Monday 28 November 2016

One Thousand and One Nights

I am on a sewing roll and quite excited about it. Since two months I am sewing mostly separates, aka quick garments, and am loving it. I still have a dress in my mind which I would like to manage before the x-mas craziness starts (or did it already start?) and I still have my X-mas dress to imagine and sew, so dresses will come quite soon again.

However, this time I got to sewing home-wear. Yes, you hear me right, simple, but fancy home-wear. The thing is I do not like wearing jeans or outerwear at home - it is fine in the evening when I just come back home from work, but definitely not for week-ends. I tend to wear old sweaters with some kind of polyester satin shorts/trousers - classy, right? Not talking about the fact that the trousers (while using only elastic in the waist) do not fit me properly.

So I decided to sew me a proper home-wear collection from some quality fabric, because it does not make any sense any more to be wearing wool and silk outside and polyester at home.

My chosen fabric comes from this bunch of souvenir fabrics which I bought last year in Kuala Lumpur (and seeing the packet again, quite a lot of them got sewn during the last year, so yay me!). It was a part of a silk bundle which contained cca 5m of 3 different types of fabric: I assume one for trousers, one for a tunic and one chiffon for a scarf or whatever accessory you need. The trousers and tunic fabrics were coordinates and the chiffon repeated both of the colours and designs. Clever, right! I bought three bundles like that and already digged into all of them.

The most difficult one, though, was this one which contained some kind of a silk brocade with golden decorations which I just could not imagine wearing outside. But it was just perfect for my home-wear.
I used the brocade for trousers and shorts - both Burda 117-05/2013.

The trousers are exactly according to the pattern (with a crotch shortened by easily 5cm!!!);

as for the shorts, I made them slightly larger for comfort (added 3cm on each side). I kept the pockets, as it is a nice touch and always practical at home, made French seams everywhere, even inside the pockets, because, you know, comfort and am very happy about both of them.

The fit of the trousers is just what it needs to be, the shorts are slightly larger, but it seems to be ok to wear in the end.

The only thing bothering me slightly is that the fabric had a fault: a piece of it was missing some gold, which can be seen on the back right side of the trousers which I found out only when everything was finished.

Of course, the fabric being very special, I do not think having many things which will coordinate with them :o) So I made a pair of matching tops.

For the first one I used the scarf chiffon underlined with an orange silk-cotton.

I had tried double layering the chiffon but it was still too transparent, in addition, the silk-cotton adds little bit of weight and made it easier to sew. The pattern is based on the top of the Anna by Hand London dress, so very simple, very comfy and quick to sew.

The second one is the same top made of 2 layers of the above-mentioned silk-cotton which somehow goes with the trousers as well.

All in all, I am very happy that this fabric souvenir got transformed into something very wearable and cute. I still have a remnant of both, the silk chiffon and the silk-cotton mousseline so might be sewing one or two more tops of the same style.

And will finish with this perfectly colour matching photo :o)



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