Sunday 29 March 2020

Merino Wonders

OK, so I admit that merino jersey is no news, but it was my first time sewing with it and to be honest, I just want to start sewing ONLY with merino as of now.
It all started just before last x-mas, we booked a holiday in Iceland (planned and happened before all the craziness of the covid pandemics) and I started wondering if my wardrobe contained enough warm clothes to survive an Iceland winter holidays. I quickly figured that it was the right moment to offer myself some luxury of wearing merino jersey.

I spent at least two weeks looking for the right vendor, because even in winter, merino is almost never sold in French fabric shops (I only found one or two with very poor choices on the internet), I even started writing a blog post on that topic, which I might publish one day.
In the end, the best selection of merino jerseys was to be found in Scandinavia, and I ended up ordering 3 pieces, in grey, burgundy and black from Myllymuksut, in Finland.

When the fabric arrived, I was so excited, the fabric is sooo soft and thick enough, I loved sewing it mostly because I could keep touching it all the time.

I started with the grey: sewing a simple turtleneck t-shirt based on my turtleneck dress pattern. I extended the sleeves to create thumb holes, just simply copied from my sports t-shirts. It is completely sewn with a sewing machine, but I received my new serger in the meantime.

At this time my boyfriend walked by my sewing area and touched the fabric and immediately requested a t-shirt for himself as well. At this point, I had like 10 days to go before our Iceland departure, so there was no way, I could order some new fabric.
I ended up using the black version for his t-shirt.

Without any right pattern, I just copied a t-shirt of his. I almost did not have enough of fabric, so no turtleneck for him. However, I managed to sew in the thumb holes, which he totally loved during our Iceland stay, as his other RTW t-shirts did not have any. I must say that since my boyfriend spends his vacations taking thousands of pictures, the long sleeves enabled him not to put on gloves every time he got out of the car to take THE super photo.

As for me, I ended up sewing one more t-shirt, commonly called, the Star Trek one. I actually used McCalls 7261 and did some colour blocking with the burgundy and black.

The fit of this shirt is very cool even though I adjusted the raglan shoulder area (I always have to), the neck shawl is just an amazing idea: you end up having quite a lot of fabric around your neck, therefore it keeps you warm, but without feeling choked. And again, the thumbholes..

I did not realize how Star-treky it was going to be, until I finished it :) In the end, I like it a lot as well and surprisingly, I keep reaching out for it quite often when going for a run early in the morning, as the winter seems to be still going on here, despite the end of March. It is sooo warm, that I am never cold, even in the first minutes of my morning run. Pure happiness!

Hopefully, it will resist a few washing cycles, as we plan to come back to Iceland... some time in the brighter future.

Saturday 21 March 2020

Yellow Tencel Dress

So yes, the world is getting crazy right now, but I do not want to talk about it too much. I am lucky enough to be able to work 100% from home, so I just stay home, stay safe and keep sewing. It is keeping me occupied and busy and that is what matters. I started a 30-day fitness challenge and got a few colleagues and friends on board as well, I also have a lot of past sewing projects to photograph and publish.
And most importantly, I have a 90m stash, so I can keep sewing for some time :) At the moment I am working through a mid-season coat from a gorgeous black wool/linen with a lot of very satisfying handsewing (the fabric frays like crazy and it keeps things clean on the inside), but it will still take me a few days to finish.

So for the moment, I have a new dress to share, hahahah, what a surprise. I bought this fabric just because I liked the colour (and was ordering something else) and wanted to see what tencel feels like. The final colour is slightly more orange that what I was hoping for but I still like it. It is wayyy too much colour than what I am used to but it is not such a bad idea to have something cheerful in my wardrobe. Also, I must say, that I quite like the feel of the fabric. It is not so luxurious as silk, but also feels better than simple viscose, so it was not such a bad purchase.

However I struggled to find the right pattern for it. I knew I wanted to have something flowy, maybe with a few frills and an elasticated waist. In the end, I based the dress on Knipmode 05/27, and added little pleats inspired by the Tilly Mathilde blouse.
I also lined the skirt part because I do not trust the tencel enough and hate skirts sticking to my thighs.

As for my first sewing with tencel, I was quite pleased, the fabric behaved better than viscose and did not stretched too much.

Looking at the pictures I might style it differently in spring, probably, the black thighs are way too much of a contrast.
In the end, it makes for a cute cheerful and comfy dress so a win for me.

Sunday 8 March 2020

The Day-After-X-Mas Dress

Originally, I wanted this dress to be worn on x-mas day with my in-laws. However, we always celebrate x-mas in an old house in the middle of Normandy. So over the years I learned that you have to compromise between wearing a festive dress and being warm.

I also learned that wearing pumps is a big no and the high boots are my best friend for this occasion. This year, I wanted to have something cute and sewn for the moment, so I bought this cotton black and gold stripy jersey. And I should have known better!

We went to my in-laws in the middle of the day, so I put on my wool turtleneck dress an packed the lurex one, counting on changing myself just before the evening. However, I was just sooo cosy in my wool dress and even though we were 15, I was not in a place to change to a finer dress.

In the end, I wore the dress for the day after when we opened the gifts and had a meal together.

The dress is really a basic one, I was just very careful on the stripe matching. I must admit that it was my first time sewing something stripey in jersey, so I am not 100% sure of everything, but I compared my make with those from RTW and I should be quite OK.