26 April 2016

Knitting Adventures - Red Lauriel

This cardigan, the Lauriel by Ysolda, is the reason that I started knitting again. When I first saw Tasia of Sewaholic's version of this cardigan I fell in love with it instantly. Her review however did not instil me with the confidence needed to tackle it straight away, at the time not having picked up a knitting needle in like, 20 years or so. Tasia's opening line, and I quote: "This is quite possibly the most beautiful and complicated thing I've knit so far", gave me second thoughts.

20 April 2016

Little French Jacket (Two years in the making!)

Around two years ago, I got the idea to make a Little French Jacket. I had seen a lot of these gorgeous jackets across the blogosphere, and decided that I had to have one too! Although I made the pattern in May 2014, and had hoped to have it finished for Winter 2014, it didn't take that long until it went from a WIP, to a UFO. When that first winter came and went, I think I lost my sewjo on this one, and let it languish. To be honest, the main reason that I decided to get it done ready for this winter, was because I found some black leather in my store room that I'd forgotten about, and now I'm really keen to make a leather jacket. I'll use the pattern from this jacket as my starting point, but to do that, I really needed to have a finished jacket and be able to wear it for a while to assess what changes I need on to the fit before I even begin.

16 April 2016

Embroidered Cotton Culottes

Inspiration for new projects comes from many places, and for me, that is often from other bloggers. I didn't know that I wanted to make myself culottes until I saw Sue's culottes that she made in January. Until I read about her culottes, I had not realised that a pattern for culottes was made from a skirt block. I dutifully researched in my patternmaking book, and started work on my own pattern shortly after. I even bought fabric specifically to make these culottes, and actually used it instead of stashing
it.

4 April 2016

Sewing for men: underwear

What's more ridiculous? The fact that men's underwear costs $15 per pair, or spending an entire day working out the perfect pattern to make undies for your husband?

A few months ago I offered to make undies for my husband, and in return he would tolerate the fact that I was going to blog about them and show the whole world the undies that I was making for him (as long as he didn't have to model them). I briefly toyed with the idea of making my own pattern from his favourite undies, but then saw a special on the Thread Theory Comox trunks pattern, so decided to buy the pattern and go from there.