Super warm sweater dress!

It's gotten cold outside so it's time to make something very warm and cozy!
💡A fleece hoodie dress!Or at least it started as a hoodie dress...

A while ago I bought from Driessen (yes, them again!) 3 meters cobalt blue fleece to try out a coat pattern but I never got to it. So i figured, perfect for my project!

Searching for a pattern wasn't necessary since I 've found a very nice raglan sleeve hoodie dress in one of my magazines. The pattern is this dress from the January 2016 Knipmode issue:

Knipmode hoodie dress

Since I knew I'll need cord and cord stoppers, I ordered them online. Unfortunately when they arrived, the color didn't match at all 😞. So my hoodie dress would become a sweater dress instead,since I couldn't be bothered trying to find the right color 😋.

I didn't mind since that makes it an easier dress to make. Quite a straight forward pattern, front, back sleeves and pocket pieces, no darts or anything so the only change I had to make was to bring the waist higher.I also added 2cm seam allowance on the side seams instead of 1 and later I decided I wanted it a bit looser so I used that extra cm.

I started with the pocket, basted it, stitched the openings at 1 cm and pinned my pocket to the front piece of my dress. Since my fabric is so thick and I want my topstitching to be visible and not disappear (it kind of did anyway though😶), I decided to use a thicker thread.  I also used a jeans needle no 90. Then I attached my sleeves to the front and back pieces, serged and topstitched on both sides of  my seams to add a bit more detail to the top part of my dress.

The pocket

Topstitched sleeve seam

Closing the side seams and sleeves, serging and off to the borders! I had this very dark blue rib knit fabric for cuffs e.t.c. which seemed like a good match.

Bottom border

Cuffs

 Now that the rest is done, I have to figure how I want to finish off my neckline. I was thinking about making a cowl with the fleece but that would probably be way to warm to wear in the house. So I went with my rib fabric. I didn't want a simple little border so I cut out a wide piece that was longer than the neck circumference and I started playing with that. And this is what It ended up looking like:

Finished neckline

And here's how my dress looks like:

(No, the hem isn't uneven, Roxanne wasn't standing straight!😡)

I'm happy with how it came out. Is it the prettiest dress I've ever made? Probably not but that isn't what I was going for, comfy and cozy it certainly is though!😌 Nice and easy pattern, if I make it again, I'll be adding the hood as well!💙

Trying out Lekala!

I assume many of you have heard of Lekala, it's a site where you pick a pattern, add your measurements and get am email with your personalized pattern, as they call it.

Since I always have to adjust my patterns to fit me, torso length and bust point, I decided to check Lekala out!

I browsed through all the patterns for a while, quite a variety of pretty looking patterns. The pattern  I chose is pattern number 4718 and it looks like this:

Lekala 4718

 Putting the pattern together was a pain in the ass, there were pages that had multiple numbers on top of each other which took a bit of guess work and patience. If you like puzzles you'll love the process but, to be honest, I hated it. Side note: this was also my first ever printed pattern which didn't help 😐

Also what i found unnecessary was that the front and back pattern pieces were not half (which is what you'd expect when the pieces are being cut on the fold), but the whole front and back pieces which used more paper to print and also required some folding and cutting before laying them on the fabric.

I ordered the pattern without seam allowances included so I added 2 cm on the sides of the front and back pieces and 1 cm on the rest.

With this pattern, due to the somewhat complicated neckline, I for a change, followed the instructions which, for this pattern at least, were clear and easy to follow.

 Since this is a fitted pattern for knit fabrics and I don't like wearing fitted...well...anything, I used up the seam allowances and stitched my side seams at 0,8mm. And it worked great!😊

Lekala 4718 front

Side view Lekala 4718

And a close-up

Even though this isn't a fitted dress pattern or anything similar, I have to say that it fits great! I love this top/jumper so much that I've made 2 of them so far!😀 And I'm probably going to be making more!!

For the first one I used a beautiful knit fabric from Driessen of course and for the second one this crazy fabric I got from the stoffenspektakel ( a sort of fabric fair😍).

I love it so much that I'm staring to forget how hideous it was putting the paper pattern together😜

And the second one!

I wasn't planning of sharing this one, hence the lack of some 'in progress' pictures and less info on my process, but I really liked the pattern and the idea of  having personalized patterns so I couldn't resist!😊





 

Time for a cardigan! Lutterloh supplement 301 pattern 189 💕

I can't say I have enough tops and blouses (does any woman ever have enough clothes?👕👖👗) but I've decided to stop with the tops and blouses and make a cardigan so as I can first wear the ones I've already made 😒.  As a Greek in the Netherlands, you might guess that I'm always cold! So in order for me to wear a cute blouse, I need a warm cardigan on top😁

So yea, I'm gonna make a cardigan!
Again a pattern from Lutterloh, this time from supplement 301 pattern number 189:

 Lutterloh supplement 301 pattern 189

Just a simple cardi that goes well with everything!
An easy to draw pattern with minimum alterations for me, 'just' 5 cm off above the waist and we're good to go!

The paper pattern

 Well, no staring at fabrics this time, I've already made my choice! I got this beautiful knit that I bought especially for such a cardigan, also from Driessen stoffen (told you they're my favorite!)
To be honest, I was too scared to just cut my pretty fabric without trying the pattern out first...! Wha.. what if I didn't like it?!😱

So I tried it out first with a fabric that I had gotten from a second hand store! 😋 It was a weird strip of fabric of 70 cm width and 3 meters length, so i just cut it lengthwise. Since I didn't have enough fabric to make it as long as the pattern, I made it approximately 20 cm shorter. It's a knit fabric a bit hairy/fluffy so, for some reason I took for granted that it was 2-way stretch. Excited about seeing how it'd turn out, I didn't pay attention. After cutting it guess what I noticed: it stretches only in the width (my length)... Yaay, I m making an uncomfortable cardigan!

Oh well, the whole purpose here was to test the pattern and see how it fits.
It turned out great! (Apart from the fact that it's too tight on the back and the sleeves, details...😥) Surprisingly the length is also good, just like the drawing. That's I guess an advantage of being short, you need less fabric 😝.
I also left out the welt pockets, ain't nobody got time for that! I made a pair of patch pockets instead.

Here's it is!

The test:front

The test:back

And now that we know it looks gooood, time to make the actual cardigan! 😃
Here's my "preeecious" fabric!:

💗

There's not much to tell about the process of putting it together, quite a straight forward pattern, stitch shoulder and side seams, stitch sleeves and attach them to the cardi. I did make this one a bit longer since I had enough fabric. I didn't make a facing but used stretch piping instead for my test cardigan. For the actual cardigan, I made binding from the same fabric and used it double around the neckline and the front of the cardigan. I also did this for the sleeves.  Finishing off the hem, a button and buttonhole and done! 😁

Front

Up close

Side view

The back

Obviously this is a bit wider than the test cardi since this actually stretches in the direction it's supposed to 😜.

I love this pattern! Great basic cardigan, comfy and flattering,the sleeves are nice and narrow (be careful though if you have fuller upper arms!), just great!💟

I'm definitely going to be making this pattern again, with a few variations maybe? 😏

Lutterloh! Blouse with square(ish) neckline!

And off to the next one! This time I'm making a pattern from Lutterloh!
Somehow my stash has become full of chiffon and other thin woven fabrics, and since I do need some more tops,
I decided to start using some of it.

The pattern that I'm going to be making is from supplement 286 pattern number 181 and this is how it looks:

Supplement 286 pattern 181

After staring at the fabrics for half an hour, rejecting everything and starting all over I chose this beautiful chiffon-ish fabric with a border print I bought a few months ago from one of my favorite online stores: Driessen Stoffen.They are the ones mostly responsible for the mountains of fabric I have! Here's what the fabric looks like:

 I drew my pattern and, as usual, I made my short-person adjustment: removed 4cm length above the waist for both front and back pieces. I usually also have to raise the bust dart as well but on this pattern it looked good enough where it was placed, we'll see how that goes I guess 😁.

I also decided to cut the back on the fold as well, so instead of drawing that back curve on the mid back, I just drew a straight line from the neck mark to the bottom mark. I also left the back darts out since I didn't want to put a zipper on the blouse.

After I measured the width on the bottom of my paper pattern ( I always measure at least the hip width before I cut anything, what a pity it would be if it wouldn't fit in the end!), I decided to add 1,5 cm on both front and back pattern pieces, so that makes a total of 6 cm added width to the circumference of my blouse.

The back after the changes

Aligning  the stripes was easy peasy since there were only a few of them.

All cut!

Now to the construction: Sewing front and back pieces together, nothing special there, but then we come to the neckline... In the picture it shows the blouse with a metallic cylinder thingy that I don't have nor have I any idea where to buy one. So I decided to grab a leather look band that I had, fold it in half , stitch it and use that instead.

Better view of the neckline

Here comes the part where I had to figure how to attach that to the front of my top which was more complicated than I thought. That little piece you have to sandwich between the front neckline and the facing. Putting it on both sides in between and then stitching all around won't work, this way you can't turn your facing under the neckline anymore 😕.

Instead, you have to sew one side first then take that side, twist it around and place the other end of that little strip in between the other side's facing and front neck ( I hope this makes sense...!). For some reason I didn't make any pictures of that, probably because I wasn't sure if that was going to work 😬.

I liked how the neckline was stitched all around a few centimeters from the edge on the picture/drawing so I wanted to do the same. Whoever has ever worked with chiffon knows that it can sometimes be hard to manage and make it stay in place... At this point I came across that problem 😩. After pressing the neckline (which was a bit of a challenge because eh... see above!), I pinned it, measured 2 cm all around and marked it to make sure that my stitching was perfectly straight. Guess what, it wasn't! It was a mess... The fabric was shifting and moving so I ended up taking it out and redoing it and this is the result:

Finished neckline

The thread color was fortunately quite forgiving! Good enough right?😐  Well, that's the best I could do!
Next, stitch the sleeves and add the little blue borders and in the process a nice blood stain on the inside of one of the sleeves because a pin was mean to me 😢

And it's all done! 💕

Supplement 286 pattern 181 front

Supplement 286 pattern 181 sleeve

Supplement 286 pattern 181 back

I guess I can say I'm quite happy how it turned out even though it's a liiittle bit tight around the bust. I'm really glad I measured the hip circumference before cutting, as you can probably see, it was kinda needed 😌.
Nice pattern, everything as it supposed to be, I might even make one more of those although I'd go for a different fabric, viscose perhaps?

Hmm, what should I make next? 😬

Knipmode top with pleats, September 2012 top 28

Here we go! The first garment I'm going to be making is a top from Knipmode from September 2012, yes a 5 year old edition, it doesn't matter to me how old a pattern is as long as I like it! 😬

I've been wanting to make this pattern for a couple of months now, for some reason I didn't get to it till now.

The Pattern is from this magazine: 
 

Knipmode September 2012

And this is the top I'll be making:

 

My last few projects have been a few simple sweaters (it got cold pretty fast here, had to have something appropriate to wear 😏), so I decided to go for this a bit more "complicated" top. It has pleats on the front and this sort of bat-wing/kimono sleeves.

Time to transfer the pattern to pattern paper!

There are almost always a few changes I have to make to the patterns once transferred. Greeks aren't exactly famous for being tall so yea... I usually have to shorten my patterns by moving the waist up 4 cm. In this case, since the top is quite straight and barely has any waist shaping, I'll be skipping this step.
 Secondly, since I have a smaller bust size than hip size (again, Greek...), I almost always have to combine 2 sizes to make tops and dresses fit properly.

Since the back of this top is 2 separate pieces this is how i combined the 2 sizes:

Top of pattern drawn a smaller size than the bottom half.

Obviously I can't just use it as is, that'd look silly 😛. So for "fixing" this I used my awesome Luterloh rulers:

Making it all smoooth

And this is what it looks like with the lines connected smoothly:

One line from 2 sizes

And that was that! (Yes that's my size on this magazine... You saw it, now it can't be undone...)

Adding seam allowance to all the pattern pieces and it's all done and ready for placing on the fabric!

Which fabric you might wonder? Me too! 😄 That I haven't decided yet, first I gotta spend half an hour staring at my stash and mumbling that I need more fabric and can't find THE perfect one for this project and after half an hour I'll have pick something that I might end up replacing with another one 😕.

Okey! Here it is!

💙

 So I started pinning my pattern to the fabric, here is the way you're supposed to, according to the magazine, place your pattern to your fabric:

Yea... no, i ain't doin that! Can't be bothered cutting everything separately and mirroring pieces if it's not absolutely necessary 😁 So I put everything on the fold, here's an idea of what I did:

Cutting on the fold

Here's everything cut and ready to be put together! If you didn't notice I include my seam allowances on my paper pattern, this way it's so much easier if I want to make the same pattern again, just lay it on the fabric and cut!

All pieces cut and ready!

(  Ignore the paint stains on my desk, was too lazy to place some plastic on top of it when i was painting a kitchen rack 😶 )

Beginning the assembly! First I have to stitch the pleats on both the left and right parts, that's the pieces with the sleeves.

After that's done, the center piece has to be connected to those 2 pieces (sigh.. why are there corners there..?) Next step is to stitch the pleats of the center piece. Here is the front put all together:

Front pieces finished

Close up of center front

And now the back : easy, stitch center back and then attach bottom back piece:

The back

Now for the exciting part! Stitching back and front pieces together! Simple, stitch shoulder/top of sleeve on both sides and under-sleeve/side seams. And it's put together! Let's throw it on Roxanne and see how it looks!

Roxanne wearing the top

Hmm...

Hmm... That is.. a tiny bit low.. It was even worse.. I took the shoulders in 1-1,5cm... Why...? Who wants to wear anything that low? Now the question is, can I fix this without destroying the neckline?

For the rest it looks quite good tho, have a look!

( I gotta get better at talking pictures 😐 )

So, I decided to add a small yoke to my top since it is so low. I draw on paper the shape of my neckline, front and back, and then I added 1 to 2 cm upwards. The center front I made 2 cm and curved it to 1 cm for the front sides and the back.

And here it is finished:

Knipmode top 28 finished

Knipmode top 28

The back

Am I amazed by the result? Nope. Will I wear it? Yep.
I had higher hopes for this top but I still think it's wearable. Will I make this pattern again? Nope!

The construction and pleats and all made this pattern attractive to me but the result I find rather boring.

Well, that was that, off to the next one! 😃