Peasant Blouse

What a pleasure to sew this easy-peasy adult size peasant blouse from a FREE pattern I found on http://www.thingsofcloth.com/. I wanted to make one from new fabric I bought but since you are given instructions to make your own pattern, I decided to try it first on some older fabric I had in my stash. Teresa's instructions are great! I made my own pattern and although I made the first one a bit bigger to be sure, the pattern is perfect as is.

A close-up view of the stunning fabric with red roses border and the sleeves which I also elasticated. It is such a cute blouse. I bought this cotton fabric for making a bag but I think it looks so much better in a blouse!

I have cut out two more of this pattern and am busy making a pink floral blouse at the moment. I highly recommend this pattern. Thank you Teresa for great instructions and a fab pattern!

Purple is the colour!

LOVE this bright purple fabric! It's another jersey knit I recently purchased. I was browsing in one of my favorite clothing stores looking for ideas and found a lovely knit skirt that I copied here. The skirt has 4 panels in a A-line that you sew together and then a contrasting band at the bottom and knit ribbing for the waistline.

So easy to sew on and it looks lovely. This is a closer view of the ribbing waistline. This purple fabric is really something. I sewed the ribbing on without making any changes to it, but after walking down the hallway (fortunately at home!) the other night and finding it suddenly difficult to walk, I have changed my mind! I looked down and the skirt was around my knees! Oh dear, I need to take in the ribbing as this cannot happen in public.

Another view of the skirt showing the contrasting plain black jersey knit hem. I really like this skirt. It was so easy to sew and wears like a dream too. I will be making more of these soon.

Mix & Match dress

Ta da! Finally, a picture of the mentioned Mix & Match dress I mentioned in a previous post. This dress is from a pattern published in the Spring issue of Stitch magazine, by Interweave. You can download a FREE copy of the full-size pattern (and several others) from their website right now at www.interweavestitch.com. I made the dress from bright pink jersey knit fabric I had in my stash and used plain black for the sleeves and the contrasting band in the front.

I made a few alterations to the pattern though. As the dress is very lose I added ties. This is the back view with the ties. I also used the ruffle neckline methods as posted by both Kate at http://curiositys.wordpress.com and Rae at http://madebyrae.blogspot.com recently during Rae's Spring Top Week. It came out lovely and was so easy to do!

Fabulous Dresses!

I did some great sewing this weekend! I made two fabulous skirts (sorry, no pictures yet!), a dress and started on another dress yesterday. I have recently started buying the Burda Fashion magazine locally and just love the patterns inside, even if most are too big for me. I made the BIG mistake to visit the website on Friday night and saw pictures of what will be featured in the next issue - fabulous dresses! Do you think I can wait THREE WEEKS for the next issue to be available locally? No way! I HAVE to make this dress NOW.

Isn't this dress fabulous?! (The above dress is featured in the Burda Fashion Magazine, May 2009 issue). I cut out the fabric based on another dress pattern I have, modified the front for the overlap, but now I am stuck a bit. I am having a bit of trouble with sewing the overlap front neatly into the band just below the bust. I finally developed a headache last night from trying to make this work, so I gave up, for now. If anyone has some advice, please leave a comment!

I also wanted to share this fabulous FREE dress pattern. Recently, a new sewing magazine was launched - Stitch. Stitch is published by Interweave and the second issue just came out. It will only be available locally in June (takes about 2 months to get here!) but they post some of the projects on their website. If you are into sewing clothes, visit there website on http://www.interweavestitch.com and download the free patterns. There are three fabulous dresses, a biker (wrap) skirt and a cute bangle bag to choose from. My favorite is the Mix and Match dress which I already made this weekend in pink and black. I will post some pictures soon.

Hope you all had a great Mother's Day!

New skirt

This is made using my favorite skirt pattern, New Look 6735. This skirt has several panels and flair at the bottom. This is another colour of the same green stretch knit fabric I used for the dress I made. This fabric works so well with this kind of pattern as it is supersoft and hangs nicely.

Browsing through my book, Sew What! Skirts, looking for ideas on how to sew the elastic waistband, I decided to try the bias binding waistband. This was supereasy! You sew it the same way you sew bias binding to any edge but instead of overlapping the ends, you fold each end under and leave a gap so you can thread the elastic through. The book does not recommend you sew it closed afterwards, but seeing how the skirt came out the wash, I just might sew the two bias binding edges together by hand.

After seeing how nice the lilac bias binding looked at the waist, I decided to use the same bias binding to decorate the hem - or maybe I was just too lazy to sew a hem! I think it looks so nice. I just forgot to iron the bias binding hem!

New wardrobe!

I have forgotten how amazing it is to wear something you sewed yourself! On Monday I wore the skirt and matching bag I posted about last week, to work. It is so nice to know you made it yourself, never mind the money you saved by not buying it! Above a picture taken by my budding photographer son showing the skirt and matching bag.

You might remember that I made a contrasting yoke in this skirt. I tried to show the yoke in this picture, so that explains my clothing appearing a bit messed up!

I bought the March 2009 copy of Burda Fashion recently. One of the few sewing magazines sold locally, I really like this book. It is such a pity though that most of the patterns provided are too large for me. Why do most patterns start at size 36?! There was however one dress pattern inside that I really liked and although it was a size 34, I decided to make it. I used a lovely, soft stretch knit I recently bought.

Fortunately I bought matching plain green fabric as well and this was perfect for this pattern. The pattern has a stunning pleat feature that I tried to capture in this picture. It also called for a zipper under the arm. Now this fabric did not work well with a zipper at all! I had to unpick several times. In the end, the zipper was unnecessary as I can just slip the dress over my head without using the zipper! Maybe it is also because it was one size bigger than my normal size, but I must say, I would not like the dress to be tight!

I really like this dress! I added a frill at the bottom and also the green trim at the neckline and arms. I now find myself browsing clothing stores looking for ideas instead of actually buying. I get attracted to interesting embellished necklines and styles that I would like to copy. Whilst browsing I recently found this lovely skirt for just $6.

The skirt is marked as a size 34, but it is HUGE! I plan to make a pencil skirt using the current zip and waistband and there might even be enough fabric for a matching handbag! I am busy repurposing another skirt I found in the shops on sale for $3 at the moment. Watch this space for updates on these projects.

Facelift for Pinktulip!

A change is as good as a holiday, they say...Pinktulip has had a facelift. In view of the new interest in sewing clothing as well as bags and everything else, I think the new look fits perfectly.