1 year late, pt. 5 (the final one!)

i honestly can’t think of a better title. may i just dump this post here? 😛

seeing that this is my own blog, the answer is yes. i may. and i will.

so we’re finally in winter 2021, and i’m finally posting my very last sewing projects of the year. i’m actually very proud of each and every one of the items i made last year, it’s just that i want to get going with this year’s projects already. 😅 now, shall we start?

self-made blouse and shorts.

if you’ve been a reader of my blog for a long while, you’d have known that i always have a soft spot for Moomin fabrics. i may not grow up with Moomin books/cartoons, but seeing the characters and their behaviours, and the fact that i used to saw a lot of their merchandise in Japanese fashion magazines made me feel just as close to them as a true Finn.

this one i had to get because it’s a scene from a story that meant a lot to my husband. the print is called Tivoli and it’s cotton jersey with a bit of elastane. i got about 80 cm of the fabric, and the width is about 150 cm.

i didn’t use any pattern for this one and did the usual square method AKA boxy shirt. just for a bit of a twist, i decided to add black lace between the body and sleeve pieces, aaaand some pompom trimming on the cuffs. because of the lace addition, i managed to get semi-long sleeves for this one, so it’s perfect for autumn/winter.

for the neckline, i used the trusted elastic edge band again (of course)! this one is not made of the same material as the previous ones i’ve used, though, and because of the tiny ribbing lines, it looks a bit more ‘sporty’. not that that’s a problem, it still makes my life a lot easier than to make a separate neckline band or use a bias tape for necklines.

the next project was supposed to be my last sewing project of 2021.

self-made dress, COS shoes.

ever since i worked with punto jersey (can’t even remember when that first time was!), i had always loved how easy it is to sew it. it’s just as easy as working with scuba jersey, but the material itself is usually much more comfortable and less ‘plastic’ky than scuba, which is nice.

so when i saw this solid coloured one in green (gotta love green!), i knew i had to get it. in the beginning i was thinking of making pants, but i unsuccessfully tried a new pants pattern last summer (i mean, summer 2021) and so that plan went out the window. thankfully, that time i used another fabric, so this one was still completely unscathed.

i had about 1,5 m of this fabric, and the width was around 140 cm. i was feeling too lazy to copy new dress patterns, so in the end i decided to use the same pattern as the one for this dress.

i didn’t remember what was so hard about making this dress, especially since i could omit the zipper because i was using a stretchy fabric.

but as soon as i started sewing the v-neckline, it all came back to me. needless to say, it’s not exactly neat and crisp, but i did my best.

what i’m most proud of is, of course, the origami pleat at the front part of the waistline. it came out beautifully (for my standard), so i’m super satisfied with that. to make it look more polished, i used ochre-coloured topstitch thread for the yoke’s topstitches… and of course, a few metal studs on the yokes wouldn’t hurt.

after finishing this dress and feeling super proud of it, i couldn’t help grabbing another fabric. i mean, hey, i was feeling super lucky!

self-made fanny pack.

it was that time of the year! you know, the time when my previous self-made fanny pack broke down (the fabric just frayed too much, the zipper got stuck way too often) that i just had to make a new one!

this time, i copied a co-worker’s fanny pack which had just one wide elastic strip covering the width of the bag to put the tools in. the fabric i used is some sort of neoprene, so this time it shouldn’t fray at all, ha!

i’ve been using it since the beginning of this year, and it’s been great so far, except for the elastic band that holds the whole bag that’s been stretching and stretching non-stop because of all the weight inside the bag. 😂 i just have to keep shortening it, but whatever. at least the bag itself is still usable! it does make me wonder how much stuff i carry around at work. and i don’t even carry my mobile phone there!

but what do you know? i’ve finally caught up with myself in the year 2022, whoppee! now let’s just hope the next post will be some time this year! 😆

when life is ‘so sew’

before we start: I FOUND THE CLASSIC EDITOR BUTTON!!!! i’m so happy! hooray!

alright, now we move on to the next exciting topic, which is no longer a surprise if you’ve read my post early this year… that is: i’ve been sewing again.

the real chronology of things is that i was happily sewing earlier this year. when i had my winter holiday, i sewed 4 things (2 of which will be featured here in this post) and thought for sure i was gonna be sewing once a month at least from that point onwards.

but that wasn’t what happened.

as mentioned on my previous post, i had mental health problems which made me lose my appetite, not only toward food, but also toward sewing. it wasn’t nice. but it wasn’t the first time i had it either, as old readers of this blog might have noticed. so i gave myself time to heal and time to rest.

it wasn’t until about 2-3 weeks ago that i finally got the will and strength to pick up my sewing hobby again. in a matter of a week, i sewed 6 items of clothing. 😱 i haven’t taken pics of all of the newer ones–i need another form of will and strength for that–but with that kind of achievement, i now finally feel ready to post about my previous sewing projects (the ones i made in winter). just 2 of them per post, so this post won’t be too long.

the very first project i made this year was nothing ‘extra special’, but it was out of necessity.

it’s a fanny pack. it’s a necessity for me at work, as i need to have all kinds of tools with me all the time! and it was my very first time trying to sew a real, functional fanny pack, so of course it wasn’t all trouble-free. (btw, in case you’re wondering, the background of the picture needed to be edited because otherwise you won’t be able to see where the fanny pack is. 😅 so sorry for the weird pic!)

anyway, i didn’t use any pattern for this, but a lot of calculations. i used a sort of awning fabric because i thought it’d be durable, but holy moly… it frays a lot! even after i serged all the edges, they still fray! 🤦🏻‍♀️

also, i’m not quite sure how it happened, but even when all my calculations were correct, i still managed to have extra length on one side of the fanny pack when i was sewing the back side, so as you can see on the above picture, there’s quite a big of a ‘folding’ on the seam between the back side and the left side part. i was too tired to fix it, and i doubt anyone will see it, so it stays that way till now.

other than those mishaps, i also sewed the elastic band inside out (you probably won’t be able to see it from the pics, which is a good thing). of course i also realized it too late and was again too lazy to fix it. i had meant to attach plastic clasp on the elastic band, but in the end… just couldn’t be bothered. 😅

when it was done, i felt quite proud of having made something like this… but couldn’t help feeling like it was too plain. so i added the ‘handmade’ label which i bought from a small haberdashery store in Krakow in 2019.

i’ve been using this pack every day now at work, but sadly it’s been fraying too much that the zippers have gotten stuck in some places. i’ll just have to sew another one with better fabric next time. well, it was good while it lasted.

my next sewing project was not made without mistakes either (after all, what am i, if not a lazy and full-of-mistakes seamstress?) but let me start off with the good things first.

self-made dress, flight socks, Zara boots.

when i saw this viscose crepe fabric, i just had to get my hands on them. i mean lions! zebras! leopards! what’s not to love? me and crazy prints belong together forever. ❤ even if the base colour is beige (me and beige do NOT usually belong together, ever).

 

i made this dress using the same pattern i used for this one. i even used the same lace on the back shoulder part!

i had had that previous dress for ages and only now (well, earlier this year, before i sewed this) i began to wonder why i hadn’t made any new dresses using the same pattern. it was fairly easy to make, very easy to wear, and this style seems to be trendy at the moment.

since i got about 2 meters of this fabric, it was just perfect for this project.

on the left circle up there, you can see that the topmost button is a different colour than the rest of the buttons. this was partly due to the fact that i didn’t have enough of the other buttons and partly because i saw my husband’s button-up shirt from Zara with similar design and thought it looks so cool. so i decided to copy that style. 😉

this time i wanted the hem to be longer so i won’t have to fuss around with it when i wear it to work.

having this in viscose also means that it won’t get static in the dry winter here.

looking at these pictures you might think there are absolutely no mistakes made here. well….

as you can see from the right picture above, that’s how crazy my sewing went under the collar! 😂 the first stitch did not attach the lace to the collar at all, so i had to do another stitch, which was the ugly one. and of course i decided not to take off the first stitch, because two stitches will hold better than one, right?!? and it’s under the collar all the time, so no one else but me (and you) will ever know about it. ha!

this dress went straight to my list of fave dresses to wear to work this year, so i’m very proud of it. my life right now may be just so-so, but with this newly refreshed appetite for sewing, i’m hoping to turn it into a ‘so sew’ instead. 😊

as always, thank you for reading wherever you are, and i’ll try to be back soon with some more sewing & baking stuff. have a wonderful August, everyone!