Row, row, row the boat…

Posted on 22/06/2016 by atelieroursonne

…. gently down the stream

and if you see a pirate ship

don’t forget to scream.

So, the pirate captain (remember?)

has been joined by a quarter master (not only did I do some research on pirate organisational structure but there is also a very interesting and unbelievably large amount on the subject out there – go and have a look yourself)

matching but also not too matching I think….

Aren’t they ~~cute~~ fiece? I meant fierce. I am certainly not going to make that mistake again! But then, pirate captains are most likely not following sewing and knitting blogs anyway. So lets just look at them again.

Which brings us back to the title.

By the way, all pattern are from the Kinderleicht! Naehen mit Jersey fuer Kids by Pauline Dohmen.

Scrap Sunday: A few Me Made May thoughts and a perfect match

Posted on 19/06/2016 by atelieroursonne

May is long gone and I still haven’t summed up my Me Made May experience. So lets have a look.

I pledged

To declutter my wardrobe. Which I did.

To wear me made items three times a week. Which I think I mainly did. Sometimes not for the whole day. But you try and live with a little vomitter and don’t get changed 7 times a day.

To create some new me mades. Which I definitely did.

And to make some progress on the perfect breastfeeding top. Which I haven’t really. Except if you are accepting a head full of vague ideas as progress. Oh well, I will just have to continue breastfeeding for a while.

I guess, I did the challenge only half heartedly as I have so many things on my plate these days but it was still a very good and inspiring experience. And I am already looking forward to taking part next year.

I have realised that my wardrobe consists of lots of ill fitting and mismatching items. I still kept those that might fit again one day. Even though it is hard to tell where ~~kilos~~ things will be going.

The mismatching is another problem, probably unsolvable. I have the colour palette of a parrot so it is difficult to match things. I guess i should add some neutral colours to the mix to be able to combine things better. But if you know me, that will be a difficult task. I might just accidentally turn something that started as a navy blue top into a parrot coat again.

I have also realised that I tend to think that me mades are precious and not to be worn at messy times. For the children I might be making casual items but I still have a tiny bit the feeling that they shouldn’t ruin them because mummy made them. So they shouldn’t be wearing them when they play. Or eat. Which is basically what children do. So whilst in my knitting classes I am always preaching of “making and letting go”, I do struggle a tiny bit of following this for my own makes.

For myself it is even worse. I love making dresses. Especially nice dresses. But I am not an everyday dress type of person. I am a jeans and whatever shirt I pulled out of the wardrobe type of person. So I don’t really have occasions to wear nice dresses and if I wear them for the school run I feel uncomfortable and overdressed.

I guess the main lesson learned from Me Made May 16 was to make not only more clothes for myself and the children but to focus on staples and more wearable items. And to take it more seriously in general. The ideal would be to be able to make all the clothes for the family myself, wouldn’t it. Which would also mean to not only look out for those cute and special printed fabrics but some plain colours too. Even I wouldn’t mix a patterned top with a multicoloured even more patterned skirt. I said “wouldn’t” because I have done it in the past. Due to lack of a plain item in the right colour.

Oh, and when I say “all” the clothes, I don’t include things like rain clothes or winter coats,… Not for now at least. But I am actually planning to make trousers. As I am clearly wearing trousers more often than dresses.

One good side effect of that new plan would also be to reduce my stash considerably. It had gone down lately. Until dotsnstripes had a super sale, selling some lovely fabrics for £3 a metre. So I am back to huge piles of fabric. I wish a day had 48 hours.

So this week started pretty well, I cut out a T-Shirt and a dress last weekend and managed to sew both on Monday. Then I thought, I could continue with one piece a day but this was it 🙂 Well, apart from a Pippi Longstocking apron which I will show you in a seperate post.

Both patterns are from my klimperklein book Naehen mit Jersey Kinderleicht!

For the dress I used some of the fabric that had been in my Advent calendar last december. And what a perfect match for the size I had to use 🙂 (the pattern doesn’t even include seam allowance yet!):

I love it, it is obviously girly but not the usual boring pinkish stuff.

For the pirate shirt I had plenty of fabric because I had bought that fabric for a onesie which never happened. So for once I actually looked at the position of the pattern when cutting out rather than just squeezing it into a corner of the fabric to have as little waste as possible and so the motives are spread out evenly.

I combined it with palm tree green stripes for the sleeves and orange for the neck and sleeves.

After I had made the sleeve cuffs too tightly, I panicked and the neck binding is now slightly too loose. But I love the combination and have decided to make a similar combo for his brother. I don’t normally like matching children but I guess pirates usually do come in bunches.

Oh, I almost forgot. I also made a pair of shorts out of scraps. The pattern suggested jogging sweat and I had grey or blue. The boy chose blue (believe it or not but I would have preferred the grey) and as I am struggling with plain colours I put lots of other stuff there, like a double layered application. Which is also a good way of using up tiny pieces of scrap 🙂

I am a teeny weeny bit unsure about the material choice. Obviously a certain thickness is needed for robustness. But then it might get quite warm. Which doesn’t make sense for a pair of shorts. Hmm. I might just try the same pattern with a woven fabric. It will be much cooler and we will see how long it will survive. But that will have to wait a little bit as this week it will be my and mini pirate’s turn.

Quick catch up

Posted on 16/04/2016 by atelieroursonne

As you know, I am most productive when I have my children around. Still not sure why. But I can definitely get a lot done when they play next to me. At least as long as they don’t fight or try to burn the house down.

So actually I was really busy during the first half of the Easter break. I am still working on a big yoga bag order but I did take some breaks (when I had done my daily task) and made a few things for my children.

The least exciting one would be this shirt, using the left overs from my niece’s shirt in combination with a stripy jersey that was once in a “surprise bag” from Michas Stoffecke and a cheap grey jersey from Shepherds Bush, initially intended as trial material on my search for the perfect breastfeeding top (which I will ideally make while still breastfeeding)

I used my usual pattydoo pattern but I am now normally hiding the seam at the neck which looks much more professional:

and I am trying out a new stitch for the hem. I used the twin needle in the past and was really pleased with the look but that seam actually fell apart in some of the shirts which is not exactly ideal.

I am not sure if I have even posted a picture of the initial girl version, made in February already:

The second most exciting item was a dress, using a klimperklein pattern and a pink flowery sweat that I have since a while:

I find this dress really cool. I think the sporty raglan pattern and the colour of the heart go very well in combination with the rather girly fabric.

So two lovely projects for two lovely children but the loveliest (project, not child – they are all exactly the same lovely) of all is still to be shown:

A reversible jacket with a pointy hood. Just right for the “in between seasons” season.

I didn’t have enough of the brown car sweat left for the whole jacket so I made blue sleeves. Then I thought that the inner jacket should similarly have different sleeves but I am not entirely sure about it. It looks a bit odd. Maybe I should have done the hood in the orange stripes as well. Plus the teal of the star fabric doesn’t go with the blue of the sleeves but I was really keen on using it. It is a lovely fabric, almost a bit of a waste to be used as lining only. I can’t wait until the outside gets vomit on it so I’ll have an excuse to turn it.

I have used another klimperklein pattern, this time from her book. I was so excited to get that book. When it finally arrived I was slightly disappointed at first. I guess, after all the great e-books I expected much more pictures and variations of each pattern. Which is silly and totally my fault. A book simply can’t provide the same amount of step by step pictures and 20 variations of each item. And actually the author Pauline Dohmen must have thought the same as she is now even publishing amazing tutorials on her blog for the most crucial questions. Like how to properly sew and turn a reversible jacket…. or a lined coat :). The tutorial landed in my inbox just about a week after I had struggled with the coat! What a bad timing. But I will now know forever how to do this 🙂

Just a few pictures of my little jacket, a proper tutorial can be found on the klimperklein blog.

First, the two jackets sewn together, except at the sleeves. The two jackets are NOT to be put inside each other. (And obviously, there is a gap at one of the side seams of the inner jacket so they can later be turned inside out):

Now, join the sleeves, being careful not to twist them. Pauline Dohmen refers to it as kissing elephant trunks. What a useful image!

Finally, the jackets fully sewn together – except the turning gap at the inner jacket, you can see it on the left side.

I love that little jacket so much, I have never been happier to live in England where it will be just the right weather for an “in between season” jacket for another 6 months 🙂

Busy Business Bee

Posted on 19/03/2016 by atelieroursonne

I had a very busy week. Businesswise. Well, obviously also familywise but that is the norm so doesn’t count.

So, apart from the observed knitting class (a crazy one, really. Not only did almost everyone turn up for once but there were also 2 new people and 2! who came to visit because they were interested in taking over the knitting class plus an unusually high number of children. It was crazy. But good. The observer was most impressed by the atmosphere in the class and how I managed to do my thing – I guess the poor man didn’t quite expect a bunch of chattering women with small children climbing all over the place whilst discussing numbers on needles and yarns and patterns and how to calculate clever things 🙂 ) – see I closed the bracket so we are back to the initial sentence – I also had a lot of custom orders to be finished.

Apart from about 10 yoga bags (another bracket but just to tell you that the pictures are really bad as taken in a rush this morning so I am not going to show you I think) I also had to knit a woolen cardigan for a little boy except that I didn’t know the parents nor the little boy and their personal taste. Plus it was meant to be a special present, so I thought that something classic rather than crazily colourful would be more appropriate.

I have used my favourite pattern for these kind of things: Little Rascals by Julia Stanfield. I am a big fan of top down seemless knits.

I have used Lana Grossa Cool Wool big, a lovely soft merino which can even be washed in the washing machine if you really have to. The shade is amazing too. It is a rather darkish blue for the classic look but it is a melange so there is something going on, it is not just a plain blue.

Just blue would possibly have been really classic. But also really boring, so I thought a bold red stripe with white edges will make it look fresh and sporty whilst still classic enough to not be offensive to someone who does not share my love of less obvious colour combinations.

So that was all nice and classic and precious (wool, remember) but a tiny voice of the little 2 year old girl in me said: “yuk, boring!” and it began to dawn on me that maybe the 2 year old who will actually wear the cardigan might not think: “Oh what a lovely and nice little cardigan in a neutral colour. It will go with many of my smart trousers and shirts for special occasions” so I decided to add a little thing to the outfit which would be more every day nursery style and might find more appreciation from the little boy (obviously without knowing him, I might be totally wrong)