Just a Quick Note

Hi everyone!
I just realized I haven't posted in a month. There are a lot of wonderful things happening in my life at the moment. I'm meeting and re-connecting with lots of wonderful people who are all somehow connected with my interests and who are offering me wonderful opportunities. For example, my best friend's cousin is belly dancing and would like me to sew costumes for her. I'm really scared to do this one, though. Then, I re-connected with a friends from elementary school (gotta love the Facebook) and he's a yoga master and his club needs someone to sew tunics and pants for them. Talk about coincidences and opportunities.

Then, the best news I've had in a long time: I found a wonderful fashion summer course in Italy, I want to attend next year. It's a fashion design course and involves everything from designing to pattern drafting to sewing on industrial machines. Plus it's designed to meet the needs of individuals and to the level they are at. It's not cheap, so I'm saving all my cents, because this would be a dream come true for me (well, one of the dreams anyway). I started learning Italian and I'm getting the basics down pretty fast. The classes are available in English, but I'd like to shop (did I mention the school's in Milan) and order food in Italian.
Consequently, I applied for a position at a multi-brand store and I'm waiting to hear from them sometime next week. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for this one.

As for the sewing, I'm working on the Vogue 8386 dress. I've cut it out and sewed the bodice parts. I'm planing on finishing it this weekend.

New Addition to My Sewing Room

This is the newest addition to my sewing room. It's an old Singer Hartley machine. I bought it off from a friend who wanted to throw it away (!!!!).
I have no idea which year it is from. It's still working though. I haven't tried it on the fabric yet, I still have to figure out how to thread it :)

Here are some detailed shots:






Isn't it pretty?

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Update on my machine: It's working perfectly. Apparently it can't sew with the thick denim thread. I took it to the shop and they checked it and it sewed perfectly. It wasn't until I got home and tried it again, that I discovered that the thread was the problem, not the machine. Knowing that before hand would have saved me some time and an embarrassing moment in the shop. But hey, it's working and I saved some money.

Plans and a Request

Today while I was trying to hem some RTW jeans, my machine got jammed, well actually the jeans and the thread got jammed, and while I was trying to save the jeans, I must have moved something inside the machine. My machine is a bit off now and doesn't sew nice stitches. I'm taking it to the shop on Monday morning.

Anyway, this leaves me time to do some planning. I made a promise to myself that I will try to sew as many summer fabrics as I can before the summer is over.
And the other promise I made myself is that I will try to incorporate more dresses and skirts into my wardrobe.

First thing on my list is the Vogue 8386 dress that I will be making in this brown and white knit fabric:


Then, I'll be making the Vogue 8489 using this off-white knit with red dots:


Then there are two fabrics I don't have patterns for yet. The white cotton eyelet will definitely become a skirt. I'm leaning towards wide gathered-at-the-waist style.



And then is this knit fabric:

This fabric has been in my stash for 2 years now and I love it. I'd love to make a dress, but I'm having issues with the print. The print is quite big, so I'd need a pattern with minimum seams, but a style that would complement this sort of tribal print. Any ideas for the pattern?


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As for the request: Would anyone be interested in making a swap? I have this Patrones Ninos magazine. It's spring/summer 2009 issue. I'd like to swap it for the new Vogue 1119 dress pattern.
Here are some photos of the magazine:




Anyone interested in a swap can contact me at: aikkam [at] gmail [dot] com

Hot Patterns: Weekender Sunshine Tops - Review

Pattern Description: Relaxed scoop neck tops gathered onto a deep neckband, choice of short, cap or no sleeves and 2 lengths plus banded finish.

Pattern Sizing: Multisize 6-26. I made my muslin in size 8, which should be the right size for me according to my measurements. I found it to be too big, so I made my final garment size 6.

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Yes, except mine looks ore gathered at the front.

Were the instructions easy to follow? I actually followed the instructions on Pam's Off the Cuff blog.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern? I love the style of this top. I, however, don't like the gaping neckband at the back. I had to re-draft the neckband piece.

Fabric Used: Rayon - lycra knit with a wonderful drape.

Pattern Alterations or any design changes you made: As I mentioned before, I first made this top in size 8. First thing I did, in order to fix all the gaping parts, was I went down a size. That solved everything except the gaping at the back. I took some scraps and made a neckband piece and played with it and slashed it until I got the desired effect. Here's how my pattern pieces look like:
The red lines are alteration lines.

This is the neckband piece looks like after using my pattern alterations.

You might be wondering where did this brown come from... Well, I wanted to have a contrasting neckband, but the final look was just not what I had pictured in my mind :)

As you can see, due to all the alterations, the neckband piece turned out quite pointy. The red lines on the right are the stitching lines (except less wonky, I can't draw with my mouse). I went in 2cm on the inner edge of the neckband because I found the original too wide. On the outer edge, I just smoothed out the pointy part.

I interfaced the inner neckband piece with Sew Exciting's Pro-Tricot Fusible interfacing and I truly cannot say enough good things about this interfacing.

I also didn't use the ribbing on the waistband. I used my fabric and made 2 bands 14cm wide, folded them in half and sewed them to the top using a narrow zig-zag stitch.


Back of the top:


Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? After the alterations I made, I will definitely sew this top again. And I do recommend it to others.

Conclusion: I have to admit I was a bit frustrated with the neckband, since I didn't find any reviewers who had this problem. But, as they say, all's well that ends well. All in all, this is a great top and I'm sure I'll be making a few more.

Hot Patterns: Weekender Sunshine Tops

photo credits: Hot Patterns


I just made a muslin for this top. It was supposed to be a wearable muslin, but I have some fitting issues with it, so it ended up being just a muslin.

The front view:


First of all, I had to sew the side seams 2cm wide (instead of 1cm), to eliminate the gaping at the armhole. That fixed it a bit, but unfortunately not entirely, as you can see from the photo.
Also, you can see that the neckband doesn't lay completely flat.

One even bigger issue I have, is the gaping at the back:



I think making it in size 6 should fix these issues. Even the gaping at the back, or should I make additional alterations. What do you think?

Burda 06/2007 #119 Skirt

There's a funny story behind this skirt. I made it yesterday and only today while I was writing my review on PR, I realized that the pattern was in fact a bubble hem skirt pattern. Well, I'll be darned..
However, there were some clues along the way, but I guess my mind was off yesterday. First clue should be that the pattern called for lining and that the lining was a lot shorter than the skirt. Then the fact that I had to shorten the skirt length by 20cm should be another.

However, I love my new skirt:


I wore it to lunch today and I got compliments on it; so it's all good.
Anyhow, lesson learned: it's ok not to read the instructions once in a while and that mistakes truly are design options.

Here's another photo where colours are more true:


For more information and more pictures check out my review on PR: click


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On a different note, there are a few sales going on: Sew Exciting is having an interfacing sale; then Ann at Gorgeous Fabrics is having one and also Hot Patterns have one.
Make sure to check them out :) Oh, And I'm not in any way affiliated with any of them

Cleaning Up

I finally had some time off to clean and organize my sewing room. I re-folded my stash and organized it according to fabric type:
top shelf: knits
bottom shelf: wovens


Here are my nicer and more expensive fabrics:
top shelf from left to right: knits, wovens and miscellaneous fabrics
bottom shelf: wools and coating fabrics and my mom's fabric

As you can see I don't really have much of a stash; at least not as large as I've seen them online.


As for the patterns, I do have many of them.
I keep my patterns in brown manila envelopes which are then placed in plastic bins: (these are not all the bins I have)


I store my magazines in these magazine holders from Ikea.
(from left: Japanese magazines, Patrones - 2 holders, Rundschau Damen magazines and Threads magazines)


I don't save Burda magazines as they take too much space. I cut out the fashion pictures of the patterns I like and store them in 4-ring binders according to pattern type:


These binders also hold my envelope patterns together with their traced versions:
(yes, I trace all my patterns)


Every binder is labelled according to the type of pattern it holds.


I do photocopy Styles at Glance pages and keep them in a separate binder and I mark the technical drawings I like:


Traced magazine patterns and self-drafted patterns are stored in sheet protectors with quick reference and pattern number:


This is how I organize my stash. It took me a few days to get it done, but I really like having all my patterns stored in binders. I tried different storage options before and this one takes up least space and is the cleanest, at least for my taste.