Fall AKA autumn essentials planning

I happened across Sarah's FESA (Fall Essentials Sew-Along) over at The Creative Perfectionist (formerly Rhinestones and Telephones), and this got me thinking about planning what I will be making over the next few months

I'm not a fan of cold weather dressing, I much prefer pretty summer dresses and sandals to layers of woolly jumpers and boots. It also doesn't help that here in Switzerland they really love their central heating so you're constantly going between cold fresh air and stuffy overheated buildings and buses. So, I need to sort out some separates and layers that fit me and can be mixed and matched. When I came across this sewalong, it helped me put my thoughts in order, which will hopefully give some structure to my sewing plans.

I really don't think I'll be able to make all of these, and certainly not within the sew-along time period, but I'm using this more as a reminder list to keep me on track and try and help eliminate those moments of "I don't know what to sew next".

Fashionable Foundations for Frosty Weather

Trousers, skirts, legwarmers and more! Anything that keeps your lower portion fashionably cozy fits perfectly here! The chilly weather necessitates the donning of bifurcated bottoms and sassy skirts!

This is probably the things I need to sew most. I tend to spend most of the cold weather in jeans and various tops, but one of my favourite pairs of jeans wore out irreparably at the beginning of this year, so I need to at least replace those. It would be nice to have some other non-jeans trousers (and some skirts) too, to break up the monotony of my winter wardrobe, although I think I will need to have a think how I want to style these.

• Basic ponte skirts in various colours
• Jeans skirt that fits me now
• Blue denim jeans
• Red twill jeans
• B&W graphic sateen cigarette trousers
• Woollen wide leg trousers
• Winter midi- or maxi-skirt

Picture sources: knit skirts, zip-back pencil skirt, light denim pencil skirt, red jeans, b&w trousers, wide-leg trousers, winter maxi skirt

Chic Chemises for Cool Climates

Blouses, tops, vests, cardigans, and sweaters! These wardrobe essentials can carry you from day to night, not to mention provide necessary layering to keep out the chill.

I have a couple of hand-knits that are close to completion, both of them sort of transitional, so my next hand knit will be something a bit more wintery. I also really want to make some more sewn cardigans, as I like wearing these and they're super handy for layering.

• Knitted cardies
• Finish up hand-knit yellow jumper
• Finish up hand-knit blue cotton cardie
• Sewn cardies, cropped and draped
• Scarf-neck T-shirts
• Tunic-length blouses
• Pretty blouses/woven tops/T-shirts

Picture sources: grey open cardie, grey drape cardie, ikat cardie, black tunic blouse, chevron topblue lace sleeve pullover, dark grey textured cardie, grey v-neck cardie, red and purple top

Fabulous Frocks

Dresses of all styles; mini, midi, or long! Keep yourself warm in your modish designs, layering with tights and boots!

I really like wearing dresses, so would like to have a few more cold-weather appropriate ones (although I hate wearing tights, so this isn't the highest priority category unless I make some more leggings).

• Chambray shirt-dress
• Long-sleeved wrap dresses
• Ponte/doubleknit dresses

Picture sources: grey seamed wrap dress, striped wrap dress, purple sequinned-sleeve dress, red and black dress, ecru sweater dress, chambray shirt dress, plaid dress, ecru midriff dress

Underneath It All

When you're spending months covered from the neck down, a glamorous underpinning of your choice adds a secret, luxurious touch that chases the cold away!

I'd like to make up some Netties as the bodysuits for some extra layers that won't bunch up or be draughty. I also need to replace a lot of my regular wear knickers, and it seems much more logical to make some rather than buy yet more (I even have some too-small vest-tops that I've been saving to recycle too).

• Nettie bodysuits
• Cotton jersey knickers
• Leggings
• Slips

Tender Tootsies

Let's not forget your frosty feet! Socks, slippers and the like are the order of the day. Keep those tootsies warm and dry!

I have a pair of knitted ballerina slippers that I bought last year that I really like wearing in the winter. I'm planning on making a second pair to alternate when the others are in the wash. Socks aren't a necessity, but are nice small projects to knit in the evenings or when travelling.

• Knitted or sewn slippers
• Woolly socks

Those Cozy Nights

Is there anything better than snuggling up in a cozy pair of pajamas with a hot drink and a book whilst Jack Frost works his magic outside? I think not! Sleepwear of all types are the way to go here!

Much of my sleepwear needs replacing, and I have most of the fabric I need for the garments on here from last year's plans.

• Pretty nightie
• Flannel pyjama bottoms
• Dressing gown
• Jersey sleep tops with shelf bras

Baby It's Cold Outside

Coats, hats, and mittens donned to keep the cold at bay, especially when out enjoying the spectacular fall colours!

My (RTW) winter coat is still going strong, so I don't really need to sew anything to replace this (although I do need to sort out dry-cleaning it and re-sewing some buttons). However, I do need some lighter coats or jackets, but I just need to decide which of the ones I have planned to work on.

• Plaid flannel hooded jacket
• Grey wool lightweight coat
• Purple bouclé wool jacket
• Green flannel swing jacket
• Rain jacket
• Leather jacket
• Parka
• Jersey blazer
• Finish up vintage hand-knit grey hat
• Merino hand-knit hand-warmers

Picture sources: grey jersey blazer, purple tweed jacket, plaid swing jacket, moto jacket, parka

Some of these might seem a bit vague, but I have fabric and patterns in mind for many of them, just don't want to spend the time photographing/scanning these to add here. The pictures are inspirations of the sort of things I want to make and reminders for me. I've also recently just bought myself a (tiger-print!) Fashionary after waiting in vain several birthdays and Christmases for one as a present, so will be using that to plan the clothes in a bit more detail, plus I want to use a couple of vintage patterns for these garments to keep up with my Vintage Pattern Pledge. Fingers crossed, I'll be posting about some of these items soon! Although, as a Brit, I will from now on be referring to these as Autumn Essentials...

London twice in a fortnight

Well, it's that pre-Christmas rush of seeing family (and some friends too), so last week was spent in London, and I will be back again this weekend. Sadly no time last week for fabric or notions shopping (although I did buy some bayonet lightbulbs for the anglepoise in my sewing room...), maybe this time?

Incidentally, does anyone have any news on Goldhawk Road/Shepherd's Bush Market? I'm hoping to have a moment or two to pop into Classic Textiles and buy some coating.

I have actually been doing a fair amount of sewing between travelling, some things more successful than others. I'm currently working on (yet another!) Sorbetto in silk crêpe de chine - here's the fabric I am using:

I've got a little more finishing to do, but this will be worn this weekend in London - and I will be showing you something other than Sorbettos soon!

Happy New Year, lists galore (yeah, a bit late...)

Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you all had a lovely break over the Christmas period and had time to do plenty of sewing? And, yeah, this post has been sitting in my "drafts" folder for over a month now - where the hell does the time go?

It seems to be pretty popular in the blogosphere to review the previous year and make resolutions for the next, so I'm (sort of) going to do that too! I love following the crowd...

Well, 2010 was a pretty big year for me, mainly because of my move from London to Geneva. Ten months later and I'm still "settling in". When will that feeling go away? So many things about London I didn't realise I would miss so much until they weren't there any more - not least the fabric and haberdashery shops. Haberdashery's not so difficult to get hold of here, but the fabric appears to be INSANELY expensive. Like "44 CHF per metre for plain silk charmeuse" expensive (compared to £6 per metre equivalent on lovely lovely Goldhawk Road). JEEZ. On the positive side, however, I have gained a (almost) dedicated sewing room, plus the time to actually get down and sew. Delicious.

In terms of sewing, my output was depressingly low, but I think that was mainly due to getting stuff packed and unpacked and then getting settled here:

1. Leopard and green Budapest dress
2. Yellow knitted circle scarf (unfinished)
3. Alphabet quilt for my nephew (unfinished)

Is that really all I made???? Well I guess that's motivation to have a slightly more impressive list next year!

I did also do a little Christmas sewing, I will post pictures in a separate post once the items have actually gone to their owners (what? I'm stretching out the excitement of the yuletide period for them).

As for resolutions, well I have some personal ones, which I'm not going to share with the, ooh, positively millions of people who are reading this (ahem), but the relevant ones for here are:

1. Sew at least one item once a fortnight
2. Set myself sewing projects each month
3. Blog at least once a week

And progress so far? Mixed:

1. I'm doing pretty well on this one actually! I'll post some of the stuff shortly that I've been producing.
2. Only informally done so far. January was a bit vague, it was sort of sewing some basic jersey tops (boring, but needed), and sort of sewing a dress for my birthday. February is slightly more solid: sewing a dress for my birthday party (distinct from the birthday this year!). Again, posts to follow, honest. Which brings me onto...
3. Er, yeah, well, this hasn't gone soooooo well! Room for improvement.

A bit more generally on number 2 (snigger), my wardrobe has been a bit in limbo since I stopped work when I moved over here and I want to get it sorted. I much prefer wearing a slightly dressier, "put together" look, which perfectly suited an office job, but isn't always the most appropriate thing to wear for my current life. I also often want to wear more comfy/casual clothes, but I also want to feel and look good, and the clothes I have that are comfy and casual generally don't really fit the bill for looking good...

Items planned:

• Jersey T-shirt tops
• Some sort of pretty tops that fit me (specific there, eh?)
• Big cowl neck jumper (inspired by *ahem* Project Runway)
• Warmer/sturdier revised version of green vintage jacket
• Sweatshirt jacket
• Winter coat (hmm, maybe a bit late for this season)
• Wool skirt
• Sweater dress
• Jersey house dresses
• Shirtdress
• Birthday dress (1 of 2 done and worn)
• - Wide(ish) leg trouser-jeans

Well, watch this space to see how I get on with this...

Quilt progress

All the machine sewing is now done on the quilt for my sister and nephew. Now there's *a lot* of hand sewing. I'm quickly building back up my hardened fingertips as I can't find my thimble and haven't had time to pop out and buy one.

The back of the quilt is effectively finished, as all the hand sewing now is appliqué on the front:

I'm currently sewing on the letters on the front of the quilt. There will also be two red hearts, and (possibly) two rectangles at the top and bottom to frame it. I think I should have bought some embroidery thread to do the appliquéing (is that a word?), but I just wanted to start it so used regular polyester sewing thread. And I'm not entirely pleased with the result, as it's not very smooth, and doesn't cover the edge particularly well so I'm worried the edges will shred. Hmm. I'm going to see how it looks when they're all done, and then I might go over the edge with maybe chainstitch in embroidery floss. Didn't really save myself much time there did I?!

I shall mull on it over the next week, as I'm off to the UK so won't be able to work on it...

Sewing clothes again at long last!

I decided to take a break from the quilt and make some clothes! Not least because it's suddenly got cold and I need to sort out some more appropriate clothing. So I decided to make a floaty going out dress. Sensible.

I did have some reasoning behind this - I'd planned to make it on Saturday and wear it that evening to a party, so I wanted something quick and well, party-ish. The pattern is Simplicity 3539, View B, which I've made before, so I knew it would fit me and what alterations I needed to make to improve on the first iteration: add a back seam and a swayback alteration, lower the bottom of the armscye a little, and take in a small tuck between the yoke and front to eliminate gapping at the front of the armhole (should ideally do an FBA, but the fit is very loose so I just fudged it...).

Unfortunately I was a bit ambitious to try and make it in a day (mainly because I didn't get up until midday...), so I'm now making it to wear this weekend (my husband is taking me away for a long weekend to a surprise location!). I cut everything out on Saturday, so today was sewing day (in between long Skype calls to my family in the UK).

The dress is now pretty much constructed, I just need to sew down the facings and hem it. The armholes are also currently unfinished, as I'm deciding whether to add some sleeves or sleevey frills. I also will be making a self belt/sash so it will be a bit less muumuu-ish on me.

Oh, I also need to unpick the bottom of the centre back seam and re-sew it in a rather less ripply manner...

Here's a close-up of the front yoke:

And I got to use my serger at long last! Not entirely sure this is the right stitch to be using for this purpose, and not entirely sure that the tensions are quite right, but hey, it's FUN.

And one final picture - the clouds cleared over the last couple of days, and there's snow on the mountains again! (and yes, I do need a camera with a better zoom (it's my hint for a Christmas pressie...)

Alphabet quilt

I'm progressing on the quilt for my nephew. Fortunately for my quilting, but not so fortunately for her, my sister's due date was revised by the hospital to a week later that originally thought, so I now have until the end of this week to finish it before I fly to the UK on Monday. Not entirely sure I'll get it done in time, but nothing like a deadline to motivate yourself!

My inspiration for this quilt was this rug:

I should have completed all the machine sewing by the end of today so more photos then, but for now, here's the back of the quilt, which is pieced. The fabric is subtly striped, and the piecing makes use of this to provide some extra interest.

A missing sewing mojo - found?

I'm finding I'm doing a lot of procrastinating lately, I'm just a bit too tired to make the initial effort to start anything - and that's not just sewing, but anything really.

I think one of the problems with the sewing issue is that I've put on quite a bit of weight that I want to lose again, so it doesn't feel like it's worth putting the effort into sewing something if it won't fit me in a little while.

But... then I realised I'll feel better and happier if I have nice clothes that fit and flatter me as I am now, and feeling happier might spur me into doing more things that make me feel even better - like losing a bit of weight, and more sewing.

So, I decided to sew a circle skirt as that would be flattering, requires no fitting and could be sewn in an evening! Yay! Had the day off work yesterday and sewed it over the course of the afternoon, just finished hemming it tonight (all 15 feet of it!) after letting it hang overnight. Total time to make including cutting out was probably 3 hours. Going to wear it tomorrow, probably with the cream jersey blouse I made.

Now all I need to do is find the camera charger so I can take a photo of it...