Showing posts with label fabric. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fabric. Show all posts

Wednesday, 25 January 2017

White, grey, all the colours


WHITE: this box, its contents, and snow.


Me and daughter went to buy the box and its contents on a day when the city was covered in dirty slush. She spent the whole time wishing she lived in the countryside where the cold is prettier, much to the chagrin of me and her dad - we both escaped from rustic tedium as soon as we could, but does she appreciate the bright lights of the big smoke? Does she crap. Ah, the circle of generational resistance! She also filled my phone with random pictures in and from the shop. This view of the car park is the only one in focus.


The box and its contents cost almost 1400 euros. Well, I suppose the box was free. The contents are for my sister's wedding dress. Am I insane? Yes, probably. I have until 6 May.  A mock up has been done, and I only have about 4 pages of adjustments to make before the next one.


Good thing I asked for a whole bunch of tailoring and couture-appropriate sewing supplies for Christmas, really.  Here's hoping it all makes the wedding dress sewing a total breeze. That's likely, right?


GREY: January, my mood, some yarn.


The above was a grey afternoon earlier this month when I cut out an admittedly not-grey dress (an Elisalex, should you be interested) which I am now wearing, as I write. That fabric combined with my blue cardigan makes me feel a little like I'm in school uniform, which is not exactly lifting my spirits.You can hear the grey mood, can't you? I've basically been a total misanthrope for the last two months, December's final week of food, booze and chocolate excepted. I expect I'll cheer up soon. But it probably explains my growing addiction to Noro yarn.


The trick with Noro yarn is to always buy it on sale. Although unless you are very strong willed you will cancel out the savings by buying so much of it your cupboard is overflowing with the brightly-coloured nubbly stuff and you have no idea what you will do with it all.

I am not very strong willed.

For balance, I have combined this radiant rainbow of a skein - so the scarf is at least semi-sophisticated - with a contrasting solid colour. Yes, more grey.


But, see this next knitted thing: ALL THE COLOURS!


Yes, I do already have a (not-combined-with-grey) Noro scarf thing. Which is just as well, because above-mentioned daughter has already claimed the new one for when its done.

I like how the fringe on this one makes me feel like a hippy.


In other news, I have been investigating (i.e. buying supplies for) cross stitch. Because I need a new hobby like I need a hole in the head. But hey, variety is the spice of life - and totally not a "I'm scared of sewing a wedding dress" distraction!

*      *      *

I think I might be here more frequently, maybe, from now on. But less, well, I don't know - I might ramble and there might be less crafts. It's time... time to let some of the writing out...

I hope you are well, dear friends! Belated happy 2017! What are you working on to start your year?


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Thursday, 27 October 2016

La Maison Victor: Fran dress

You know a dress is a winner when you wear it to work on your birthday and two separate people ask if you're pregnant when you're most definitely not.

Yeah. That happened.




Fortunately, I have now officially reached the age of Give No Sh*ts (see also: pink hair; tattoo). Turns out that people find it extra doubly embarrassing when you refuse to be embarrassed by their embarrassing remark - and friends, I must admit that I found it just ever so slightly EXTREMELY satisfying to see them squirm.




Plus, besides the Giving of No Sh*ts, I had fashion on my side. OVERSIZED IS A THING! And why should those of us who know that be cowed by the maternity assumptions of those who don't?!! It's hella wide and gloriously comfortable!




So, reasons why this is a brilliant dress:

1. Shape: on trend! (Probably. Right? I don't really care anyway!)

2. Fabric: viscose! FABRIC OF THE GODS. Light and flowy and warm YES PLEASE THANK YOU, especially for only 6 euros/metre (Brusselites, get yourselves to Berger, they currently have it in various prints).

3. Fit: nailed! You'd think a loose dress like this doesn't need much fitting, but it's absolutely got to hang right or it really will resemble a maternity outfit. I started with my high bust measurement, traced off the corresponding size and then...
  • Added a dart. Much as I love the dartless FBA, given that I was adding 2" width to a woven bodice, I wanted more precision. I used the paper pattern piece to locate my bust point and determine where/how long I wanted it, and I must say it turned out perfect. You'd hardly know it's there. STEALTH DART!
  • Lengthened the bodice centre front by 1", i.e. also more room for the boobs.
  • Shortened the bodice centre back by 1", i.e. swayback adjustment.
  • Did a 1cm forward shoulder adjustment and...
  • ... a 0.5cm narrow shoulder adjustment.




Guys, this dress fits so well it actually feels weird! I have NEVER before worn a dress that didn't constantly need to be pulled forward, and where the sleeves sit perfectly on the edge of my shoulders. Or a dress with a gathered rectangle skirt that didn't ride up in front and hang low at the back. The whole thing just stays put where it is, from the moment I put it on. It's like a whole new way to wear clothes! And it's incredible what a difference this all makes to how flattering it is ("when's it due" questions aside). It is far superior to my Lucie dress - which is very much the same shape and concept, but infinitely less wearable because I didn't make the same adjustments.




Yep. That's my face for "I Officially Love This Dress".

Almost as much as I Officially Love Biscuits And Cake.

OK actually maybe I can understand the pregnancy comments after all.

(Pattern: Fran dress, La Maison Victor, 3rd edition 2016. Slight hang-ups about other people's opinions: model's own)


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Monday, 14 March 2016

Summit solace pyjamas

Well, my dears. Hello!  How are you?  I'd love to offer you a cup of tea, if only the internet wasn't in the way, but there we go.  Let's just do the chatting part, shall we? I've missed you!

So, I mentioned a little while back that I've been working more these last months. Since the beginning of this year, things have really kicked off, and in a pretty fun way too. I LOVE my job now! It scores high points in the European-politics-geek league, I get to run around doing things I'm good at and like doing, so it's all good. But. Of course there's a But! The But is: I'm running out of space in my head for sewing.

Cue small-scale identity crisis, which at least added some interest to February so it wasn't all bad.  But I've spent almost five years leaving work at lunchtime and putting it immediately behind me, with oodles of afternoon ahead for playground knitting, short but frequent snatched sewing breaks, and - most importantly - the mental space to consider myself a full-time sewer who just happened to have a part-time job (and children. I haven't forgotten them, they're just not really relevant to the discussion at hand!) And now? I feel like I'm learning how to be myself again, with the goalposts truly and thoroughly moved. Not bad, just very different - and occasionally a little disconcerting. Just what kind of a sewer and/or person am I now?? (A post for another day, that!)




Anyway. How very greatly I'm appreciating the sewing that does happen! These Carolyn pyjamas - my first pair but, I very much hope, not my last - have been in almost constant use since I finished them in early January. In terms of sewing-effort investment, pyjamas offer a particularly high value return, don't they? You can wear them All. The. Time! (Almost).  A good pair of pyjamas is like the very best kind of friend, the one that knows exactly when and how to administer big hugs (and when not to). Especially when they're made of double gauze.

(The pyjamas. I don't have friends made of double gauze). (Yet).

And have piping everywhere.

And BOUND BUTTONHOLES!
(because my sewing machine's buttonhole function is officially shit)




Imagine, if you will, coming home from a summit at 3am (yes, dear readers, this happened to me).  You may have spotted various heads of state, but that's not enough to cheer up the prospect of being back there at 9am the next morning. All you have is the prospect of about 4 hours sleep, and you desperately want to make the most of it. What - what, I ask you?! - could possibly be better at that moment than the soft, comforting embrace of home made sleepwear? (Well, not finding a small child occupying my side of the bed would have been better I suppose. But that's not something I can sew a solution to).




I adore them, in all their crinkly, nubbly-fabricked, collar sticking-up glory. (The pyjamas, not the small child who regularly intrudes upon my bed. Obviously I love him, but, well, he's not made of double gauze is he? And he wriggles).

By the way: slim fitting pyjama bottoms* are the bomb. So much comfier than extra fabric bunching up where you don't want it. (*Feel free to snigger: I said bottoms!! Or have I been hanging around with the daughter too much?)

Anyway, that's me back on the blogging wagon. Clearly, blog writing is taking a bit of a backseat at the mo, what with wanting to spend my spare time on actual sewing and stuff - but I miss it, I like this little space which has brought me so many on and offline friends! (And which provides for all my sewing-related brain dump needs...)  I've been wondering about just deciding to do a random little post once a week or so, instead of waiting to have something to write about - those are actually my favourite kind of posts to read these days, so it feels like it makes sense. So, who knows. Hopefully I'll 'see' you again soon!

And for today - tell me: do you have multiple identities or roles to play? (No doubt - we all do!) What place does sewing take in them? Would less time sewing make you question your own existence, too?



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Tuesday, 12 January 2016

Maxi cardi

Hello and Happy New Year my dears! Having gone all seasonal in my last post, I have nothing January-appropriate to say for myself - no resolutions, reflections, what-have-you - unless you count the inner ROAR of happiness I did yesterday when my order of Jungle January appropriate fabric arrived.  Now if only I can find the time to actually sew it up...




Last September I started working four full days a week again. For the four previous years, I worked five mornings a week and spent the afternoons at home or out and about with my kids - and I honestly hadn't realised just how much sewing (or playground knitting) this allowed me to get done. Between the homework, the after-school activities, the washing and all the other household stuff, I was nonetheless managing to squeeze in a good hour or more of making most days. I got out of work with half the day's energy left, and the older the kids got, the freer my hands became. Happy days. Productive ones!

Now, however. Ugh. By the time we all get home, I'm knackered. By the time we've all eaten and the kids have gone to bed, I'm good for nothing but lounging, and possibly knitting, on the sofa. And it turns out that one simply cannot get as much sewing done in one day off as one would over a few afternoons. One needs breaks, and sometimes one is just not in the mood to sew all day anyway.  And so, I have recently come to the sad realisation that, for the time being, I am just going to have to accept that I can't sew as much as I want, in either time or output.

Now, this change was for the sake of a job I like very much, which is working out well, and while I do miss my afternoons, I wouldn't change things back (at least not quite yet). But still, it is with rather bittersweet feelings today that I'm blogging one of the relatively few things I managed to make this autumn. As with many a successful project, this one finished with me on a creative high, full of enthusiasm to make more! fantastic! things! But looking at these pictures several weeks later, all I can feel is impatience and frustration at not having done so yet.  Which is a shame, because this make was (is) absolutely not disappointing or frustrating at all.  In fact, it's a winner.




It's a hot pink wool jersey knee-length cardigan. Hot pink! Wool jersey! Knee-length cardigan! I just love everything about it! I'm blaming the Esme maxi cardigan by Named, it just wouldn't get out of my head, and when I realised I could make something very similar using the Oslo pattern I already had, it was basically a foregone conclusion.  I spent a long time searching for a (possibly mythical) kind of funky, chunky boucle fabric - including draping myself with about every expensive wool knit on Goldhawk Road when I met up with Jane, Marilla and Jenna in October - before deciding that this fabric in my stash would suit me better anyway (I really don't do chunky very well at all). It's a wool knit which came home from another sewing meet up, the legendary Paris visit in November 2014.  I love it so much, I had been fearful of making the wrong thing with it ever since. Fortunately, this was absolutely the right thing!




Hot pink is definitely my colour :-)  And this fabric is truly lush: soft and springy, with a cool feel and a robust but drapy hand - being wrapped in it for almost the entire length of my body is basically like being swaddled in hug all day.  A hug with - of course - pockets! The Oslo pattern is ideal for adding nice deep pockets to - you just add some length to the side front panel and then fold it back up on itself; the whole thing gets sewn into place when you attach the side seams and front/neck band.  Clear as mud? Like so:




While I very carefully calculated the length I wanted before cutting (to make sure those pockets would be in exactly the right place), I left button placement for the very end. I'm glad I did so for a couple of reasons. One is that I couldn't have accurately guessed where they needed to go anyway - the top button sits right on my low waist, much higher than I would have expected but holding things perfectly in place around my midriff. The other reason is that I really wasn't sure about the width of the neckband. And indeed, when I first tried the finished cardigan on, I was just swamped in fabric - it looked sloppy and way too much for my figure (ha! My, er, waif-like frame...). I ended up folding the entire neckband back on itself in half, and stitching it down to the seam allowance to hold it in place.  This looks MUCH better on me.

Of course, now the neckband was half the width, it was also twice the layers of fabric. Buttonholes were an issue. Thick jersey is not the easiest to put buttonholes in, and my machine has been making a spectacular mess of them recently anyway. So, I improvised, and hereby present my first ever half-assed bound buttonholes!!




They're not real bound buttonholes, obviously, because I did them last and thus had no means to cover up the back nicely. I trimmed as neatly as possible and handstitched the little pieces of fabric at the back with a blanket stitch. I think it came out pretty good given the thickness of the material, and they're not visible anyway - all in all, I'm really pleased with the solution. Plus, I love the big shiny buttons.




So yes, you can probably tell there's a lot I like about this maxi cardi. Quite apart from being super comfy, it also feels very stylish in a slightly different, little bit low key, not-trying-too-hard kind of way. It garners compliments, especially on the colour - people love to tell me how bright I am when I'm wearing it.




Which is great, because I also made a matching hot pink hat:




This is deceptively simple pattern. While I'm completely in awe of Anneke's hat knitting improv, I am the opposite kind of knitter and I like my hand held by people who have done more of it than me, so I bought some instructions for what looks like a very plain hat. And it is a very plain hat, but it's also perfectly shaped with a delicious double brim, and there is no way I could have worked it out by myself.  Supporting independent knit designers for the win! Should you be a raveller, my notes are here - and can I just say how much I LOVE Ravelry? My goodness, what a resource, and what lovely, knowledgeable people hang out there!  Also, you should totally check out Anneke's knitting-related photoshopping here (be warned: you might die laughing).




So there we are. 2016 kicked off with lots of long rambling as usual.  How does sewing fit into your life, do you have particular times that work and others that don't? Any tips for me as I suffer with withdrawal symptoms?

Maxi cardi jazz hands!!!




And that's me over and out :-)

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Friday, 23 October 2015

Something for the weekend

One Friday morning a few weeks back I woke up wanting to wear my rockbuex.


Not the rockbuex. Don't worry, all will be explained.


Problem: the rockbuex wasn't cold proof.  Summer was cruelly short-lived this year, and that Friday morning, the only things I could find that went with the rockbuex were t-shirts, which was not going to cut it any more. So the first thing I did, after a cup of tea but before breakfast, was sew a jumper.

Here. Rockbuex + emergency sweater:




It's not going to win me any style awards, but this cropped Linden with a hem band hits the rockbuex in exactly the right place, taking the whole thing just far enough over the line (for me, anyway) between oversized pyjamas and acceptable street wear. Nothing more or less than super-comfy, super-relaxed stuff for Friday through Sunday. Happy happy.


Excuse the face #Fridayisforderps


But some projects just spontaneously breed other projects, don't they? And once I'd made the Linden, I realised that I wanted with toddler-like urgency needed more things with sporty 5 cm elastic waistbands, so I could mix and match the comfy stuff all weekend and never have to squeeze myself into a pair of jeans again, or at least not before the day I get round to making jeans that fit, which is very likely to be several decades hence (does anyone else have projects that just appear in your head as a fully formed thought, exactly like that overly long sentence?) Also because, well, different shoes need different outfits. Of course. Even when it's just one pair of trainers or the other.




Or perhaps all this was actually just a load of mental excuses for making an Ilsley skirt. *LOVE* those hem curves.




Like with the rockbuex, I used my favourite, most comfy waistband technique, which is: 5 cm wide elastic threaded through and then topstitched down twice, making a channel in the middle for a drawstring.  Cheapskate tip: shoelaces make excellent drawstrings. They can be found in good range of colours and thicknesses without too much difficulty, and cost about half as much as the average crafting cord, and BONUS the ends are already finished.




Both the jumper and the skirt were made from sweatshirt fabric I had in my stash. The black for the sweater cost 2.5 euros in a sale two years ago - I got 5 metres of it, and there's still a good bit left (see here for a previous, not very different, outing). The grey for the skirt I bought at Les étoffes du Sentier in Paris last January - it was 3 euros a metre, and I got four, and have just squeezed out this and a Freemantle coat from it with nothing but tiny scraps left over. All in all extremely satisfying!

The fact that these were stash projects, and one of them was a TNT pattern I'd made multiple times before, also meant they came together extremely quickly.  Both of them that same Friday, in fact.  And I have to admit - I sort of hate to during #slowfashionoctober, but I must -  I have quite a serious weakness for the quick & dirty when it comes to my homemade clothes. I guess fast sewing isn't the same as fast-fashion in the high street sense, but I do think sometimes the "rush" of having an idea and executing it IMMEDIATELY is in no small way similar to a shopping high.  This was brought home all the more by the fact that my next project was/is the aforementioned Freemantle coat which forced me to take things slower. I don't know what to think about this. On the one hand, well, so what? My fabric sources and project choices are what they are, and I'm not sure what I could do otherwise, realistically. On the other had, I sort of feel guilty. Should I, do you think?

Well anyway, let's not end on too serious a note. Here I am, getting out and about and taking action shots for the Better Pictures Project:




God it's exhausting to even look at. And watch the grass - my own personal launch pad!


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Thursday, 11 June 2015

Rockbuex // Experimental trousers

Cannot. Stop. Wearing. The Rockbuex.

The what?

Well, glad you asked!  Let me show you...

(You might want to put your sunglasses on. I inadvertently captured the full force of the sun in these pictures!)




So, the Rockbuex. A pattern by German blogger schneidermeistern, available in English on Kollabora where it is enticingly-named "Experimental Pants".  Because, as you can no doubt tell, it's not ein Rock - a skirt - but something closely resembling a pair of trousers.  Trousers with a veeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrry dropped crotch. Although I suppose you could look at it the other way, too, if you wanted: as a skirt that happens to be closed at the bottom, with ankle holes.

But let's be straightforward here. What it is, is extreme harem pants. And I really, really like how that fact covers all sorts of style bases - from high fashion harems to festival-gear sarouels, and all the faux-maxi-skirt mum-clothes in between.




I first became aware of this particular pattern when I saw it on the ever-stylish Ute, but this wasn't the first time I'd considered the appeal of this type of garment. When Oonaballoona posted her romper-with-room tutorial last year I was sorely tempted to give it a go then - but stalled at choosing an appropriate fabric and promptly forgot all about it.

Fortunately, by the time the same temptation arose this spring, that little issue had resolved itself.  On my visit to Paris in January I had picked up this beautiful blue silk at the rather bargainous price of 8 euros a metre. Even with a 3-metre minimum purchase, it was worth jumping on!  It's fairly roughly textured, not smooth - I know very little about the proper terms for these things but I think it's what's called a washed silk?? (Please correct me if you know better!)  Anyway, whatever it is, I had to have it, even though I had no idea what I was going to do with it. The only thing I did know was that I wanted as much of it as possible next to my skin at all times.




Megan Nielsen's Tania culottes were my default plan for a long while - especially when saw her boxier midi-length version - but I hesitated over the relatively high waistband. While I love how that can look, I know that I just don't wear high waists regularly, and certainly not with the comfort level I wanted for my special fabric. And I'm glad I waited, because the Rockbuex hits the exact spot I was aiming for. Totally, utterly comfortable, while giving off a wonderful vibe of laid-back chic - and laid-back chic is absolutely how I roll at the moment.




In terms of construction, this pattern is extremely straightforward. The 'skirt' has front and back darts if you're using a woven fabric, to help it fall more smoothly, which I think it does. It has pockets (insert obligatory pocket YAY here) and, as written, includes ribbing at the waistband and ankle cuffs. I made a self-fabric waistband instead because I wanted it to match, with 5cm elastic inserted and then topstitched in the same way as the Hudson pants (I didn't get any close ups but you can see it in the photos above). At the ankles, I shamelessly copied Ute by adding a hem allowance and creating a little (+/- 5cm) pleat to draw in the 'cuff'. This keeps things nice and airy - though the silk is warmer to wear than I thought it would be, so this definitely isn't a high-summer garment. (Not that that'll be much of an issue in Belgium...)




In fact, to my mind, the Rockbuex is absolutely ideal winter wear - and not just because it makes a maxi skirt out of a pair of trousers. While I was contemplating the cuffs, and mulling over fabric choices, it occurred to me that one could make some of these in fleece for lounging on cold evenings, and doesn't that sound appealing, curled up on the sofa inside your nice cosy trouser/skirt thing? Well, from that vision it was a mere mental hop, skip and jump to the thought that, ok, ankle cuffs are good enough, but you know what? You could just go the whole hog and attach a pair of slipper socks instead. Seriously. You're not tempted? :-)




Anyway. I still have just over a metre of the silk left. I'm thinking of making an Ilsley skirt for maximum silk-wearing over the summer. After I've crawled out of the swimsuit vortex I've been sucked into over the last couple of weeks - I literally cannot think about anything else. Do you get like that too?? It's like my obsession with finally making a well-fitting bikini is demanding to be unleashed and, finally, completed - or else it'll destroy my ability to create anything, ever again. (I may be taking it a bit too seriously).




Rockbuex: Cat Approved.



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Wednesday, 20 May 2015

Evan skirt

A broken collar bone. Six stitches, two stitches, and three stitches caused by an IKEA escalator, a slippery bathtub and the swimming pool, respectively. Emergency stomach surgery. And the infamous near-hospitalisation for extreme constipation (yes, really) avoided only by some spectacular eleventh-hour shooting poo. In their short lives so far, my children have between them put together a remarkable portfolio of medical disasters - or so it seems to me, who has never broken a bone or been hospitalised for anything other than childbirth.




Last night was the most recent of these episodes, the swimming pool tumble and chin stitches thing. We handled it rather well, I thought, especially when the doctor brought out the gas and air and,  "Yay!" they chorused, "that stuff is fun!!" Cue raised eyebrows from the medical professionals: do your children do this a lot, Madame? (Rather like the time a kitchen cupboard fell off the wall on to my head, and the kindly, concerned doctor gently asked: has this happened before? It took some confused explaining before he was convinced that 'kitchen cupboard' really wasn't a euphemism for 'wife-beating husband').




Anyway, this latest in a long string of hospital visits was also just the latest in a long string of little life events that cumulatively have prevented me from blogging this skirt before. (How's that for a tenuously-relevant intro!)  Which is a shame, because I've been dying to tell you about it since I made it, what feels like AGES ago. It's Marilla Walker's Evan skirt pattern, which I was lucky enough to test before its release, and it's absolutely chock full of lovely details. Here, let me show you!

Front and centre, here's that split from closer up. Such nice pointy corners and pleasing topstitched detail...




THOSE PINTUCKS. I could not love a back pocket more than I love this one.




Topstitching, (pink!!) topstitching everywhere!  And oh how nicely that centre back seam and belt loop match up - my inner detail-freak did a little happy dance for joy!



And there's (optionally) more of those pintucks on the front pockets too! My only reservation here is that this part is really not easy to do tidily on thicker fabrics: my (purple!!) denim was not the ideal fabric for this level of detail, although it's hardly that bad unless you're looking closely.




Finally, I have to show you my pocket lining, just because otherwise no-one will ever know it's there. I used some scraps left over from my Eva dress - the colours were so harmonious, it makes me happy every time I put my hands in them.  Which is often, because let me tell you, these pockets are perfectly sized, placed and angled. Also, that there is the back of my first ever zip fly, painlessly and perfectly done thanks to the nice and clear instructions.




As for the sizing and fit, I found it pretty spot on.  My waist falls between two sizes, so to be on the safe side I went with the larger one and then graded down a couple of sizes at the hip, in line with my measurements there. By the way, this involved re-tracing the side seam curve on the front, back yoke, pocket facing and pocket lining pieces - a slight fiddle but not exactly difficult. Anyway, I can tell that my choice of waist size means my skirt sits slightly lower than it's designed to: the waistband is nicely curved to sit on the natural waist, and doesn't sit quite right below mine. But that's a minor niggle and one that can easily be fixed by making the smaller waist size next time. It's still supremely comfy and very, very wearable. I wear it a lot :-)




So all in all, you can probably tell that it's a total thumbs up for this pattern from me! A skirt like this is always a classic, and the pattern has less detailed and longer versions so you can get tons of variety out of it. I have an idea for a corduroy Evan in the autumn, and in the meantime would LOVE to find the time to put this skirt and its details together with the top half of the Turia dungarees, for what I'm convinced will be the best pinafore dress EVER.

And now a quick word about the top. Quilted knit Linden awesomeness! Me and the family were in Maastricht around Easter and stumbled on the fabric market just as it was closing up. 10 frenzied minutes later, I escaped with 1.5 m of this at a total cost of 3.75 euros. Self restraint guys!! It could have been SO much worse :-)

Anyway, this fabric didn't have enough stretch for a normal knit neckband finish, so I drafted a facing instead (Hanne's quick tips explain how). I quite like the wider neckline for a change.




So there you have it!  What do you think - are you tempted by the Evan skirt? Have you tried any other of Marilla's patterns? She's a relatively new indie pattern designer and I love her aesthetic - absolutely everything she pins is just so cool, and she's super stylish and sociable on instagram. This skirt is the first of hers I've tried but it's so good I'm eager to try the others - I've got my eyes on the Freemantle coat for when autumn rolls round.  Total fangirl moment!!!!

OK. Final outfit pic.




And with that I'm outta here before anyone else does themselves an injury.


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