Welcome to the circus

Hi everyone! Welcome to 2016!!! I just realized that this is my first blogpost of the year... Hmm.
Life has been extremely busy lately, and I have hardly had the time and energy to sew. But when my son announced that they would have a circus week at school, I couldn't resist...

I've been wanting to sew such a jacket ever since seeing Max California's winning boy outfit for the Project Run and Play Season 6 (back in 2013...). Of course, I was also inspired by the famous Stella McCartney military jackets, and by this jacket from Petit a Petit & Family.

The outside is made of blue velvet and the red lining is made of an old curtain, both from my stash.

 

The pattern is self-drafted, by combining Sofilantjes' ADV tee with a pattern of a cropped jacket that I found in an old Knippie (a Dutch pattern journal). The jacket is slightly cropped at the back, while the front is angled down a bit.

As my everyday style is getting more basic and less colourful, it was really fun to go all overboard with the gold trims and buttons. 

I'm really happy with how it turned out, and I think he loves it too. A fun colourful jacket for my bright and colourful boy!

critter sweater

Hi guys, here's a quick post about the new favorite sweater I made for my critter-loving girl.

This sweater has everything she loves:

A comfortable hood,

drawstrings,

soft furry sleeves

and cute animal faces...

The pattern is the Otium sweater from the Dutch pattern designer Sofilantjes. It's a great pattern with a fun overlapping hood.

The furry sleeves were copied from a fun squirrel sweater by Emma en Mona.

The critter fabric is Menagerie Onyx by Sarah Watson (Art Gallery), bought at Petite Couture.

Merry Christmas to you all!

ADVTee blog tour

Hi all, here I am again, after a long, unintended blog break. 

As a matter of fact, I didn't touch my sewing maching for a few months, feeling that my latest creation -the upcycled denim vest-  had taken so much creative energy that I needed some time to recover.

But then Anne from Sofilantjes invited me to participate in the ADVTee blog tour, hosted by Sprouting Jube Jube. That was a good trigger to start thinking about sewing again. An easy, nice sweatshirt, the perfect project to get my sewing mojo back. 

The ADVtee pattern has two neckline options; a simple V-neck and an asymmetric button closure. I chose the V-neck. Simple, but I love how it turned out with the striped ribbing.

For the pocket I used a bit of the Menagerie Onyx fabric from Art Gallery. This fabric has been on my wish list for a long time, so when I found out that Petite Couture had it in stock, I immediately bought a yard. It's such a great print, with all these cute animal faces; perfect for fun details such as this pocket.

I sewed a size 3 for my 2,5 year old, and it fits perfectly. As you can see, I didn't hem the sleeves and bottom before taking these pictures. Daylight is scarce these days, so I had to take the photos before finishing the sweater. 

I'm really happy that I could join this tour, because I love this sweater. I've already printed out the size 9, to make a version for my daughter. Can't wait to get started...so I think I've got my sewing mojo back. Thanks Anne and Deb!

Curious what other participants in the blog tour made? Check out the tour schedule here:

Nov 30: From-a-Box - The Wholesome Mama - Sprouting JubeJube
Dec 1: Lulu & Celeste - Handmade Boy - Boevenbende
Dec 2: Rebel & Malice - Vera Luna - Liesel Love
Dec 3: Vaahtokarkkimonsteri - Huisje Boompje Boefjes - Khadetjes
Dec 4: Call Ajaire - Straight Grain - Nononsonsmoms

And to celebrate this blog tour, Sofilantjes is giving a 20% discount on their patterns. You can use the code "CELEBRATE" at checkout  from November 30th to December 6th.

An experiment

"Scientist by day, seamstress by night." That's how I describe myself in my profile. Of course, these are not completely separate identities, and sometimes my sewing activities are strongly influenced by my academic nature. Those of you who have followed my blog for a while know that I like to experiment. Sometimes the result is great, sometimes it's rather, well, explosive.... (read the story about exploding wool here).
Anyway, I came up with a new idea and thought it would be a nice experiment to see if I could turn it into reality. And since I was on a roll, I decided to write this post in a scientific way too. At least some of you - fellow researchers- might appreciate that.

So here we go...

RESEARCH QUESTION
Is it possible to turn discarded jeans into a wearable and cool quilted vest?

DESIGN
The envisioned design is sketched in the Figure below.

The aim was to design the vest with a continuous pattern. Thus, there would be no side seams or shoulder seams. The hood would be created by attaching the two back middle strips to the front middle strips. The pockets would be hidden in the pattern.

METHOD
Materials Several pairs of discarded jeans, in various shades of blue, thread, a 50 cm zipper, half a yard of lightweight knit, half a yard of batting

Procedure. The flowchart of the procedure is displayed in Figure 1.

1. As a first step, the jeans were cut into parallelograms (width: 13 cm, height: xx cm, angle: 36*). Next, several lay-outs were tried. The optimal lay-out was determined based on peer feedback gathered through a small survey on Instagram.
2. Then, the parallelograms were attached in long strips, and next the strips were sewed together.
3. The fit of the garment was tested on the end-user. Several seams were opened using a seam ripper, and the fit was adapted.
4. Step 3 was repeated multiple times
5. The zipper, lining and waistband were added
6. The armholes were finished
7. Step 3 was repeated (grumble...) 

After completion of the process, end-user feedback was gathered. In return for payment (2 marshmallows per end-user), photos were taken (weather conditions: slightly overcast, 18 degrees Celcius)

RESULTS

The end result of the experiment is shown in the remaining Figures.
The envisioned design was realized completely. With respect the wearability, the experiment was quite successful. 

The vest turned out slightly too big for end user 1, and way too big for end user 2, but considering the growing rate of both users, this is not too problematic. 

With respect to the coolness, the first end user gave a score of 6 out of 10, whereas the second end user gave a score of 10 out of 10.  

CONCLUSION

The experiment shows that it is possible to turn discarded jeans into a wearable and cool vest (according to two end users). The process took a fair amount of time, and the seam ripper was used frequently. Nevertheless, I'd like to conclude that this experiment was successful.

The versatile vest

Yesterday, I showed you the outfit I made for the Sewing for Kindergarten series. The photoshoot for that post was one of the best we've ever had, with beautiful soft September light, a field full of wildflowers and a cooperative kid who was willing to model not one, not two, but three different outfits.

As I mentioned in my last post, I tried to make some items that would coordinate well with other clothes in B's wardrobe. Especially the vest, with it's neutral base colours and three different hoods, should be quite versatile. To try it out, we pulled some clothes from his wardrobe and started mixing and matching.

Without much further ado, here are two combinations featuring the versatile vest....

The sweet look

My son loves pink, and I've grown to love it too, especially this kind of salmon pink. It's a soft and friendly colour that goes really well with the neutral tones in his outfit.

The polo is a pattern from Ottobre magazine, but I won't spend too much time on it since I wasn't too happy with this pattern. The instructions were rather unclear and the fit isn't great either. If you know of a good polo pattern, please let me know.

The sweatpants are the Moto Maxx pants from Love Notions. The slim fit of these pants is great for my tall, slender kids. They are made in the softest sweat fabric I've ever touched. My kids (I also made a pair for my daughter) love them, and wouldn't wear anything else if they were allowed.

The cool look

Here he's wearing the same Moto Maxx pants, but now topped with a DIY-printed shirt (blogged here). And this hood has a fun geometric print too.

Which look do you prefer?