angezogen, um ihn alltagstauglich zu machen. Alles in allem ist es ein sehr vielseitiger Rock, und ich liiiebe die Farbe. Ich finde, er passt sehr gut zu der Bluse und das ganze ist ein guter Anfang für meine (hoffentlich bald wachsende) Vintage Garderobe ;)

This is me trying out finger waves, a faux-bob and the 30's outfit one lazy sunday without any better photo-opportunities. Isn't the bow cute? 

I have also paired the skirt with other, modern blouses, to wear in an every-day setting. All in all I think it's a very versatile skirt, and I love the colour. I think it's a great addition to the blouse and a good starting point for a more vintage wardrobe ;)

Christmas presents

For some reason, I decided some time in october/november last year to gift my family knitted christmas presents. I had just moved to a new city that was a four hour train-ride away from my parents, so I figured I'd have enough time on my hands for that. Also, moving to a new city after the start of semester meant that I had neither friends nor many courses to take up my time, so knitting three different projects in two months seemed doable.

The other thing that certainly helped was that I found three projects that seemed perfect for the three respective family members I wanted to make them for, which is also why I didn't make anything for my father (yet) - he doesn't like knitted garments.

So, in order of their finishing, here are my three handmade christmas presents:

• Gradient cowl for my younger brother. I really liked the subtle colour change in the "sweetgrass palette" (scroll down a little on that link), and after I googled what seed stitch was it seemed like an easy and quick project. Mind you, I didn't actually order that bundle, but went to my local yarn store and picked out some colours that I thought would work well together (and got asked if I was expecting, because I chose a soft baby-yarn....). After that it was just a question of deciding on an order, a width and using my mother's kitchen-scales to know when to change colours.

This was the order I decided on in the end. The best part: my younger brother went away over new year's eve and forgot the cowl at my parents', so my mother took to wearing it. She liked it so much that she's currently knitting one for herself, albeit with a slightly different colourway ;)

The actual cowl. Couldn't get my brother to model it for my, though...

• Hilda Mittens for my mother. I didn't strictly follow the pattern (when do I ever?) and, again, used some very soft wool - I know that my mother doesn't mind, but I can't even wear normal sock-wool, because it feels so scratchy. The red base of the mittens is a bit tight, but wearable, and I ended up making them a lot longer than in the pattern - which in turn meant more repeats for the lace-pattern on top, but that worked out just fine. The important part is, my mother likes them, and has already worn them :)

Once on my hand and once flat on the table. They're kinda thin, I think, for the temperatures we've had these past couple of weeks, but should be good for early/late winter.

• Mountain Range sweater for my older brother. I stumbled across this pattern on tumblr, and really liked the idea of it. Not so much, however, that I'd be willing to pay 12$, especially considering that I'd have to find the yarn and needle size and so on to get the gauge right for the picture chart.... Instead, I used this pattern on how to knit a top-down sweater, and my trusty knitPro web app to turn some black and white mountain drawings into a knitting chart. Lo and behold:

It's all in cotton to make the washing easier, also, it's too short. My brother prefers long sweaters, and I couldn't ask him to try it on before christmas (naturally), so after christmas, I took it back and am currently lenghtening everything. Well, you live and you learn, I guess :)

Also: so many ends to weave in!

Well, these are the christmas presents, while writing these up I realized that I'd recently finished another sweater and a poncho for myself that I've written nothing about so far, plus I bought fabric for and am in the ealry stages of two different carneval costumes. Look forward to these as soon as I am done with my exams ;)

Lady Bug Costume

Carnival season is back, folks, and it's gonna be a long one this year. So I think it's fitting that I decided to make not one, but two new costumes this year!
I've been wanting to make a lady bug costume for ages (they're my favourite animal and I used to have a really cute lady bug costume as a toddler), but I never knew how to make one that would look different from a store-bought costume and still be kinda cute. Well, recently I got inspired and drew this:

It was an idea on how to do the wings, because that's the most important part, and for the rest I could just put on a black dress or shirt.
This week is finals week, which meant that I had exams on Monday,  Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  So of course I had to go out and buy the fabric for the wings on Wednesday after the exam (5pm) and use my study breaks that evening to start making a pattern for a small bolero - my genius idea for how to make the wings wearable. (You'll notice there's no such thing on the drawing - even while in the fabric store I figured I'd mount the wings on some grosgrain ribbon and fasten that with safety-pins,  it was only when I couldn't find a suitable ribbon in the store that I began to think about alternatives).
On Thursday,  I wrote my exam, went home, ate lunch and did some revision for the exam the next day. When my head really couldn't take anything in anymore, I started sewing. (Well, I did bits and pieces during my study breaks before, but that was only 5-20 minutes, so it doesn't count).

Bolero pieces in my study break.
The wings are made of red polyester satin and white organza, 1m each. The bolero and the dots are made out of that great black fabric I got from my brother years ago - it truly is a gift that keeps on giving.
I bag-lined the bolero and fixed the wings in the shoulder seam of the outer layer. Other than the fact that I sewed on one of the front pieces back to front and couldn't turn the front pieces after bag-lining, because my visual-spatial imagination abandoned me today, it went together very well. I ended up opening up the side-seams to turn the front pieces, then closed each piece with top stitching and finally closed the side-seam again with a big zig-zag-stitch. No-one's gonna be looking under my arms in any case.

I used my sugar-bowl-lid as a template for the dots. Another great attribute of the fabric: it hardly frays, especially not when handled carefully.

I used fabric glue to fix the dots to the red wings, and I think, that's already it! Here'so the finished result (on my dressform, because none of my mirrors are big enough to take a decent costume-selfie).

From the back...









...and from the front. It's a bit tight around the arms, but other than that, I really like it. It was a nice way to take my mind of finals :)
Wish me luck for my exam tomorrow!

30's (inspired) blouse

I finally took out my sewing machine again, and made - a laundry bag. Not very exciting, I know, but I recently moved and needed one and it seemed like a quick and easy project to get back into sewing - remember, last time I did anything on my sewing machine was way back in january.

So after that was done, I felt confident enough to move on to a bigger project, one that has been on my wishlist for quite some time now: a blouse. I have quite a collection of plaid button-down shirts and always liked the idea of a simple, white blouse that would go as well with jeans as with skirts or more formal pants, I just never found one that I liked the fit and/or the fabric of. 

Also, over summer, I toyed with the idea of a shirtwaist-dress (not one that I've given up on just yet, either, it's just right now way too cold to be thinking of summer dresses ;) ), so the obvious solution was to get out my (mother's) trusted pattern-making book and make my own, basic blouse-pattern.

The town I moved to has quite an active Lindy Hop scene, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and make my blouse the first part of a danceable outfit, hence the 30's (inspired) title.

I started by looking at a google-images search of 30's blouses (mostly pattern-envelopes, I think) and noting down which elements I liked and felt fit the theme. Then, and this is kinda new for me, I made a sketch I actually liked!

You can see the list of pattern-elements I wanted to include, an idea for fabric and the fact that I mean to pair it with a skirt that is still very much on my wish-/to-do-list. The elements are:

• A Yoke
• Puffed Sleeves
• Button-down closure
• Round collar (I think they're called Peter-Pan-Collars in English)

After rummaging the well-stocked fabric store here in town and getting excellent help from the employees, I decided on an off-white viscose fabric and square buttons. The viscose mostly was a dream to work with, and if I had a bigger table, I think I could scratch the word "mostly". As it is, I ripped the fabric into smaller rectangles according to the size of the pattern pieces to prevent it from slipping off my table all the time. It should also be noted that the viscose wrinkled very easily, but was just as easily ironed, even without steam (but on the highest heat setting).

I'm afraid I neither took pictures of the pattern making nor of the assembly, so I'll spare you the lenghty write-up. I did however use some new-to-me techniques, so here's a list of them:

• Button-down closure: the drafting, the construction, all new
• Drafting and attaching a collar (and, to be perfectly honest, I'll try a different way of attaching it next time)
• Drafting Sleeves and altering them to puffed sleeves

I also never worked with a yoke before, but I found the concept pretty straight-forward, so there's that. Here's the finished blouse on my dressform:

Final thoughts:

I'm pleasantly surprised at how well this project came together. Other than the fact that it's a bit too see-through for my liking and ended up shorter than intended, I really have nothing to complain about, and while the former is easily mended by wearing a top underneath, the latter doesn't signify much since it's still cute as hell when worn. The viscose feels amazing and is easily washable, so that's another plus.

I kinda wanna make another one, with some variations (long sleeves, puffed differently; lower hem; shaped sides instead of straight ones, maybe even waist darts or -gathering; collar attached differently) but I still have the fabric and pattern for a 60's style dress and I have to finish all my christmas presents before, you know, christmas. But I'm definitely glad my reintroduction to sewing went so smoothly and will keep you  updated on what I do next :)

Until then - 

Hello world

Look, I'm back! I'm sorry for being off the grid for so long, but I put myself under the obligation not to sew (or rather: bring out the sewing machine) until I had finished my thesis, and that (unexpectedly, I might add) took until the end of August. In order to stay sane during those long months, though, I did a lot of knitting (which did involve some handsewing for finishing, I admit). I still have the problem of getting things properly photographed, so here's a list (and sometimes, blurry photos) of things I worked on/finished in the last 9 months.

• finished the Ramona Mittens in January

• The green-metallic sweater spontaneously gained some lace sleeves (the medici pattern again, by now I can do it by heart) and was finished sometime in early April. Here's a not quite finished picture:

• Started and finished the Sofia Shawl, I'm pretty sure it took me less than a month or so and was finished in the middle of August. Here it is being blocked (excuse the beachtowel beneath, I didn't want to get my parent's couch wet)

• And, last but not least, I am working on a cardigan to go with my dirndl , using yet another of Nadelspiel's patterns - slightly modified to be worked in rows instead of rounds. It's only missing a sleeve, which is currently on the needles, and some kind of closure.

There's some more projects I'm still working on, or tried and abandoned, or simply didn't take any pictures of, but all in all this is my creative output over the last 9 months. Considering the struggles I had writing my thesis and the fact that I started a full-time internship in June, I still think it's pretty good. My life is slowly getting back to a more settled rhythm, so I think there'll be more time and energy to sew in the future - it's not like I haven't had any ideas in all this time ;) 

Well, it's been a while...

... although I assure you, that has nothing to do with my unproductivity (considering I have a Bachelor's thesis to work on, I've been way too productive textile-wise recently), but with the fact that I can never seem to find the time, inclination or help to photograph my projects. So here's what you won't get to see properly until I get the time, inclination or help to properly photograph it:

• Nadelspiel's Medici-Socks in white, knee-high, already wrapped and given away because I might not see the person they're intended for again before Christmas. Once she's got them, I'll ask her to photograph them, though.
• White and blue Ramona mittens in double face, with a beautiful slow colour change in the blue. The white is what's left over from my first pair of knitted socks. (I also just realized that I'm talking about the exact same mittens in the post just linked to. I've gotten a lot further ;) )

• A sweater made out of some shiny green metallic yarn that I bought using a gift-card I had gotten for my birthday. Pattern self-drafted (cross your fingers ;) ). I'm thinking about going back and buying a ball of the same yarn in silver to knit in some patterns. We'll see.

• And, last but not least, I tried out VeraVenus's skirt drafting tutorial (if you follow that link, scroll down a bit) to make a pencil skirt. Ever since watching Suits for a couple of seasons I fell in love with the pencil skirt and wanted to have/make one, and since I had some black denim left and another rockabilly concert coming up, I drafted the pattern and made it up. Pro-tip: forget what you were taught and don't measure with ease (the pattern has you add two centimeters to the hip measurement anyway), especially when your fabric is a bit stretchy. I ended up taking in the sides for about 3cm each, which absolutely nixed my plans for pockets. Ah well, next time, I suppose. At least all the darts fit pretty much right away :)

I know it's blurry, but it shows best what I ended up wearing. If you wonder about the sneakers and t-shirt, I knew that there'd be a lot of dancing, and dancing jive is a full workout. Happy to report though that dancing (excepting one jumping figure where you kind of have to straddle your partner for a moment) works surprisingly well in such a tight skirt. Only don't wear tights. They're only gonna shift and move downwards as soon as you take a step. Stockings work perfectly, though :)

For now, there's a Masquerade coming up on New Years Eve, dresscode Cocktaildress or Eveninggown and I'm considering giving VeraVenus Little Bias Dress a try. Have to see if I have enough fabric, though... Until then! 

Spontaneous Dirndl

Alternate title: Hey Look, I feel like I'm wearing a candywrapper!

My entire family is asleep, so this is what you get for photos of me wearing it.
Now for the title: I recently (last week of September) visited my brother living in Munich. And what do you do if you're in Munich for the last two weeks of september? You go to Oktoberfest, of course! (Or flee the city and rent out your apartment for hundreds of Euros to visitors. It's crazy, really.)
But we went, I wore my store-bought Dirndl, and we had a lot of fun. If you ever go, I really recommend the historical Wiesn: you pay an entrance fee of 3€, but every ride inside is 1€, you don't have any trouble finding a table inside the tents and they have brass bands instead of electrical guitars. And a dancefloor! But as I said, we did both, the historical and the modern Wiesn, and had a lot of fun. Part of that fun for me was ogling all the girls/women in their pretty dresses and wishing I had one for myself (my old dirndl is just not that fancy - black cotton dress, black cotton blouse... I like it, but I don't feel like a candy-wrapper ;) )
So, browsing reddit some day last week, I came across Burda 7057, and it was just perfect for what I had envisioned for myself. I got really excited, bought and downloaded it on friday, left Munich for my hometown and planned to go shopping for fabric on Saturday. You can imagine my face when my mother reminded me that stores would be closed on saturday - Day of German Unity, our national holiday. Damn. Also, stores are always closed on Sunday, so that meant two days delay until I could start! Luckily I recently bought a white cotton Ikea bedsheet to use for fabric, so I could get started on the blouse. That part was pretty straight forward, I ignored most of the instructions and flatfelled all my seams. Just seemed neater this way, plus it goes so much quicker when you do it by machine!
I didn't take any pictures, but I can show you my setup, because I think it's pretty neat:

That's my mother's Pfaff sewing machine on my desk, my new tiny iron and ironing surface on the fold-away workspace of my (currently out of order) 1943 Singer sewing machine and my laptop for music and the instructions.
On monday I could finally get the fabric. I found some beautiful turqouise synthetic taffeta, but at 10€ per meter (and this amazing shine!) I really didn't care about the fibre content. Finding proper fabric for the apron was a bit trickier and took me some time running around in the store, checking colours against each other, but in the end I opted for some silver - well, to be honest, I forgot what the fabric was called, but it's also synthetic. Add half a meter of lining fabric (cotton), some fusible interfacing and several metres of ribbon in two different widths, and you get 70€. Ouch. But then again, a good dirndl generally costs 100-150€, so since I don't pay myself hourly wages, I'm still coming out on top.
Not wanting to tape/glue more than I had to, I only printed out the bodice pattern pieces and just used squares and rectangles for the skirt and apron. I used piping (my favourite!) on the bodice to set out the front panel with the lacing and around the neck- and armholes, cutting bias strips out of the silver apron fabric.

The lady at the shop must have given me a pretty strong interfacing, my lining was stiff as cardboard when I finished fusing!

While I more or less followed the pattern instructions for the dress, I didn't gather the skirt to fit the waist (which probably wouldnt have worked anyway, seeing as I had 3m of skirt - I just never learn ;) ) but pleated it. That's the way I've seen it on pretty much every dirndl at the Wiesn, at last.

So much pleating! Thank god for my new tiny iron. You can see the the cardboard templates I cut out to make my job a little easier ;)
I put in a pocket again, this time on my front right side so that it's hidden under the apron. I wanted to make it accessible through one of the pleats, messed up my calculations, had to fix the slit (very crudely, I'm afraid) and redo the pocket where it belonged. It was a stupid mistake and cost me some time to work around, but now it's not even very visible without the apron - or can you find it?

My only other mistake: I ignored the fact that this pattern is meant for short people. They assume you're 168cm, but give you convenient lines on which to lengthen yor pattern - which I didn't do, despite that fact that at 175cm, I'm a lot taller than their average. Well, since I liked the fit of the bodice in general (and went through a lot of work before doublechecking the shoulders), I had to lengthen the shoulderstraps. After I put in the lining. And piping. Suffice to say, that was some more work that could have been avoided, but the join is barely visible now unless you're looking for it, so I don't mind anymore ;)

A very unlikely perspective for anyone to look at me.
What else? Oh yeah, I fixed the lacing hooks by machine, removing the presser foot and keeping the hooks in place by hand because that was the only way that worked, and I didn't break a single needle! Also it went much quicker than by hand ;)

I know it's blurry, my phone doesn't like closeups.
The apron was again pretty straight forward, I didn't even look at the directions here, so I can't tell you if I technically followed them, but I don't think I could have deviated much. I'm thinking of maybe putting some trim on it, but I'll decide that tomorrow. In hindsight, it's gathered into a pretty short strip (25cm), but I'm not sure if I'll ever fix it. Just something to keep in mind for next time.

All in all, sewing the dress took me about 10 hours over two days, and that could have been shorter if I hadn't made it more complicated for myself and hadn't made those mistakes. The blouse probably also took a couple of hours, but I honestly don't remember already... :D

Anyway, I love my Candywrapper Dirndl and will wear it on friday to the Wasn (same as Oktoberfest, but in Stuttgart*)

 See you there! :D



*please don't tell anyone from Stuttgart I said that, though. They might run me out of the city >.<