Category: Inspiration

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Inspiration

Bosco 2007-2012

This wasn’t how I’d planned this week’s posts – I made a top and trousers over the weekend, plus I had some fabrics to show off from last week’s work trip to Montreal…

But yesterday afternoon, our little Bosco died in his sleep. It was totally without warning, and our best guess is that his heart condition finally caught up with him. I’d been home with a fever all day, and he’d been curled up with me earlier, making sure I felt better for him being there. I even tweeted a photo. It’s the last we ever took of him:

Inspiration

KnipMode March & April 2012

The past few months of KnipMode have been so lacklustre that I’ve decided they no longer deserve their own post each month. Yeah, take that, Knip! So I’ve joined the last two months together here in an attempt to find a few diamonds amongst the turds…

March 2012

I really like the seaming on this suede jacket. It’s a different take on the general “waterfall cardigan” design that’s been ubiquitous in the past few years.

Oh dear. Those are some serious “Mom jeans” and they’re not helped by the awful styling and piercing blue denim shade…

Inspiration

Seam allowance guide winners

First of all, WOW, I seriously am floored by the amount of entries to last week’s giveaway! That’s far and away the most popular competition I’ve ever done so thank you all so much for your interest!

But alas, there could be only three winners, so I pulled out the very reliable Random.org to select them (my usual way of simplifying this is to just do a straight draw against the comment numbers, and if the number turns up of someone’s who’s commented to say they’re not entering, then I just draw again. But that doesn’t happen very often!).

So congratulations to Ann, Margaret, and Cris! It just goes to show how impartial I am that the last winner is actually my sister-in-law’s mother, but she won the random draw fair and square, honest. So congratulations, ladies, and your guides will be sent out from Australia very shortly.

Inspiration, Magazine

Manequim March 2012

Wow, the seam allowance guide tool giveaway has been SO popular! Go over and enter if you haven’t already, because the makers have just given me two more to give away, so you’ve just tripled your chances!

If you’re looking for justifications for using said tool, then I put before you Exhibit A, the newest edition of the Brazilian pattern magazine, Manequim:

The lovely comedienne Fluvia is showcasing the Plus selection this month, which is just a nice, slim pair of trousers paired with a blouse. But look closer and you can see this is a new variation on the cowl-neck theme, as it’s a drapey collar morphed into a traditional shirt rather than a shell top!

This sort of “sheath dress with cool sleeves” is exactly what Manequim do best, and it’s what I think of as their signature House Style. I totally love the pleated sleeves here, though I hate how the skirt pockets don’t match up with the bodice seams! It’s easy enough to change, but it just seems like a sloppy design oversight to me.

Inspiration

Seam allowance guide tool (and giveaway!)

Have you seen there’s a new gadget out to help in adding seam allowances to patterns as you cut the fabric? I’d seen mentions of these a few places online, but I finally had a chance to try mine out last night as I cut out a quick knit top for myself.

You get two guides in the pack – green is for scissors with straight sides, and yellow is for scissors with angled blades, like my favourite vintage tailor’s shears. You just stick the guide onto the side of your scissors and adjust if necessary. They got the magnet exactly right on this – it’s strong enough that it doesn’t shift around when you’re using it, but weak enough that it’s easy to adjust or pull off when you’re done.

You also get two black rubber rings per guide, so you can set up two guide distances at the same time (or, err, just store the extra one on the end so you don’t lose it!!). I’ve got mine here at 5/8” for regular seam allowances, and 1” for hem allowances (though it’s also handy for cutting strips for bias binding or my new Coverpro binder attachment!)

I made the mistake first off by sticking the guide in the centre of the blades, but you actually want it quite close to the tip as I’ve done here, otherwise you’re “flying blind” until your cutting catches up with the guide! Once I got the hang of where to place it, it really was a piece of cake to use.

Inspiration

Post-Paris report

I’m a bit late with my Paris weekend report, but we didn’t get back til Monday night (thankfully taking the Eurotunnel rather than the very-disrupted Eurostar!), and then I had to fly out to Dublin and back yesterday so things have been crazy! Seriously – three European capitals in three days? I feel like I’m on a Contiki tour!

We had a pretty busy schedule while we were in town, but a trip to Paris just isn’t complete without a visit to the Montmarte fabric shops (For more details on those please see my earlier French road trip & Paris fabric shopping posts!)

I’m so pleased we were able to squeeze in a meetup with Veronica again and have lunch, and since she knew I wasn’t able to go to her local fabric market with her this time around, she gifted me a HUGE bag of fabrics, in exactly the colours and prints I love!

Seriously, wait til you see the goodies she brought for me (photos coming later)!

As a teaser, check out the overflowing Tissues Dreyfus bag of fabric!


About half are from Veronica, then another 3 lengths bought by James, then 4 lengths bought by me!

But the main reason excuse for our trip was that I signed up to run the Paris Semi-marathon, which was my first-ever half marathon! I’ve been running for about 7-8 years now, but I’ve only ever run 10ks (with the odd 5k and 8k thrown in there).

Inspiration

The Pattern Magic 2 course at Morley College

This weekend was my eagerly-awaited “Creative Pattern Cutting 2” course at Morley College in London, which was a two day class based entirely on the second “Pattern Magic” book. I’ve owned the Pattern Magic books for a while, but I’ve only tried one design (with discouraging results), so I was really excited to have the opportunity to explore them further.

I’d have no idea this course was even offered if it wasn’t for Tracy blogging about attending the course on the first book, either. So a big THANK YOU to her for bringing it to wider attention!

And seriously, this course was FANTASTIC! The tutor, Moni, was simply amazing, I can’t say enough good things about her – she does a lot of other Fashion/Sewing courses at Morley and I’d sign up for one of her other classes in a heartbeat (and I see she’s doing one on the Colette Wolf book “The Art Manipulating Fabric” soon, too, which sounds very cool)!

The facilities at Morley were great, too – lots of room to spread out, domestic Berninas and ironing stations, plenty of cross paper and cheap calico/muslin, and it was super easy for me to get to, and easy walking distance from Waterloo Station and surrounded by great pubs for lunch, too. It really was jawdropping that the whole weekend course only cost £48, especially when you consider most sewing courses in London are a) on the same old three dull topics over and over again and b) usually in the range of £300-400!

Believe it or not, this was also my first “formal” training ever in sewing!

We ended up with only eight students in the class so we all got a lot of individual help, which was great. I never really felt like there was any point where I was struggling and I couldn’t ask the tutor – she really did a fantastic job at spreading her time evenly amongst us. We also got to choose which projects we wanted to work on, which was ideal because it meant there wasn’t the usual classroom thing where some people were too fast and others too slow, etc. All the students there was really sharp with their sewing and drafting so I think everyone got a lot out of the class, too.

Inspiration

Manequim February 2012

Brazil (and the rest of the Southern hemisphere) are starting to move into Fall fashions now, which is perfect for those of us thinking of Spring! Transitional clothing is so much more flexible for London’s climate than either heaviest winter or barest summer fashions, that’s for sure!

I’m certainly liking this issue a lot more than the most recent summery issues…

In the atelier section, this month there’s a pattern for a dress made entirely from silk scarves! Love that drapey peplum…

It was inevitable with the sheer quantity of jumpsuit patterns Manequim produce that I was eventually going to like one of them… Halter-neck AND cowl? Yes! I’m even willing to succumb to ridiculous bra solutions in order to wear something as chic as this.

How awesome is this Plus-sized sheath dress? There isn’t much more in the way of Plus patterns in this issue, but I think this dress is a knockout.

The “inspired by a designer” feature this week is on Nina Ricci, and I really like this lace dress (which is happily multi-sized!), and also the silk blouse with its open, flutter sleeves that are integrated into the back piece.

Inspiration, Magazine

My Image Spring/Summer 2012

Woo! It’s time again for another issue of the twice-yearly, quadra-lingual pattern magazine My Image!

This sheath dress is one of my favourites from this issue. It’s kinda hard to see the details with the print, but take a look at the tech drawing! I also really like this sleeveless cowl top which would be great in a lightweight viscose jersey, and there’s also a shorts pattern here if you wear them (I don’t!).

I also totally love this yellow cap sleeve sheath dress – check out those amazing scoop darts! (This pattern is also shown on the cover, fyi)

Here you can see a knit dresses from this issue, plus a great pair of trousers and jacket. I love the tech drawing for these trousers, but it’s really difficult to see the pocket details in any of the photos – in most cases the top is covered by a tunic top, and this pair are made up in such a wild print that it’s hard to see much…

Inspiration

My BurdaStyle Book contributor experience

This is a mirrored post to my spotlight on the BurdaStyle blog. I wrote about my experience back in September before the book came out!

When I heard there was a BurdaStyle book planned, I just knew I wanted to be a part of it! I had been a beta tester for BurdaStyle before the site ever even launched, and I’ve always felt that it was such a great resource for encouraging more people to sew and be creative and share ideas.

So last year I expressed my interest to be a contributor, and I was invited to submit some ideas for pattern alterations on two patterns for the book. I sat down with the details for the dress and coat patterns and just brainstormed for a week, drawing up loads and loads of ways I could take those basic patterns and morph them into something totally new. Some ideas were simple like, What if I lost the coat sleeves, shortened it at the waist and made it in fur? Or, What if I added sleeves to the dress, lengthened the centre front and made it a wrap dress? Eventually I paired down my sketches to about eight and submitted them for consideration.

I wasn’t really expecting any of my submissions to be picked for the book (my drawing skills have gone way downhill since high school art classes!), so I was ecstatic to learn that not only was I picked to be a contributor, but my dress variation was picked to be one of only two dress pattern variations in the entire book! Then it dawned on me that the tight deadlines would coincide with the few months I needed to sew my wedding gown! So I did some hardcore time management and set aside the better part of a month last summer to document my pattern alteration, write the new sewing instructions and sew up the sample for the book, PLUS get it sent off and done before the deadline!