Tag: kwik-sew

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In Progress

Marni silk blouse – muslin cold feet

In light of NancyK’s conclusion that KnipMode designer knockoffs aren’t as thoroughly tested as the rest of their patterns, I decided to make a muslin of the KnipMode August 09 Marni catwalk blouse before cutting into my nice teal silk satin (charmeuse).

Only now that I’ve got my bedsheet muslin done, I’m unsure about whether I like it or not. Now, you do have to use a bit of imagination here to block out the busy bedsheet prints (in reality, it’ll all be one solid teal colour, plus collar and cuffs):

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KnipMode & KwikSew Lingerie Set

Wow, I’m really falling behind with my photos, it feels like so long ago that I finished all these lacy bits! But then again, I bought the brown and turquoise bra kit from eLingeria.de way back in January 2008 so I suppose a week or so isn’t much in the lifespan of this fabric!

The kits from eLingeria.de give you all the bits you need to make one bra and two panties – really soft, stretchy microfibre, stretch lace, elastic, bra straps, underwire channeling, hooks, and the strap loops and findings. The only thing I needed to buy extra were the underwires, since they’re so size-specific. I really enjoyed sewing these, and having the kit meant I didn’t have to gather all the materials in matching colours on my own, so I’m definitely going this route again. €20 for a matching lingerie set is a steal, even with the current exchange rate!

The bra pattern is KwikSew 3300, which I extensively reviewed when I sewed my first bra toile a few weeks ago, only this time I used the right elastic so it fits!

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Sewing my first bra

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at bra-making for over a year now, but I just kept putting it off because it seemed so complicated and easy to mess up and I didn’t want to ruin the really pretty fabrics I’d bought for it. So my bra-making ambitions sat in a box, waiting… Until I saw that thesewingchest.co.uk was giving away free toile kits with any bra pattern purchase and knowing that I’d have all the fabric and bits I’d need to make a bra, but without the worry of ruining one finally gave me the courage to try!

Even though I have two bra patterns I bought last year, I picked up KwikSew 3300 plunge bra – and made View B with both lower and upper cups in lined cloth as my muslin. View A has the upper cup in lace, which I’ll try next…

In Progress

Patterns To Trace

Recently I’ve been doing more batch tracing rather than tracing one pattern, sewing it up, then tracing the next. I find my sewing bottleneck is often in the tracing step (even though it doesn’t take much time), so by doing a bunch at once I can always have something on the go to work on in the mornings and evenings.

I’ve been mentally matching up my patterns to fabrics in my stash and tracing an awful lot the last few nights. Here’s what I’ve got coming up in the next few weeks, though you can see my plans have had to change somewhat to focus more on comfortable knits…

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The Big Fleecy

My boyfriend James has a RTW fleece that he loves, but it’s getting scraggly and it’s a bit too thin to be useful when we work outside a lot. He’s been bugging me to recreate him a new one for a while now, and I recently picked up KwikSew 2561 which I thought would be easier than just tracing his old one. He bought the fleece from cheapfabrics.co.uk since we knew how nice and thick it was from our earlier fleece adventures. After the mental gymnastics of the Pendleton wool jacket, I decided it was time to make something simple!