One for all and all for one

Posted on 11/10/2016 by atelieroursonne

You know I like mixing fabrics. And colours. And patterns.

I don’t even remember if I ever made a shirt just out of one fabric. But I am sure some of my clever readers will remember everything ever shown on this blog and know the answer to that question, so please do not hesitate to post it beneath.

I usually use a contrasting fabric for the sleeves

very rarely I do a contrast hood as well – in fact I think that should become the norm, I don’t know why I do not always do that, it looks much better, maybe I never have enough of the contrast fabric, again the clever ones of you will know.

See, the pink one looks much better.Pictures aren’t great though, I know.

Sometimes, I do even front and back in different fabrics. Well, once. It was custom made.

The benefit of this mix and (sometimes) match method is that you usually end up with rather big pieces of scrap as you do not actually need the whole width for those little children shirts (especially if the amount of fabric indicated on the pattern is usually calculated for a whole shirt) – sometimes there is enough left for, lets say a skirt for a grown up who would otherwise never have chosen that fabric. But back to the title of “one for all”. And back to my enormous project list for this autumn.

I bought a lot of sweat this season. And a pattern bundle for hoodies for the whole family.

Meet Toni by schnittreif. A comfortable hoody for the whole family with my favourite feature of a longer back. I hate getting cold at the back. Or at the derriere.

So far I made the boy version. Which is not worn. Apparently the sleeves feel funny.

I love those fabrics, not keen on the hood lining, seemed ok in the soft light of the building site light bulbs.

For the girls version, you’ll have to wait. A dress was requested instead, stupidly altered to tunic midway as the fabric seemed too hot for a dress. So, the girls A-line hoody is actually not a Toni but a pattern from klimperklein.

Still really cool fabric. And luckily more than enough left to make a skirt for a grown up who would never ever choose such a fabric for herself. But if it is a left over, you have to use it up, haven’t you.

But first a closer look at the two hoodies:

joined in unusual harmony

close up of the hoods, I like the cross over in the girls version more:

The sleeves. Toni features a extra ribbing whereas klimperklein is “only” folded up and stitched with a stretchy contrasting stitch. Looks surprisingly similar somehow:

The two grown up versions will have to wait a little (well, I don’t know if there will be a daddy Toni, I haven’t seen my husband in clothes warmer than a T-Shirt since I made a woolen jumper ~~for his wardrobe~~ for him).

I got a new dress instead. Carol by pattydoo. Meant to do that since ages. It looks cool, super comfy and extremely breastfeeding unfriendly. Which is why I haven’t made it before. Now we are only feeding when I feel like it so why not wearing dresses sometimes (and at home it doesn’t matter anyway)?

I am afraid, I can not show you any pictures of the dress when worn so please click on the link to see how it is supposed to look. I really like my new dress, don’t get me wrong but I do think it makes my tummy look a bit big and wobbly in pictures (the camera’s fault, not the tummy’s) plus my resident photographers are currently busy with lego building work, so it is “dress on hanger only” this time. But as clever as you readers are, you will manage to imagine the rest.

I like the contrasting pockets and the low waist. Oh, and the little rectangle for the belt button holes are actually hiding a little mishap (others might call it hole). But doesn’t it look a bit like a belt buckle? A bit?

I have used a cheap summer sweat as this is only the trial version. I think a proper, slightly heavier sweat will actually make it more suitable for me and my tummy.

Plus imagine just the skirt part of the dress with the leopards! That will look so cool. Initially I thought only the dark navy with the yellow dots as side panels however I might not actually have enough of the yellow left and it might just become a proper mix up of both leopard fabrics and the dots as pockets only.

The clever reader will by now be wondering where the baby item is if this post has anything to do with its title (It actually hasn’t, I’m afraid, no fencing, no horses, no silly hats).

Any if you are by now thinking “I don’t get any of these tasks. Am I not the clever reader she is referring to?” then all I can say: Apparently not 😉

And as I have by now probably lost most of my offended readers, I can finally tell you that there will be a big secret revealed next time. And it has to do with the baby’s new coat. Which is far to thin for october in Austria by the way. No one has told me it would be that cold already. Anyway. Big secret coming up. Not to be shared with the whole wide world, only with those few followers who simply can not be chased away. Watch this space.

Scrap Sunday: We certainly had this one before

Posted on 02/10/2016 by atelieroursonne

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We were invited to our first birthday party already and as all my daughter knew about her new friend seemed to be her interest in horses, we made a special horse bag with horse-y stuff in it (Considering that all other party guests brought horse-y stuff along, this information seems at least to be accurate).

Anyway, as I like gifting handmade stuff, I wanted to make something simple – I know a bit pathetic, just because I don’t know that girl yet I didn’t want to go the extra mile and invest as much time as I would normally do for my other friends. Plus I wanted to leave myself room for more in the upcoming years. If I already start with a handmade gift bag from scratch, where will it end? A handstitched dress? So a shop bought cotton bag with a personalised decoration seemed and actually seems ideal. I am considering to make that my signature thing and always wrap our presents in personalised cotton bags from now on.

Remember the workshop about freestyle machine embroidery? I still haven’t invested in a proper foot for my machine as I am always thinking that I might eventually swap it for a better one. So I did not use that technique although I really loved doing it. and I would have wanted to draw some lines onto that applique.

I love the thin lines done by the freestyle …

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… but I am not too sure about the practicability and washability of it – we had been told “handwash only” – so I prefered anyway to fix the applique with zigzag to make sure it can be washed safely.

Apart from that quick project, I have also done other things. It started with a long list of clothes that we will need for this autumn (I am not publishing the list on here, my husband reads this and I do not want him to make a link between the state of the house and said list, he is quite a clever boy). Now I am on a strict working schedule: Sticking pdf patterns, copying and cutting preferably in the evening and early morning when sewing noises might disturb the neighbours or draw husband’s attention to the project list and sewing during the day whilst baby is asleep or measuring the length of thread that fits on a bobbin or two.

The first projects include a baby shirt to grow into, pattern from the klimperklein book.

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a soft pair of sweat trousers to grow into in about 2 years, pattern from the same book (I only made it one size to big, can you believe it?)

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I guess two sizes smaller would have been just right. Which is why I quickly made another one. One size smaller, this time with teal ribbing instead of the much better aubergine as I didn’t have enough aubergine left.

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As you can see, much shorter, I am sure it will fit him. Eventually.

I am also still knitting, imagine I made the first pair of socks since 25 years. They really would deserve their own post but who knows if it would ever get written, so lets just admire them – It only took me 6 weeks to make them:

Tada!

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Aren’t they amazing and beautiful?

And last but definitely not least: In all that business with moving, new school, nursery,…. I was spending my evenings wondering what to knit next. Only when I was measuring if I could squeeze a pair of tiny octopus trousers out of todays left overs for my soon to be born baby nephew, I realised that I have to knit a traditional baby blanket. In a months time! For 8 months, it had not come to my mind. Well, 6, they didn’t tell me that early. I guess, I suffered a bit of a trauma when knitting 4 in 2016 🙂

So, if I go quiet again, you’ll know what I will be doing.

Scrap Sunday: Slightly bigger tissue issue

Posted on 24/07/2016 by atelieroursonne

I know you are waiting for the big one, but let me tell you one thing: moving houses, actually moving countries with three children takes up slightly more time than one would have thought. Especially at the end of term with all those extra activities to attend.

Sure, they all help a lot, sorting out toys, peeling down wall stickers,…

Especially the little one. He kindly wakes me up at 5 o’clock in the morning, so I can make the most of my day and then goes and searches for all those small pieces on the floor that my old eye can’t even spot and examines them carefully if they needed to be processed any further. In which case he takes care of them and kindly hands them to me after a day or two.

He is actually a big fan of tissues hence the big tissue issue you are all waiting for. But back to the small one for now.

Initially I thought that there won’t be any teachers’ presents this year but very last minute (we are speaking of the eve of the last nursery day) I decided they should get something. It just wouldn’t have been fair.When my daughter had left her nursery, I had made bags and badge holders using fabrics I had used for her clothes.

So I quickly cut out lots of squares for tissue covers.

I had found the pattern when I was looking for my knitted one from last week. Funnily enough this one by Two Brown Birds features also contrasting edges (through the lining fabric)

At 7 am the next morning (I’m sure the neighbours appreciated I hadn’t started using the sewing machine at 5am) I quickly made the 4 I needed for nursery. The other ones followed later that day and the next morning. I have to say, this project is really quick. Basically 4 seams with a little bit of ironing in between (ideally). However, it annoys me to know that there are ugly seams inside which can potentially be seen. I zigzagged them as well as I found it not secure enough with raw edges. And I do wonder how much more time it would cost to make a reversible version. But enough talking, lets have a look. I guess you’ll recognize some of the fabrics.

I’ve tried to use some of the fabrics the teachers might now (difficult due to uniform, so it is all about the sunhats) so they would actually be reminded of my children,

or fabric to match their personal style:

or cute fabric (you know because my children are cute)

or because a pretty piece of fabric had about the right size

or simply because it was the manliest and scariest fabric I found (for the male deputy head teacher 🙂 ) – which happens to be a hopefully good reminder of my son too (not because he is scary)

Which one do you like best? I find it really hard to decide.

Oh, and in case you were expecting another post about tissue issues soon, forget it. The packers are coming tomorrow and the whole week will be about getting to Vienna, settling in and unpacking some of those boxes.

So, enjoy the blog free time as long as you can – I’ll be back

A bit like a japanese linen top. Except not really.

Posted on 07/07/2016 by atelieroursonne

I am really busy these days, organising and attending leaving parties, baking tonnes of cake for said parties with greedy guests (you know who you are), cancelling memberships and contracts, trying to find out relevant information about national insurance, taxes,… and obviously decluttering. Decluttering is always important when you are moving. Basically this is why we are moving. There was no way we would declutter just because we do not have enough space for the amount of clutter we own.

One extremely useful way of decluttering is to use up fabric. I know technically this will only shift the fabric from the fabric pile to the wardrobe but there is more space there than on the fabric pile. So it is decluttering. Really.

I told you I meant to make a Frau Aiko. I had already cut the pattern when I realised that I didn’t have enough fabric and made a skirt instead.

So I used a piece of purple cotton. Frau Aiko is a very simple blouse with straight lines. I find it a bit Japanese style, something I really like. I know Japanese style looks best on slim and petite Japanese women which is why I never wear Japanese style stuff but I still bought the pattern, knowing it might not bring the best out of me. I thought it might actually look cool in a plain colour and with a slightly stiff woven cotton. A bit like linen. Even though that wasn’t what I had initially in mind.

Anyway. It turns out it doesn’t look cool Japanese with me in it. And not linen like.

My 6 year old said: Oh, did you make a waterproof apron ? (I assume on of those for crafts with sleeves). I personally thought rather of scrubs. I could definitely hide a stethoskope in those pockets.

I am not entirely sure what went wrong, well apart from fabric type choice, patternlessness (if you knew anything about fabric you’d know this means fabric without a pattern, I guess some boring people would call it plain) and possibly style choice for my personal needs.

I think on that first picture you can also see a few details (I know, once again I thought I could get away with a non ironed piece but you know, it is all done on purpose) which I actually don’t really like. I find the proportions of the sleeve really odd. The combination of over-cut shoulders with a 3/4 length sleeve is not for me. But then that is something that wouldn’t be so obvious if I had used a patterned fabric.

I also don’t like the proportions of the pockets. Although I do like the pockets as such.

Last but not least I think the facing is a bit too narrow.

After all that I would like to point out that I am blaming Frau Aiko for this non-success (calling it failure would be a bit over the top).

The whole concept of a boxy short blouse is just not making me look any better. I might give it another go in a different fabric, something with more drape. And more colour. Obviously. Although I do love the colour as such.

But enough talking, lets have a look at the result.

In case you were thinking that clearly this blouse needs to be teamed up with trousers rather than a skirt, well I did try and it did not look good at all. Maybe I was wearing the wrong trousers.

For the pictures I decided to wear my skirt (I have already altered it to take it in – it fits now almost perfectly) because Frau Aiko is in the same colour as the skirt hem:

Ok, I had been wearing the skirt all day and couldn’t be bothered to get changed.

Looking at the pictures now, I find it actually less odd than it felt. Still don’t think I will ever wear it. Might just go to the charity shop. In which case I would have successfully decluttered 🙂

And now, I’ll send this over to RUMS to see what others have been creating this week.

Atelier Oursonne

handmade for you

Category Archives: sewing

One for all and all for one

Scrap Sunday: We certainly had this one before

Scrap Sunday: Slightly bigger tissue issue

A bit like a japanese linen top. Except not really.