Told you I was making a dress for Frida. Well, it’s finished, and this is it.

Forest dress for Frida

The pattern is from Alt om håndarbejdes SYmagasin, May 2011 – a Danish sewing pattern magazine, containing patterns for children as well as adults. You may be getting tired of seeing this particular linen on my blog – I have used it before for this tunic, this messenger bag, these pants and several other things. I love the colour! I’m running out of it, however, so fear not – I will need to find new colours. :) The other fabric is from the designer Joel Dewberry – it’s called Majestic Oak, and is from the collection named Modern Meadow.

Forest dress for Frida - button detail

There isn’t much to say about this one – Frida loves dresses, and I made her a dress. Also, she is at an age where she still loves everything I sew for her, which is true for this dress as well.

Here she is wearing it – I absolutely couldn’t get her to look up.

Forest dress for Frida - modeled


The summer vacation came and passed, and it left me with a few things:

  • Increased energy level (love it!)
  • A dream on its way to realisation (love it – you’ll hear more about that!)
  • An understanding that after the third weatherwise terrible summer in Denmark, maybe we just don’t have summer anymore (hate it – someone should pay!)

With this final understanding, I was forced to take seriously, that Ronja outgrew the latest fleece sweater I made for her. She needed a new one.

Hooded Ronja

This is what I made. It’s an Onion pattern – #20024 – I don’t think it’s actually sold anymore. I made a size 128, and had to shorten the sleeves by 5 cm before I added the rib cuffs. That’s my only alteration, except for making the facing at the bottom of the sweater slightly longer. I made a horse appliqué on the back of the sweater for my horse crazy girl – I think it turned out great, and Ronja really loves the sweater as well as the appliqué. The only thing I would alter if I could, is the hood. It looks so sweet when she wears it up, but it is rather big. However, as long as Ronja doesn’t seem to mind, I guess it’s ok.

Ronja's new fleece sweater

Besides the fact that I’m quite happy with the result, I’m SOOOO happy about sewing again (besides cushion covers for the boat)! I have moved on to making a dress for Frida, which you will see shortly. I love sewing – I really do!


This here below is something that has caused – how should I put it – a bit of disagreement in our little home.

Drawing guidelines for the window seams

Mads is making a sprayhood for our boat. For those of you who don’t know, a sprayhood (also “dodger”) is the canvas hood that covers part of the cockpit and the entrance to the boat. You can see the old one in the picture below.

Anna

The one in this picture was old and brittle, and it had seen many repairs in its time. Last year was the end of it, it toar and was past saving. Which is why we have been looking for someone to make us a new sprayhood for some time now, continuing to be schocked by the prices everywhere. Having someone make you a sprayhood and a cockpit enclosure for a Shipman 28 (which for most is not a pattern they have lying around) can easily cost you around DKK 23,000 (app. 4,000 USD). This may be fair, given the time and material used, but at the same time, it’s around 25 % of what the boat cost us in the first place. Rather steep.

Now, I have been making a few things for the boat last year. I made new cushion covers, curtains, and pillows.

Packed and organized - notice the new cushion covers and curtains

Packed and organized - notice the new cushion covers and curtains

Boat curtains

And it all turned out pretty good. However, a sprayhood is a heavy duty kind of thing, and I announced, that I would not sew a sprayhood. No way. So what does the man do? Does he go back to the best offer we received and ask them to make it for us?

Cutting pattern

Nope… He let’s me know, that in that case, he will do it. I objected at first, even a lot so, feeling certain that we would end up having an installation more similar to a hammock than a sprayhood over the entrance – but now he’s working. And even though we have yet to see the result, I have to say, it does look promising.

Sewing a sprayhood

He borrowed a heavy duty sewing machine from the yacht club, used the old sprayhood for pattern, bought all the different supplies to make it look just right, and now I feel a bit guilty for backing out in the first place. Well, well – I’m sure he has fun with it even so. And I am so excited to see how it turns out. I’ll show you when I know. ;)


I have a few things, that I made primarily last year, and never showed you here. I’m going to make up for that, because quite frankly, I want to, and also I count on being able to rediscover the things I made earlier in here, on the blog.

This messenger bag was something that I made previously in a different combination of fabrics – the messenger bag from mmmcrafts - and yay to her for putting the tutorial out there for all of us to benefit from!

Leafy messenger bag mosaic

This one was made for my mother’s birthday, and I love this fabric combination. The main fabric is babycord with small flowers and the lining is Nicey Jane Lindy Leaf in the blue colourway. The trim is Michael Miller bias tape. As you can see I made a small lined pouch to go with it.

A year ago, I made a quilt for Frida. With two girls in the house, making one quilt isn’t going to get me a long way, so of course, there had to be a second one.

A quilt for Ronja

For this one as well, I used a charm pack from Moda, and I cannot remember the name of it. I do like this one, but I personally like Frida’s quilt a little better than this one – it has more warmth to it. All the sources that taught me the techniques, are found in the previous quilt post.

Next up was my bridal purse.

Easy Peasy Purse / Bridal purse

It’s made from the same silk that I used to make the corsage of my bridal dress, and I used the same pale blue fine silk lining as well. I used a frame and pattern from U-handbag – The Easy Peasy Purse - you’ll find it about one third down the page. And I used a tutorial of her’s as well – “Purse frames demystified” as well as a YouTube tutorial that shows a woman attaching the frame to a purse – see it here. It’s always a matter of checking out the different sources of information and finding my own way of doing it, but I didn’t find it too difficult. Also, it was just right for our big day.

Now, another thing I made for the wedding was the dresses for the three little bridesmaids – Ronja, Frida, and my niece Marlinde. At the time of the wedding they were 3, 4, and 7 years old, and I wanted the dresses to have different colours but the same style. I decided to go with an Ottobre pattern, #25 from 3/2010, the Chopin Dress. I used thai silk from this Danish online shop, where I received great service. I sent her an e-mail, asking if I could have samples, and I received an envelope with samples of the different silks I was looking at and a kind response. So anyway, the lining fabric is the same as what I used for the wedding dress and the purse – the softest silk from a fabric shop in New York, brought home by my good friend Karen for the wedding dress project specifically. I changed a few things in the pattern – I wasn’t crazy about the roses on the belt, so I put miniature fabric roses instead to add a detail. Also, I added dusty, greyish tulle on the inside of the skirt, to give it more fullness. I did this by making a tulle skirt that was just a few centimeters longer than the main skirt with lots of ruffled tulle at the bottom, and then sewing it into the dress at the waist line, between the main fabric and the lining.

Bridesmaids dresses mosaic

The girls loved the dresses, fortunately, and though this is not a dress a girl wears many times (if more than one at all…), it was worth the effort. I believe actually, that Frida will be wearing her’s in a few days for the end of season dance at the dance school – for that purpose, the dress should do just fine. (Check out pictures from last year’s end of season dance here.)

Next project was actually something that came out of a bloggers meetup. I haven’t done much hand sewing - ever, and it has been a choice not to. At the meetups however, everyone is always doing something with their hands – knitting, crocheting, sewing, or something else. So I thought, I’d give it a try, just to see what happened.

Patchwork pillow

A pillow for Frida’s room is what happened – and actually one that she seems to appreciate immensely for some reason. The front, of course is patchwork, and the back an overlap closing to make it possible to wash the cover – see below.

Patchwork pillow

Quite a nice project, that I just might try my hands on again, when I have the time to spare.

Finally, two minor projects, that I have made recently. A small purse for make up for myself (same pattern as the bridal purse), and pencil cases for the girls.

Purse       Pencil cases for the girls

The pencil cases are based on the Perfect Box Pouch tutorial on Make It Modern. Other tutorials I have used, and some that I haven’t yet – are found here.

That’s it for the no-shows – now I think most of what I’ve made is on the blog, for me or anyone else to (re-)discover.

 


There are quite a few things that I haven’t shown you during the time when I haven’t had time for blogging. I’m not here to make excuses, blogging doesn’t always fit in with full-time job and that’s just the way it is – however, I am here to show you some of what I didn’t get around to earlier. The Charlie tunic is one of those things.

Sisters wearing Charlie tunics

The pattern is from Made By Rae, and I totally love it. As always with Rae’s patterns, she takes you by the hand, and helps you all the way to the finished garment with different tips for finishing and altering the pattern included. This tunic is just adorable – one of those garments for your children that are great for everyday use, but with the little details that make it special. AND it’s great for boys as well as girls.

Charlie Tunic for Frida

The one I made for Frida was finished quite a while ago, back in November. For that one, I used kind of a light, soft denim quality fabric (not really sure what it is – has a bit of a viscose feel to it), and Liberty fabric for the facings. I have chosen the same materials for the one for Ronja, only with a different Liberty print from my stash.

Charlie Tunic for Frida - neck facing detail

Since then, Ronja has been on my back for making her one, but with my new job and everything else that has been going on, it was just difficult to find time and energy. Now, this past weekend, I got around to it. The pattern doesn’t go further than a size 5T, and Ronja is 7 years old, but not that big of her age, and quite slim. So, I took the 5T, added 1½ inch to the length, and a little less than an inch to the sleeves. If you do something like this, remember to work in the added length in the vent facings as well – I had to cut new pieces for the vent facings, because I didn’t think of that at first. So this is the result that I finished 2 days ago.

Charlie tunic for Ronja

I have to say, I didn’t choose the buttons. I was going with some wooden apple-buttons, but Ronja wouldn’t hear of it. So now it has pink heart-buttons. Not quite a match if you ask me – but oh well…

Ronja wearing her Charlie tunic

And now that I mention Rae, if you are not already taking part in her Spring Top Sewalong, get on it – it runs until April 22nd, so there is plenty of time to make your own top and enter it! The competition is fierce this year, and being one of the proud judges, I can safely say, there are no easy decisions this year! Click the banner below to check out how it all works.

Spring Top Sewalong 2012

 


Our little family has been going through a summer marked by some great events.

It’ll come as no surprise to most of you, that many evenings and weekends have been occupied by wedding planning, and the making of the wedding gown as well as the bridesmaid dresses. Therefore it was a welcome break when we headed out to spend our first summer vacation on board our boat Anna – and then when we returned to Køge Marina we had two weeks to finish preparing for the wedding. It was a busy few weeks, but it was also the time when we most came to look forward to the wedding, and were able to relate to it much more than had been the case earlier in the year. A wedding is such a big event, and at least to me, it was hard to grasp until we were counting down the days by the use of two hands only.

When Mads first had proposed, one of my very good friends let me know that she would love to design my dress. So she has, and we have had so much fun making it. When all the details were pretty much decided, and the first versions sewn up in plain cotton, I went shopping for the fabric and other materials, and we spent a weekend together at her apartment, just cutting, sewing, adjusting, and having fun. We had the best time! I made the bridesmaid dresses, and my own clutch bag – I will put up a different post with patterns, fabric, and all that.

Besides this, I think I will let the photographs below speak. We had the most wonderful, loving day, and we so enjoyed having all of our friends and family around us to celebrate. Below is a small selection – you can find a larger selection of the professional photographs here.

Our wedding

Our wedding

Our wedding

Our wedding

Our wedding

Our wedding

Our wedding

Our wedding

Our wedding

Our wedding

Our wedding

Our wedding

Photos by Klaus Hoberg Markussen, foto24.dk