Knipmode May 2016 and bonus tall/petite special

Just a quick post for those of you interested in a review of Knipmode magazine. Style wise it's not the most coherent issue of the year, for me the best part is the special. More on that later.

Hmmm. As much as I like Van Gogh, I think we've seen too many of these artsy panels on overly simplified elastic waist skirts. Blue dress #8 has interesting seam lines though.

Did I miss an 80s urban safari revival? 

What? Someone stole my 1985 wardrobe, I swear! I made that blue dress back then and even styled it with the exact same hat, coiffure and shoes. Those trousers, teal skirt and floral tops were in my 80s closet as well. It's like looking at my personal pattern archive! Well, perhaps a new generation will be attracted to this style once again.

Pattern overview Knipmode 5/2016

Jacket #1 is looking interesting, but what on earth is going on at the back?

By special request of Knipmode subscribers another asymmetric collection is included. The chocolate brown skirt above looks nice, but I'm not thrilled about these dresses:

For the time being I don't see anything in this issue that will make it's way into my sewing queue, and that's okay. The queue is long enough as it is and the sneak peek of next month's Knipmode  is inspiring!

I know some of you have been waiting impatiently for the bonus special, which has patterns for a capsule wardrobe drafted for 1.60 - 1.72 -1.84 cm height. The rather classic collection contains a jacket, pants, a blouse with two sleeve options, a dress in two views and a skirt. All patterns are available in European sizes 34 t/m 54.

The black and white collection is modelled in size 36, in the second part of the special the same patterns are modelled in size 46.

According to this pattern overview the patterns of the jacket and the dresses will be available as pdf, but they're not yet showing up in the pattern shop. (Knipmode.nl/shop)
If you want to order the magazine + special: https://www.tijdschriftnu.nl/knipmode-editie-201605

Happy weekend, and succesful sewing!

Disclaimer: this review contains no affiliate links. I paid for my copy and all opinions are my own.

French jacket: the trim

This is the rough version of what will probably become the trim of my jacket. In my previous post I described how I wanted the vibrant colours of the lining to become part of the trim. I spent most of the long Easter weekend hand sewing and testing several ideas.

I started with a lightweight navy ribbon.

I used a chalk pencil and a quilters ruler to mark every half inch.

Using the narrowest satin ribbon (3 mm wide) I then made tiny stitches on the marks. This was a very slow process, as the ribbon had to be pulled through with extreme care to prevent damaging the base ribbon.

After many hours of peaceful stitching with nothing but the sound of singing birds in the garden to distract me, I finished all 4 meters.

The leftover lining, two strips of 2.25 m by 7 cm wide, didn't give me much to play with. I sewed tiny tubes and turned them right side out.

Together it looked like this:

Obviously I have to polish it up a bit. Some of the stitches got twisted during the threading process and in other parts the seam of the silk isn't in the right spot yet. I will go back and make it decent later on. I'm happy with the outcome. It's lightweight, flexible and will add a colourful touch to this summer jacket!
I'm taking a step back from the trim to pick up working on the sleeves.

Final decisions, like will I keep it straight and graphic, or add a more fancy effect,

whether I'll add fringe, and if so, how wide, straight of grain or cut on the bias, it can all be decided later. For now I'm happy with the options.

Back to more thread tracing and quilting!

The continuing story of a French jacket

Fifteen months ago I took a break from working on my French jacket. It was meant to be a spring/summer jacket and once I had missed the time slot other sewing projects seemed more urgent. The jacket was carefully packed away in a box, together with thread, chain and every bit of leftover fabric. I hoped to pick it up again last March, but by then coral coat fabric had taken over my sewing room. Fast forward one year and the French jacket is back on top of my sewing list!

This is where I left it. Bodice seams were closed, sleeves cut and ready to be constructed. Once that's done it will be time to make a few design choices. I'm considering several neckline options and I'm still not sure whether I want patch pockets or not. Whenever I'm thinking about the different options I feel like I can't choose properly without envisioning the overall picture. And for that I definitely need to decide on the trim.

The jacket may have been out of sight for fifteen months, it was often on my mind. I experimented with the selvedges, used different fibers for crochet and visited haberdashery shops during the quest for the perfect trim. Wherever I went, from Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht to Liege, Edinburgh, Prague and Bratislava, I always had a quilted square of boucle in my handbag. No luck. Navy looked boring, white was either too white or too yellow-ish, mixing navy and white resulted in a overly classic look. If only I had enough fabric left to make fringe!

The more I thought about it, the more I realised I'm probably more in love with the lining than with the main fabric. And then I remembered the Chanel ensemble I admired two years ago at an exhibition in The Hague.

What if  I incorporated a tiny strip of that colourful lining in a trim? My fabric isn't as loosely woven as the example fabric, maybe layering will work?

Since last week my options doubled. Can you believe my luck when I unexpectedly stumbled upon a bolt of the same boucle? I had last seen that fabric for sale in 2014 and back then it sold out fast. I quickly bought enough to start experimenting with fringing bias strips as well!

Lots of things to try out during the upcoming long weekend!

Bootstrap Fashion 42379, a cowl neck knit top

Although I was planning to work on a more challenging project, a chain of events made me change my sewing plans. More on that later. I needed a simple project, made from stash fabric as there was no time for fabric shopping. Maybe it was finally time for spring sewing? But then it started to snow again and I brought out a lacy wool knit fabric. Now what to make? While looking for a pattern I ended up at the Bootstrap Fashion website. For those of you not familiar with this brand, amongst a lot of other services Bootstrap offers custom fit sewing patterns. You enter your measurements and about ten minutes later you can pick up a made to measure PDF pattern from your inbox.

This cowl neck pattern came close to what I was looking for, except for the sleeve and hip bands. Not very hard to make a few changes and browsing the Bootstrap site made me want to try the patterns. I entered my height and measurements for bust, underbust, waist, hip, upper arm as well as fit adjustments like bust apex height, arm length, shoulder width and more.

The line drawing was the only image available. No artist's impression, and as far as I could see no one ever mentioned Bootstrap 42379 on the internet. So if there's only one image, it'd better be correct! 

Enter confusion. The line drawing shows a center back seam, which is nowhere to be found in the layout picture. To get an idea of the depth of the neckline I checked the red pattern piece above. It suggests the lowest point of the neckline is at the same height as the bottom of the armscye. Nice! 

After printing and assembling the pattern I was in for a surprise. No center back seam, and the back bodice pattern was much wider than the front bodice. I carry most of my weight on the front, and the 3D-illustration of my torso (gulp) showed I'd been very honest when I entered my measurements. What happened? Was the back seam planned but later omitted, without removing the seam allowances? Nope, the notches of the cowl seemed to match fine! 

Speaking of the cowl: the neckline was 7 cm higher than the layout image suggested. And wasn't that cowl on the tiny side? I warily started sewing. 

Hmmm. I made a test cowl from a scrap of jersey. Just as I thought, not very impressive.

And certainly not looking like the line drawing. 

So I changed the finished height of the cowl from 14 to 34 cm. Why 34? That was all I got ;)

Better! Now what about the fit? I had to remove 6 cm at the hip, the shoulders are a bit too wide and although I added the equivalent of the length of the removed hip band to the bodice the overall look is shorter, and certainly less fitted than the line drawing suggested. 

So what's the verdict about the pattern? It doesn't look like the line drawing. The bodice, shoulders and sleeves are too wide for a fitted top, the cowl (before my adjustments) looked like a droopy collar and I don't like seams showing up in the line drawing that are not in the actual pattern. There is no way to tell if the pattern was meant to look oversized and the line drawing was off, or the drawing was right and the pattern was off. 

In the end I do like the result but I feel that has more to do with the pretty fabric than with the pattern.

Bootstrap has not convinced me yet, but now that I've made an account and saved my set of measurements I may try some patterns for woven fabrics in the future. 

Although the daffodils make it look like spring, I still need a warm top for chilly dog walks!

Now there's something else I'd like to discuss about this pattern. When I was looking for other cowl neck top images to compare the size of the cowl with, it suddenly hit me that this pattern (at least the line drawing) was the spitting image of Sewaholic's Renfrew, view C. At first sight the only difference is the center back seam (remember, that same one that isn't really there). I've never seen the pattern pieces of the Renfrew, so I may be wrong, but even the sleeve and hip bands look similar. I've seen patterns on the Bootstrap site that obviously were designer knockoffs like this Armani jacket. Now what if Indie pattern companies start copying other small companies' designs? Is it the same? Or does it feel a bit awkward?
I'd like to hear your opinions on this one!

This will be my last winter sewing. I do have some plans for spring sewing, but I'm not sure if they're going to happen.
You see, Mr Foxgloves has a hobby too. I like cutting fabrics, he likes cutting wood. Ten days ago he had an unfortunate encounter with one of his lumberjack toys and we ended up in the Emergency Room. He cut a tendon, had surgery and ended with his hand in plaster.

He's not allowed to drive a car, so for at least the next six weeks I'll be the Chief of Transport, Operator of Buttons and Shoe Laces and Head Gardener of Foxgloves Manor.
Not sure how much sewing I can squeeze in. But mr Foxgloves is on the mend and we keep smiling!

See you later!

PS Thanks for the lovely comments on my previous post. I hope to catch up on blog reading and IG soon!

Sewing room swoon!

I'm sitting in my sewing room, reading an article in a magazine......about my sewing room. I'm tempted to do a 'spot the ten differences'-game. I notice a different variety of tulips, some extra pattern magazines on top of the shelves, red thread cones on my overlocker showing the progress on the pattern I'm tracing in the magazine picture. So meta!

A few months ago I received a mail from Amy Thomas, the editor of UK-based Love Sewing magazine. She wondered if I'd be interested in having my sewing space appear in the Sewing Room Swoon feature in the magazine. In case you wonder how the UK's no.1 sewing magazine spotted a Dutch room, Amy (of the Almond Rock blog) follows my Instagram feed. I incidentally post pictures of the room, mostly during challenges like #bpsewvember or #sewphotohop.

So far it had never occurred to me to write a blog post about my sewing room set up. Yet I like a good peek into sewing spaces! In fact, all of you out there provided so much inspiration when I was searching the internet for storage and lay-out ideas for my first dedicated sewing room. Who knows, maybe someone would like to see my fabric stash or my button organization? Amy's request was just the little push I needed to take some decent pictures (easier said than done on a dark and drizzling January day). And here it is, a pretty compilation of my happy space. Thanks, Love Sewing!

For someone who works in publishing it has been a very useful experience. How often did I think people got a little carried away when I wrote an article about them? Relax, it's only the newspaper! And here I was, impatiently looking forward to seeing the pictures of the room I'm sitting in on a daily basis. I'd already seen the pdf's of the spread, but  I just couldn't wait to see the article in print. So exciting! Food for thought and lesson learned :)

Love Sewing issue 24 page 44

Love Sewing issue 24 page 45

I'll write a follow up post soon with more pictures and details. But that will have to wait. I have a shiny new magazine to read!

Finished Vogue 1465, a Donna Karan jacket

Vogue 1465 is an unlined jacket with princess seams, two-piece sleeves and a shaped front hemline with mitered corners. Wait a minute! If it's unlined, why do I need a meter of lining? Well, for this: 12+ meters of bound seams! 

As I wrote in this post I used a high quality ponte for the jacket and a darker tone Bemberg lining to cut the bias strips for the Hong Kong seam finish. The binding took a while, but I thoroughly enjoyed the process. You could discuss the use of binding ponte seams. It won't fray, or curl, so if you want to cut corners you don't need to finish your seams at all. Yet for me it is taking this pattern from a cardigan to a jacket. It's not just a pretty looking inside, the bound seams add a bit of structure. As a follower on Instagram put it: it helps the fabric to stay authentic in its drape.

This pattern comes with excellent instructions. It's all in the details. The front of the jacket extends into the back collar and the continuous hem is finished with four rows of topstitching.

After doing a test run for the topstitching I basted the hemline first. With four rows of topstitching you can't afford being 1 or 2 mm off or it will immediately show in the spacing between your rows.

Here's another design element that is not only pretty, but also functional. The quilting results in a firm hem that keeps its shape. I've read some reviews of other ponte jackets, like Grainline's Morris, where the shaped hem keeps curling, despite working with a facing. This DK method works like a dream. 

Still sharp after a long day and two train journeys! (Why is it so hard to take pictures of red fabric?) Sorry for the crappy phone pics, but with hail storms going on this will have to do!

When my jacket was finished some unexpected shoulder issues occurred. I had made my usual forward shoulder adjustment, checked the slope angle and everything looked fine. After wearing it for a few hours I noticed some bunching that had not been there before. I checked my fitting books, still no clue. I had a light bulb moment when I studied the pictures. Sometimes they tell a different story than the mirror! When you look at the line drawings the collar follows the line of the princess seams.

Now when I'm moving around my collar moves too, adding up to an inch to the shoulder line! On the hanger the shoulder just drops, on me the extra fabric causes wrinkles on top of the shoulder joint.

I'm not sure if it's an inevitable side effect of the front extending into the back collar, or if adding a smidge at the collar would help. But then I looked at the picture of the original and thought: 'Who am I to outsmart Donna Karan' and from now on it's called a design feature ;)

I should mention the pattern is running large. I usually prefer a tighter fit, but once I started wearing this jacket I didn't want to take it off. So comfortable!

I've been wearing my jacket all weekend. First to have gin and tonic with my youngest daughter, pairing it with straight black jeans.

The next day I joined my other daughter to the ballet in Amsterdam. Changed my pencil skirt for dressy trousers after checking the weather forecast. Sigh.

Don't you love that view from the theater over the river Amstel?

Speaking of ballet: here's a public service announcement! Tonight, February 23 starting at 20.15 hrs CET,  a live stream of Dutch National Ballet performing Mata Hari will be available in 44 countries on Mezzo tv.

You can check this page to see details and repeat broadcast schedules. Well worth watching!