Fox hunting coat

Posted on 14/10/2016 by atelieroursonne

As you are still here, I can only assume that you are either really confident and all my attempts of chasing you away have failed or you are just really really nosy and want to know all about the secret I am about to reveal. In either case: Welcome back! I am glad you are still with me. Because the secret is a big one. I am actually quite nervous right now. But give me a moment to relax.

As I have mentioned before, the baby got a new coat (reversible jacket pattern from the klimperklein book) instead of a hoody. The old one was getting small.

and stupidly I thought he can still wear a normal double sided cotton coat in October. Well, maybe with a woolen jumper underneath. I ordered very autumny fox ~~hunting~~ (sorry, I clearly was too long in England if I find that funny ) sweat. Much to my disappointment it was rather thin and I wasn’t even sure if I should be using it for a jacket. But I still did. Because… well I don’t know why.

As you can see, I made ellbow pads – very British I think.

Ellbow pads are a great way of using up scraps (mental note to myself: Write lengthy blog post about ellbow pads on Sunday)

I love the pointy hood with the tassels. And see, the current hat matches as well.

In action (And no, he would not stand up for a moment just because he is kindly asked by the woman who feeds him at any time of day or night, who entertains him at any time of day or night, who looks after him, changes his nappies, dresses him and makes him the coolest clothes):

Now, for the inside, it is less colourful than usual. I suddenly remembered that grey thick brushed cotton that I had bought ages ago as a lining for dungarees before realising that this would be far too hot for trousers.

For sleeves and hood I used stripy left overs. I only had enough orange for the hood so I went for green sleeves. As the outer sleeves are a thicker sweat than the fox fabric, I didn’t want to have the brushed cotton for the sleeves as well as it would have become too bulky for those tiny arms.

And guess what? I think this looks amazing. Grey with orange and green. Amazing. I almost prefer this side. Almost perfect (maybe with a tiny applique to jazz it up :)).

Grey! What a great colour! Yes colour. I do consider grey as a colour from now on. Phew, it is finally out. I do feel much better now. But pleeeease don’t tell anybody. I would loose my reputation as multicolour fanatic and I do not think I am ready for that just yet.

I really hope I can trust you and that you value the importance of this moment. I certainly do.

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.

Guten Tag and Schnell Schnell

Posted on 24/09/2016 by atelieroursonne

As you might have guessed from the title, we have done it. We’ve moved back to the German speaking world. I’d like to point out though that the outskirts of Vienna aren’t exactly the “schnell, schnell” type of place. I just thought, not everyone might understand “Grüß Gott” and “Wiener Gemütlichkeit”.

Anyway, I am now trying to sort out my life. You know, crossroad, choosing which way to go, all that sort of stuff. Basically it is like being 18 again. Without the parties. And with grey hair instead. And a wobbly tummy. And three children (hence the wobbly tummy, nothing to do with chocolate). But apart from that exactly like being 18. Where was I? Oh yes, cross road. As Atelier Oursonne hasn’t been a global player just yet I have officially closed my business in the UK – you might have read about it in the Financial Times. The question now is, should I start again in Austria?Where would I get my supplies from? (Shepherds Bush is not quite in walking distance anymore.) Maybe with a more tailored range of products? Tailored to which target group? Maybe under a new name? One that people can actually pronounce and maybe even spell?

Plus, legally things aren’t so easy over here. Lots of regulations. You actually need to have proper education for lots of business types. Imagine, hairdressers are actually fully trained. As hairdressers! Obviously the downside of this is that I can not just start selling amazing handmade clothes only because I am incredibly talented if I do not own the right certificate proving that I have actually learned how to do this.

Plus the whole mother and housewife thing is suddenly much more time consuming. School starts at 8 and finishes at 1 or even worse 12. Which means I have to provide lunch and dinner. Oh, and snack for snack time. Just fruit is not acceptable apparently. I am suddenly spending lots of time in researching and producing healthy snacks. I might start a blog about that actually.

And you get much more living space for your money than in London (surprise, surprise) which also means more cleaning space. Something I hadn’t considered. Plus that garden! Not only does it need to be looked after (Apparently. I have only noticed that the neighbours have much nicer gardens) but nature is actually creeping into the house as well. And whilst the crawling baby is doing his best at eating all the dirt (and possibly some of the creepy crawlies too), somehow it makes me have to hoover on a daily basis. Sometimes even twice. Said baby is quite good at making dirt disappear but actually produces even more dirt when provided with real food. Anyway, all those issues mean less time for sewing.

So, should I go back into business? I would actually be overflowing with initially-brilliant-then-turning-into-nightmare-workload-ideas. I’ll show you next time. All I need to do is getting those pictures on the computer. Easy. So you just stay where you are and wait for me to come back with them.