Wednesday, April 2, 2008


I finished my devoré velvet skirt! I wore it at my cousin’s confirmation, after I hemmend it during the train ride to his place. The boys decorated the front garden with regional flags from the European west coast. On the photo I am standing in front of a flag of the northern German islands. “Rüm Hart, klaar Kiming” means “Big heart, clear view”, something like that in a regional language.

The velvet is from rayon with a silk back so I could etch out the twig motif, which comes from the batik I am going to use for a blouse. I took the pattern from a good-fitting purchased skirt. The lining is white for the contrast. The shirt pattern is from burda magazine august 2006. It has a shawl collar that becomes bands that are wrapped around the body. I made it from wool jersey.

These are garments number 3 and 4, additionally I have a pair of pants almost finished and two tops cut out, so I’m never going to make it before the deadline. I had thought that in spite of my busy work I could make 11 garments if I sewed one day per week on average, but I did not think of the people coming to visit and the family celebrations in the weekends, and the time it took to change my bedroom into my office/sewing room and vice versa… So now my plan is to finish until the end of the year by making about one SWAP-garment per month. Another resolution: I am only allowed to buy new fabric each time I used three fabrics from my stash.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Monday, January 21, 2008

first two pieces finished


I finished the first two pieces! Probably the two simplest ones. T-Shirts are the type of garment I need most, at least I tried to choose an interesting neckline and not to make the average sleeve length. I realized that the commitment to the SWAP contest makes me follow the instructions more thoroughly, so I really made a machine stitched blind hem (for the first time) and did not take any shortcuts.

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Score 2007

For the SWAP I plan to make 11 garments within 4 months.
I just went through how many I made last year. It’s 9 (nine).

Four are not wearable (what a yield!) but maybe not totally lost:
1) a long skirt of wool georgette, material turned out to be unsuitable to walk through scrub, seam worn to threads, may be reworked into a shorter skirt
2) a tunic from hemp and silk crinkle, made it a size bigger on purpose, but did not bear in mind that it becomes bigger anyway during wearing as the crinkle flattens, have to resize it
3) a blouse of white linen with rayon for my friend, it’s shine through, may be saved through dyeing
4) a T-shirt, it shrunk but the print did not suit me anyway, I only could make sleeves for another shirt out of it

Two pieces I wear:
5) grey slacks from wool crepe with silk lining
6) a jersey cardigan sweater to wear with a dress

Three pieces I wear AND LIKE a lot:
7) a festive dress from rayon crepe (the dress from 6)
8) a short green linen skirt with a wavelike parting from ottobre 2-2007
9) a “decent outdoor-skirt” from Nylon blend


here you see 9)
photos of 7) and 8) follow