Category: Inspiration

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Inspiration

Bridal Couture

I’m in downtown Muslin City at the moment, between the bridesmaids dresses and the very belated birthday dress for my (future) sister in law. So far I’ve made the FSIL’s muslin, had her try it on, and altered the pattern pieces according to the two changes we’re making (which was a pleasant surprise – it fit really well!). And on the bridesmaid front, I’ve completed both bodices and attached one to the skirt in preparation for Pip to try it on this weekend. Since the skirt is so enormously long, I actually didn’t have enough muslin fabric to make a skirt for each muslin. So I’m just going to swap the skirt out and attach it to the other bodice after fitting the first one (it’s a very loose design so the fact that it’s 2 sizes off doesn’t matter much!).

Can you believe I’ve gone through 8m of white viscose knit muslin fabric, between a top, my birthday dress, the FSIL’s dress, and the two bridesmaids dresses?? Wowza.

Anyway, while I’m sewing up muslins, there isn’t much to show off (I don’t mind putting photos of myself up in little more than a bedsheet, but it’d something else to subject your friends to that!) but I’ve got a ton of good sewing books to report on, so you’ll be enjoying a few good books with me over the next week or so…

So to start things off, we’re going to stay on the wedding theme with Susan Khalje’s Bridal Couture, a book so amazing that it fetches RIDICULOUS prices online. It’s been out of print for years (also contributing to the resale value), but the copyright has just reverted back to Susan Khalje, and she is is self-publishing this on CD – you can preorder it here for delivery next month.

Inspiration, Magazine

Patrones 289

It’s Patrones Extra time, yay! Lots of spring fashions here and a larger-than usual Plus section, too. Patrones are back to the older (and better!) way of printing the layout and instructions back in the magazine pages and they’ve even added back a few of the designer names! Woop!

I bought this issue from a new (to me, anyway) German online shop that’s even cheaper than Stoff-Art (my usual Patrones supplier). This one worked out to be about 15 euros including shipping to the UK, and I was amazed to find it in my postbox on Thursday when I’d only ordered it on Monday afternoon! The only catch is that she prefers payment by European bank transfer, but will also accept Paypal if you email her first. Anyway she was very nice and super quick, so I’d definitely recommend her. She’s also got Ottobre, lots of Knippie (the kids version of KnipMode) and Onion patterns if you’re into those, too.

Here’s the overview (warning: the photo is very big so if you’d prefer to open it in its own window click here rather than on the thumbnail below)

My first “OOH!” went to this simple yet SO wearable linen dress with pleated hemline and very cool Japanese/batwing bolero jacket with sharp mitred corners:

Inspiration

Pre-birthday miscellania

Birthday dress!

My LMB draped birthday dress is finished, so thank you to everyone who commented on my muslin! I’ll be having the photoshoot tomorrow so you can see it on my big day itself on Thursday (no, not THAT big day, that’s in September!). I’m really happy with the way the final dress turned out, and the silk jersey is just so gorgeous to wear…

Labels!

My new labels also arrived this week (albeit with an eBay shipping mishap).

For some reason Cash’s aren’t offering the silver/black I had before, so I went with GB Nametapes for this lot. I’m not 100% convinced on the font I chose for “Fehr Trade”, but I love that I could get the URL printed smaller this time around. Considering that the last lot of 120-some lasted me just over two years, I have a feeling I’ll get used to this design soon enough.

BurdaStyle!

Looking beyond my birthday plans, I am super excited that BurdaStyle are coming to London next week, so I (of course!) need something new to wear to their mixer!

Inspiration

In hindsight…

We had a super cold winter here this year, and I’m so glad I took all the extra […]

Inspiration

I won!

Wow! I’ve been entering Pattern Review contests for years and never even come close to winning, but I’ve won first place in the first ever Lingerie Contest!

Lingerie Contest Medium

Thank you all SO much for voting for my Racy Lacy Lingerie set, I’m so touched that it inspired so many of you to sew up some lingerie of your own.

And special thanks go to Sigrid, who inspired me to start sewing lingerie, and also gifted me the gorgeous kit that turned into the winning entry!

Inspiration, Magazine

La Mia Boutique Dec & Feb

It’s been a while since I’ve bought or sewn from a La Mia Boutique magazine. It wasn’t any sort of conscious decision, but it’s a bit difficult for me to get ahold of since the newsagent that used to stock it is no longer a newsagent, and RD Franks sells out of it within hours of getting any instore… The styles were also usually a bit too “out there” for me, in the way that Italian fashion can sometimes be – always vibrant and interesting, but not necessarily something I’d want to wear myself.

In any case, I’d been hearing reports and seeing scans from others that La Mia Boutique was getting a lot more wearable these days, so I jumped on two recent issues when they came up for sale from a UK ebay seller (afer having a previous order with a UK magazine shop mysteriously cancelled weeks later with no explanation).

December 2009

I absolutely knew I wanted to grab this issue since littlejazzbird gave a pretty comprehensive rundown of the best patterns in it (seriously, go see the scans on her site! She’s sewn up a lot of LMB patterns recently, too), but there were a few more I wanted to highlight…

Inspiration

Twinkle Sews

I got an early Christmas present from lovely Rachel that I’ve been dying to talk about, but I’ve just been sewing too much to find room on here! She ended up with two copies so she offered me one (with unbelievably perfect timing, as I’d not five minutes before received my Christmas parcel from America, totally soaked through like it had been dunked in a lake somewhere en route and was thoroughly upset. So her offer really turned the day around for me!).

It’s called “Twinkle Sews”, and it’s the first sewing book by designer Wenlan Chia.

It’s got sections for skirts, raglan sleeve tops and tunics, dropped shoulder tops and tunics, and sleeveless tops. I’m not a big fan of the dropped shoulder look myself (it just looks badly fitted to my eyes) but that’s easily altered and the designs in here are just so different to what I’m used to seeing in my pattern magazines that it was a real fresh burst of inspiration.

The book contains glossy model photoshoots for each design, then shots of the clothing laid flat, line drawings of the pattern pieces (though not laid onto fabric) with a few detail shots and text-only instructions. To my dismay, there aren’t any technical drawings, but you can get a pretty good idea of what’s going on from the flat photos. They rate the patterns from “Easy” to “Advanced”, but to my eyes, this is not a beginner book at all! The A-Plus A Line skirt is definitely the easiest in the book (read on for a free download link), but the instructions are un-illustrated and don’t seem to use standard pattern instruction notation. Don’t get me wrong – they’re not as bad as Burda magazine, so if you can handle those, you’ll be fine here!

Inspiration

Thank god it's finally 2010!!

The worst year of my life is finally over, hurrah! Celebrate!! Woo! I always try to live each year so that it’s better than the one before, and I don’t think I’ll have to spend much energy to make 2010 a success by that yardstick! Still, my cathartic sewing output hasn’t been too bad, especially considering I spent a full 8 weeks/2 months in a hospital bed!

(Click the composite photo to zoom in, and have a look in the Gallery to read more about any of them. Except the last few, which you’ll see in greater detail next week.)

Here’s 2007’s and 2008’s roundups, for comparison.

Let’s find some highlights in what was an otherwise incredibly sh*tty, sh*tty year….

Inspiration, Magazine

Winter 09 KnipMode Roundup

I’ve got the October through January KnipModes to show off now, but the special thing here is that two of the four issues were hand delivered to me by neighbours that had recently been in Benelux (well, really just Bene)! One might be going back soon so I might get another few hand delivered as well if I play my cards right…

Oct 09 + supplement – with special bonus Plus sized section that’s twice as many patterns as usual in each issue

I love love love this leather jacket! They make this same design in some nice wools later in the issue, too so I wouldn’t have to do it in leather if I wanted to make my life a bit easier.

I’m not sure if I’m totally sold on any of these selection of different trouser shapes, but I like the idea of them…

I really like these Make 4 dresses (this style was also made in the leather section, too), especially the colour blocked one. What a great way to use up short ends of fabrics!

Inspiration

Patrones pals!

Remember that wool, collared Patrones top I made recently? Well, I’m so happy to report that my overly detailed instructions for it weren’t in vain, because Kim’s made this top, too! It’s fitting, really, since she’s the one who hooked me up with this issue in the first place… 😉

Doesn’t she look great? In her own words: