Colette Violet

After a lot of hesitation I cut into my gorgeous fabric I got for my birthday...

I decided to make it into a Colette Violet, one of the patterns I got for my birthday.

I don't know where my head was at when I decided on the size to cut out, but it must have been lightyears away... I cut a size 12 while my actual size would be a 6... But I think I know where I went wrong.

You see, my actual bustsize is 32", which would be a size 6. But my RTW European size is 40, so I was looking at the table on the back of the pattern and I saw the number 40 and I must have thought "Oh, so I have to make a size 12". This didn't seem odd to me, because I have a Karen Millen dress that fits me perfectly and that dress is a UK size 12... Circumstancial confusion...

Fortunately I made a muslin first, something I usually never do, but because I love this fabric soooo much and I really didn't want to ruin it and because it cost a lot of money and because there were a lot of sheets left behind in the appartment we just bought, I decided to make a trial version first. I thought it was really big, but it didn't occur to me that it was not the pattern but me. So I replaced the darts, removed width from the front and removed width from the back, and on top of that I took in the side seams about 4 cm each... I guess there were enough signs there to know something was wrong... I just didn't see it...

The fabric is gorgeous but a real pain to sew. It is a silk-poly blend, but my machine handled it really really well. (I changed the needle to a 60, and tested different types of stitches to see what worked best. Did I mention I really didn't want to ruin this fabric?) The only thing that made it really nerve-wrecking was that when I put a pin in or when I was sewing my buttonholes, something happened to the threads of the fabric and I got tiny little white stripes. But you have to be really close by to see it, so it doesn't really matter.

Too bad for the little white stripes :-(

I inserted three times three buttonholes placed together and used buttons with 3 different shades of the same color. It's just a small detail, and maybe I'm the only one who notices, but I love it. I got the idea for the grouped buttonholes from the Colette-website, the ombre-effect buttons idea is all mine.

I like the result, it is not the best it could have been, but those who don't know about my stupidity confusion, won't notice...

Me Made May - Week 1 - Update

*** UPDATE***
I failed miserably during my first attempt at joining in on the MMM13-fun... The reasons why I failed are as follows:

1/ The weather - I don't have a lot of me-made winter clothes, and May was much like winter here... I got tired of wearing the same 5 things all the time pretty quickly.
2/ Moving house - We bought an apartment in March and moved in May, so I didn't want to ruin my hand-made things while filling and transporting boxes and painting and cleaning and so on.
3/ Daily photos - I got tired of this before I got tired of wearing the same thing over and over again.

Next year I will be entering again, and I am counting on it that the weather will be better, although I have a few cold-weather proof items that I am planning. Think pencil-skirts (adore those!), another Violet, another pair of trousers (I just wore out my last pair of jeans :-(  and maybe a Watson-cape.

Hope I do better next year... 

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The first week of Me Made May is coming to an end, and it was easier than I thought even though the weather wasn't really perfect for all the summery dresses I have waiting to show you.

As I said in my pledge, I will wear at least one Me-made item of clothing everyday, but I will have repeats, I am just the kind of girl that wears the same outfit more than one day in a row...

Here are the pictures of last week. I only have 3 pictures of me actually wearing my creations due to the bad weather and because my photographer wasn't around a lot last week. Hopefully next week will be better... Once we get the hang of things and kind of develop a routine, I'm sure the pictures will improve.

 First up, my polkadot blouse. Looks pretty from afar, but is far from pretty up close. The fabric I bought at a local fabric store here in Santander and was from the remnants table. The pattern came from Patrones, the Spanish version of Burda. If you think Burda is scarce with explanations, Patrones is even worse. You can't see it in this picture, nor when I am wearing the shirt, but I couldn't manage to sew on the front piece like it was supposed to be, so there are gaps on both sides of the shirt, yes actual holes where I can fit my finger through!

The Dress is a completely different story. It is Butterick 5559. It came together really easy, the fit is fantastic and I look kick-ass in it. Pictures of me wearing the dress will probably soon be up, because it is one of my favourite pieces of clothing. I made this with a fabric from my stash. I bought it last year in London and it is just fantastic... 

The inspiration for making this dress came from this post. I have another knit sitting in my stash and I am almost 100% sure I'm making this dress again. That way I will have a winter version and a summer version. YES!

Sunday we had great weather so we went for icecream and a nice picture. The pattern for the tunic comes from Knipmode, a Dutch magazine and I got the fabric at a fabric-/DIY-fair in Belgium.

The second one is Colette's Violet in a silky fabric from Rafael Matias in Bilbao, my new fabric-walhalla. I'm planning a post on my Violet later, so you will definitely see more of that one. Sorry for the hair in this picture, today was not my best-hair day ever...

The pants are a Burda pattern and the fabric is also a London find. They're really comfortable and great for a cool spring day. Too bad I only have one single sweater that goes with them...And my right leg looks really weird in this picture, in real life my butt looks better, believe me...

In addition to wearing a me-made garment everyday I am actually working on two other projects and have another three queued up after those and bought a two patterns for a skirt because I don´t have any decent skirt that fits me properly... So I will be back soon. 

XO

My man´s new shirt

One of the fabrics from my Birthday Batch was a blue plaid, sought out by my husband for the shirt I promised him more than a year ago.

I used this pattern, view E, the cowboy version. I made him the smallest size, and although I like the way it fits around his body, the sleeves are to short and the collar is too narrow, the upper button doesn't close without him choking, which could come in handy in the future, but for now I enjoy having him around... (Just kidding!) So next time I'll be sewing a bigger size.

On this blog I saw another version of this shirt, and I really, really like it. I'll try to remember next time to cut the yokes and pockets on the bias. I messed around a lot trying to line up the stripes, but it didn´t work out entirely. I'll also have to buy more fabric next time if I want to put the bias-plan into action...

He was very excited about having his own photoshoot, he kept inventing new poses and wouldn´t let me stop taking pictures, so here they are: my man (Am I not the luckiest girl in the world?) and his shirt...

ME-made May 13

Today I signed up for my very first sewing challenge ever, the Me-Made May 13 challenge, hosted by Zoe from So, Zo... What do you know?

I´m really excited about this, because there are quite a few things that I have made over the past couple of years that I have shamelessly neglected and I´m really looking forward to rediscovering those and others that I wear practically every week, so now I have an excuse to wear those even more.

My pledge goes as follows: "I, Wendy of CoserCosas, sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May '13. I endeavour to wear at least one piece of self-made garment each day for the duration of May 2013".

I really hope I can accomplish this, I think I have enough self-made garments to make it through the month of May, although I didn´t promise to not repeat an outfit because my wardrobe is not entirely filled with homemade clothing.

I will be posting my worn me-mades during the month of May right here.

Now let's hope the weather in May is kind to us, as I usually make cotton dresses and I hate being cold...