'Sewing With a Plan' - winter completed, spring starting

In my slow fashion section I post the summary on my SWAP efforts over the year.

The winter period is now up (or actually it was up already before xmas). I had a very ambitious plan for winter - 7 garments of which I had tried non of the patterns before. No real quick projects either. And there was THE PANTS that I feared so much (and still do, to some extent).

The winter plan contained 2 dresses, 2 pants, 2 blouses and 1 jacket. I managed to finish both pants, one dress and exchanged one blouse for another:

The Thurlow #1 was blogged about here, Thurlow #2 here, and here. The bat wing blouse was blogged about here,  and Hazel dress here.

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Now, let's move on to the new plan - the SWAP of spring 2014!

Learning from my overly ambitions planning last time - and realising I'll have even less sewing time at hand during this next period I decided to aim for less. The SWAP states you should do 6 garments every season, so I feel totally rebellious showing a plan of only 4! Ha, ha.

I'll be going back to work soon, after almost a year on maternity leave, so I need to add some smartish outfits my wardrobe. The item I'm most excited about is the Anise jacket from Colette Patterns. I have never sewn a jacket before and I aim to make this one perfect! Gotta put the bar up high, right?

As any observant reader may notice, the fabric chosen for Anise is quite far from the samples I showed the other day (here). The reason is that I finally got around to check how much fabric I needed, which turned out to be a lot! Nearly 3y! So with the Harris Tweed costing a small fortune I chickened out and got some no name wool tweed from Sweden instead. It'll do just fine and has a spring feeling about it, I think. Besides, it is my first jacket and who nows how it'll turn out!


/Alexandra

Hazel Dress in all her glory on the darkest day of the year!

So she's done, my darling Hazel Dress from Victory Patterns.
This was an easy pattern to make except that I chose to make it in a very heavy, yet drapey (and slinky!!) rayon/viscose. It is very comfortable to wear so worth the slinkiness.

The only things I changed is that I made an FBA, as usual, and also took off 1cm each side of the shoulder width. Even on the pattern model you can tell that the sleeves start too far off the shoulders, and to be fair I think I could have taken an extra 2cm since my fabric stretches. I don't think the FBA was completely necessary this time, but if you're a picky person like moi...

Anyway... Today is the darkest day of the year in Sweden. The sun barely comes up at all and taking pictures is a struggle. Especially if it is also poring down with rain. Well, these photos are as good as we could get them today. This dress is my third garment of the winter SWAP by the way. Enjoy!

/Alexandra

Hazel dress on the way

I am almost done with Hazel Dress from Victory Patterns. It's about 20 minutes of work left on it and it's looking good so far. Very good! Hope to show it to you in the weekend along with a pattern review. Here's a teaser for ya:

Nothing beats some good ol' hand stitching... 

I also want to show you something else. I needed mittens desperately since Sweden is now a very cold place and my old ones have died. I didn't have any pattern to make them myself so I decided I should buy some from someone who did. On facebook I found a girl making mittens out of upcycled vintage fabrics and tacky old cross stitch pictures. This is really cool, in a (very) kitsch sort of way - and I liiiiike it!  Just imagine all the time that someone put into making that ship picture and then it's thrown on the scrap heap. So sad. But not this ship picture. Happy picture! I love upcycled stuff.

Other than sewing I had a minute over to make some bodybutter today. Doesn't it look yummy? It's so quick and easy to make that it would take you longer to buy it in a store than making it yourself. Plus I love knowing what's in it.

Fluffy fluff for my dry winter skin.

Have  a buttered up weekend! (cheesy? me?)
/Alexandra

Passing it on to the child

My 9y old daughter is now old enough to actually get involved in the process, not just to tell mummy to make something for her. In about a week we're off to the sun for some family vacation. The girls' closet inventory was pretty sad - man, they have grown! Some tank tops, shorts and skirts were needed.

So now I'm passing on the controls to the 9y old. She selected the patterns herself, traced them (I did help with the rotary cutter though) and she'll sew them herself this weekend. I love that she really seems to enjoy it - an interest we can really share!

Da child in action.

And when kids are getting busy, there is time for mama to do some things of her own! Like printing, cutting and taping 42 sheets of paper!!!! Those pdf- pattern downloads are always so nice in theory...

Soon, soon I get to start on my fabulous Hazel Dress from Victory Patterns! It is so amazingly beautiful, yet simple. I have bought really great quality viscose fabric with a beautiful drape - dark emerald in the upper and black in the lower part of the dress. This will be my winter party dress!! You can tell my expectations are pretty high. Failure is not an option, friends!

<3

Have a nice weekend. I just started the Friday night by smashing a glass of red wine all over the couch. That was just not right.

/Alex