The SC & more n°331: Faites de la Musique

 I sing in the German-French Choir of my town. I really enjoy it and we've just had our summer concerts. We usually wear black trousers or skirts, but just two weeks before the concerts, my black trousers abandonned me (read: big holes that I could not repair). I did not want to go shopping, I never find anything I really like and that really suits me. So I took out my old Burda magazines and chose a pattern.

 

 

Picture for the Museum, visit the page for more creations

 And now I have a skirt that I LOVE! It's shape is quite flattering, it does even "hide" my belly ;)
Now, the SC & more challenge for this week has the "Fête de la Musique" for theme, or rather "Faites de la Musique" - make music. I am not out of topic since the skirt was sewn for my choir singing. My favourite part of the skirt: the pockets! I love the cherries ^^.

The SC & more n°329: Fox

This week we are invited at Jessica's, her chosen them: Fox. Inspiration was hard to find, until I opened my small cupboard with my fleece fabrics. I had this bright orange coupon which was shouting "use me!" pretty loudly. So even though it is not really the season for scarf, I made one. I will probably use it as a Christmas present next december ;)

I didn't want to make it too long, I just wanted the scarf to be wrapped around the neck. It is quite cosy and warm.
The tail was planned differently, longer, pointier BUT I had a small mishap while sewing: I forgot to mirror the two pieces. Undoing a seam on fleece is a nightmare, so I just shortened it. Next time I'll pay better attention.

Check out the Museum

How do you like it? I can hardly wait for the next challenge on Friday :)

Full-circle skirt

 Hi everybody! I am slowly trying to get back to blogging. Somehow I fell out of my rythm, I just need a little bit of time to get back on track.

I also decided to try making more clothes for myself. I cannot really find what I like in the shapes and colours that I like. I also haven't got my pre-children shape yet (don't know if I'll ever get back to it though), which makes clothing myself pretty difficult.

Recently got a pile of old fabrics from my mother-in-law, I already used one of them and made a full-circle skirt. The fabric used to be an old curtain, but I like it better as a skirt. The fabric feels both light and heavy, it has a nice drape.

It does twirl so very nicely!

This skirt is one of my little girl's dream come true! The twirling, the colours, everything! The only thing missing is a petticoat underneath the skirt. I need volume, when I stand the fabric falls along my legs at the back. That part does not look too good. But hopefully I'll soon be able to correct this.

How do you like this skirt?

15 and a half years...

 Fifteen and a half years, this is how long it took me to finally finish a knitted scarf. I never really took to knitting, but somehow this project was always there and I never even thought of unraveling it to use the yarn for something else. I still like the colours and they kind of fit with my current clothes. Yeah!

Basically I met a french lady a couple of months ago, we hit it off and she told me how much she likes knitting. 

 She gave me enough encouragement and motivation to actually finish it. I didn't have much left to do, neither did I have much yarn. So I completed the last pink part, cast off and crocheted the two ends together. 

 Instead of making a scarf, I made a loop. How about that?

 I am pleased with myself: my project is finished! I have the needles free again. And to be honest, I was so proud and happy that I started a new knitting project right away! It is currently on hold because I need more yarn, but when I am on it, it goes quite fast and the knitting is fairly even. I am using bamboo needles and find them very comfortable.

Let's see if I can finish this second loop before the end of the year, that'd be a tremendous improvement on the first one :)

Wishing you all a lovely day

Jumper refashioning

As I wrote in my previous article, I have to take care of my to-do pile. On Sunday and yesterday I did my "three pieces a week": a black cardigan that just needed a 4cm seam (why on Earth did I have to wait a year to do it??) and two jumpers.

Those two jumpers I really liked, but I am not so much into jumpers anymore, I prefer cardigans, they are easier to put on and off. 

This blue-stripped one is quite old and I've liked it very much, but I gave it a new life as a skirt!

Not the most beautiful pattern but it is comfy and I won't hesitate to get it dirty playing with my children ;)

This other jumper was bought in England together with a very dear friend of mine who bought its twin! But unfortunately I could not wear it anymore, I am a few years older and I've had two children... my figure isn't what it used to be ;) but I really did not want to get rid of it. So I refashioned it.

Here is how the jumper looked when I first bought it.

And here's how it looks like now.

I simply made a cut in the middle, pierced holes and crocheted an edge. It isn't completely symmetric but I did it in the evening when it was getting dark (rather lame excuse but well :-p )

What do you think?

Carnival costumes

Tomorrow is "Fasching" (carnival)! My daughter, N., needs a costume for the Kindergarten. At first it took her a while to know what she wanted to be, but in the end I managed to make her stop on the butterfly-idea ;)

 With cardboard, felt and elastic bands I made the wings, the hairband is covered with a spool-knitted string and the antennas are made of pipe cleaners. I was quite happy to find out I had matching-ish colours!
It was a fairly quickly made costume and we are looking forward to her wearing it tomorrow!

Her brother, T., does not go to the Kindergarten and therefore does not require a costume, but I thought it rather unfair to only work for N., so I made him (in less than 4 hours!) a dinosaur costume!!

 I worked without pattern, just from ideas picked/seen on Pinterest. The cape with hood is less then a full circle and attached with a velcro band. For the hood part, I traced my pattern around one of T.'s current jacket hoods. The "spikes" are made of fleece (two layers). It was quick, it was easy, it was fun! After discovering the costume, N. also asked if she could have such a tail, but so far she hasn't asked again. So I'll just wait a bit before making another one!

Then I decided to make something for myself as well. I have always loved dressing up so I really could not let the occasion pass ;)
Mine will be a little more permanent.
Four years ago my mother-in-law had given me fabric + bust part from an old Dirnl dress (you know the bavarian style dresses?). Four years ago I had made a very quick transformation to have a medieval-ish looking costume to gain free entrance to a castle fest day:

 

I had not touched it since. This time I thought I'd make it better looking. White satin like fabric from old bedlinen, white stretchy velvet like fabric from my stock accompanied the original brown fabric.

First the skirt

My little helper. He loved putting needles in the fabrics!

I made an awful mess with the zipper, trying to make it invisible!

 Then I added sleeves. The bust part was far too open at the back, one could really see my bra which is something I really feel uncomfortable with.

I also made myself a mini-crown from a toilet roll with golden paint and an elastic band:

 I added a veil for good measure and good (?) looks. And here is the final result:

It is a little tight at the waist, I will need to loose a little bit of weight in the next years if I want to be able to wear it again. The sleeves are a tad short, so next year I will probably add a little bit of lace or something.

On the whole I am pleased with all three costumes and I find it almost a shame that the Kindergarten has not invited parents and sibblings to their party ;)

Black&Red

Two years ago I started a project for my mother-in-law but I didn't get round to finishing it. This year I finally did! Woohoo! And I think it looks prettier than what I had in mind at the time.

Using a flower loom I spool-knitted three large tubes and then plated them to make a scarf.

 With two beads and two pompons to finish it, I think it looks very decorative and festive.

Then the loom was back to its proper us: making flowers. I made one big flower out of the same wool as the scarf and attached it to a bought plain black hat.

 And finally, still in red, I embroidered two hearts on the back of the matching black gloves.

Made with love, that was the Christmas present for my mother-in-law. I hope she will enjoy wearing them as much as I enjoyed making them!

Sewing for a wedding - part 4 (my dress)

Now I am getting to our clothes, and I'll begin with my dress. If you remember I started with this burda pattern and those two fabrics (one light cotton and one lace):

I started working on it on a weekend at my in-laws. They have a larger diner table and the children were a little less in my way. It is actually quite amazing how much you can get done when your two little ones aren't running around ;)

In just a couple of hours I had everything cut, and the first layer pinned, ready to be tried on:

I was very nervous about cutting the lace. It is rather expensive fabric, so I didn't want to make a false move. In the end I had way more than enough of it, I could almost have cut two dressed in it!

It was an early summer wedding and my sister kept saying that she had "ordered" sunshine for the day, so I chose to leave out the sleeves, the cut looked good enough without.

The lace was surprisingly uncomplicated and nice to sew. It is almost impossible to separate two pieces again though. The thread was of the perfect shade and it was extremely difficult to make out which thread was part of the lace and which was part of the seam!

 Everything seemed to fall right into place. And I got to use my sewing-mannequin for the first time. And then... well, I've got a dress that I simply love! 

 

It is very light and comfortable. Bonus point: I don't need to iron so carefully the underskirt, we hardly see it under the lace.