CentiLong Quilted Vests

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I have two good Danish friends who have joined forces to make sewing patterns, under the name of CentiLong. I have been wanting to try the patterns for a while, but their first e-book with several sweet patterns, was for smaller sizes, so I couldn’t use those for our girls. However, recently they finished two patterns that covered Ronja’s and Frida’s sizes, and the weekend before Frida and I were going to the hospital, I made one of them for her, a quilted vest from this pattern.

Frida modeling her new vest

Quilted vest

You may have noticed it in my previous post about her surgery, because at the times when she wore her own clothes instead of her nightgown, she wanted to wear the vest as well.

Now, after we returned from hospital, Ronja wanted one like it, and I finished her’s a few days ago. I made this bias tape myself – the one for Frida’s vest I found in some American online shop. I used covered buttons for both vests and the same light quality denim/linen blend for the outer fabric. I have to learn to not spend too much fabric when I have to quilt it – I tend to cut out too much before I quilt, and then I have to cut away quite a bit after it is quilted. But then, I don’t really have any experience with that, so I guess, I just need to do it some more. The pattern is great – I love the shape of the vests. The girls are both slightly small for their age, and I made them a size 104 and 116 which both fitted nicely.

11 appliqué

As you can see, it has the number 11 appliqued on the back, which is Ronja’s own choice – don’t ask me why though, apparently it had something to do with 12 being a significant number in fairytales, and the fact that 11 comes just before 12 makes it special. Whatever, 11 it is. :) She looks a little sad in that first picture, but she really wasn’t. I think she is trying to come up with all kinds of looks that she finds model’ish, when I ask her if I can take a few pictures. Doesn’t prohibit her from cracking up, though.

Vest

They wanted their picture taken together afterwards, and this is what I got. Well, well…

The girls

The other pattern from CentiLong that fits the girls, is definitely also one, that I want to try. It’s a quilted jacket, and a bit of a mouthful for me, I think – especially because of the quilting. But I love it, and when I have the time, I’m going to try it. I’ll let you know when I get to that. I know that Lis and Christina are looking into having their patterns translated for all you English-speaking seamstresses, so I’ll keep you posted on that as well.

In the meantime, you can check out my new list of sewing terms translated from Danish to English (and the other way around) that I made for you right here. Let me know if there’s any way I can improve it for your use, or if you are just missing words. And do feel free to share the link – I made it for anyone who could benefit from a list that translates either one or the other way between English and Danish.

Finally, last weekend I made these patchwork pillows. Quick and easy, and I quite like them. After a while without time for the sewing machine, I’m trying to find my way back there – can you tell?

Patchwork pillows

Tulip Dress

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Just before the weekend I received the latest Ottobre, and some of the designs in there show a simplicity almost like the one that you usually see in Japanese patterns – I love it. Sunday I went ahead and traced one of the patterns (#28 from 3/2011) – I originally wanted to make it for Frida, but it didn’t come as small as that, so I went with one for Ronja instead.

Ronja hasn’t been measured for a while, so I did just before I started tracing, and it turns out she’s a size 116 according to her height, but only a 98 width – phew! I decided to add room for growth, and traced a 116 height and 104 width for her – still I had to concentrate while tracing to make everything match up. I always highly recommend measuring before you sew up Ottobre garments, because they tend to be quite wide in the sizes, but they fit perfectly if you go by measurement.

Tulip dress (Sunny sailor dress)

I used linen for the dress and spiced it up a little with Amy Butler’s “Daisy Bouquet” for the sleeves. I added two appliqued tulips in order to create a link from the sleeves to the main fabric, and I think it works fine, even if the edge stitching of the tulips isn’t the best I’ve ever made – for some reason the fabric didn’t quite move properly while I was sewing. Other than that everything came together just fine, and it’s a perfect fit for Ronja.

Tulip dress (Sunny sailor dress) - pleats and appliqué

I haven’t made this kind of pleats before, but I find them such a neat alternative to gathering – a beautiful design detail (yet slightly more time consuming). This is a wonderful summer dress – and it’s original name “Sunshine Sailor Dress” goes so well with the fact that we will be spending this year’s summer vacation on our boat! :)

Ballerina Vest

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I had some fabric left from my own vest, so I made this for Frida a few days ago, and she absolutely loves it – though I think she would have liked the ballerina in front where she could see it.

Sneak peek

I sketched the ballerina from a picture on the internet, and sewed it on with a short straight stitch. That way it will fray slightly on the outside of the stitches, but that will be part of the “look”. I used the same technique for my matryoshka appliqué, and that worked just fine – actually that blouse has been in use for a year now.

The pattern is #7 from Ottobre 6/2009, and I shortened it a bit to make it give it more of a girly shape. Still considering whether to add a tie in front – it might work well even if it’s fine the way it is.

Wearing her new ballerina vest

Gingham Flower Pants

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For some reason the pants that Ronja wore during summertime when she was Frida’s age, are too big for Frida still. So I have a good excuse for making summer pants for Frida, which I don’t mind at all, and I made her these yesterday.

Flower pants

The pattern is the same one from Ottobre, that I used for the chicken pants – #17 from 2/2003. The chicken pants have been such a success – she’s wearing them all the time, so I thought I’d try to follow up on that. I didn’t make the back pockets, but instead I used gingham for the bottom of the legs and the flower appliqués. The main fabric is linen.

Flower pants

I drew the flowers myself, and I think they turned out quite sweet. If you’ve been reading here for a while, you’ll know by now, that I am very fond of linen. I think it works perfectly for these pants as well – they should be nice and light for warm summer days like the ones we have now. It is very warm today, and the day will be spent relaxing in the garden mostly.

Flower pants

Kayla Jacket for Frida

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This weekend I made a jacket for Frida. I made Ronja one a bit like it a little over a year ago, and she has been using it all the time, so I wanted to make something similar for Frida for the cooler spring days.

I went shopping for the fabric Saturday – I was going for some fleece, and I found something labeled luxury fleece. It is incredibly soft, and I have no doubt the jacket will be comfortable to wear! The fabric inside the hood is the same one I used for Ronja’s sweater. I was going to look for a pattern in my old Ottobre magazines, but just to be sure I checked the new issue first – and there it was!

I wanted to add something extra to it, and someone at a Danish sewing forum was kind enough to give me the pattern for the elephant appliqué a while ago – I think it works perfectly for this jacket! If there’s a drawback to this jacket design, it would be that you can’t really wear the jacket open, because of the  asymmetric front – but that’s a small thing, because I really like it! No modeled pics yet, because today it has just been too warm to wear it.

Other than that – we’ve had a quiet weekend. Yesterday, we both did some shopping, each with one of the girls. Frida has been having a rash, and at first we thought it was chickenpox, but it turned out it’s probably some sort of allergic reaction.  She started out having a fever, so she was at home Thursday and Friday, even though she was supposed to be at the nursery. Tomorrow, she will be going to the nursery for her first full day – Mads and I are both going to work, so I really hope it won’t be too difficult for her.

Finishing the fence

Today, as I mentioned, it has been summer! Warm and sunny – the girls have been outside all day, Mads has finished the fence down back to keep the girls in the garden – well, Frida mostly. We’ve visited our friends a street away for coffee, and we were actually able to sit in their garden, just enjoying the sunshine, while the kids were playing.

It won’t be long before bedtime – tomorrow will be an early day – taking both girls to daycare.

Our cherry tree

Summer Top with Leaf Appliqué

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Finally finished the summer top. You know, I mentioned I was making something else for me, and this is it.

Summer top with leaf appliqué - mosaic

It didn’t come about easily, and I’m still not quite sure what to think about it. If you’re not interested in the proces, just skip the next part or I’ll be boring you to pieces…

I love the lavender stripes from Kaffe Fassett (found the fabric at 50% off recently at Fabric.com – they’re having sales all the time at the moment!). And actually the linen, the ribbon, the buttons – everything is very much my choice. I started out thinking I wanted it to be simple – just the lavender stripes and the linen and nothing else. But when the top was almost done, it just didn’t look right – nothing brought the two fabrics together, and really it just looked odd. Chopped in halves, sort of.

Anyway, I put it on a hanger on my closet, and circled around it for a few days – finally I went through my ribbons to see if anything would help combine the fabrics. This ribbon from Danish Aspegren helped, but I still wasn’t quite happy. I thought about hemming the bottom with a lavender bias tape, but I was afraid it wouldn’t bring it together but rather just frame the obvious – that there wasn’t a link between the top and the bottom. So I decided I needed to use the lavender fabric on the lower part of the top as well – somehow. Which is how I came up with the appliqué. I browsed for leaves and trees on the internet, and found this one below that I liked. Yesterday, I traced it and put it on there. Helped more I think, but I’m still not sure exactly what to think – perhaps because it didn’t turn out the way I imagined it.

Summer top with leaf appliqué - detail

Because it is made with a woven, and you have to be able to get into it, the top is a bit wide, but not as wide as I think it looks in the picture – I’ll try to get a modeled pic soon. It has darts on the back, which I actually sewed together on the wrong (=the right) side of the fabric at first, meaning the seam allowances were on the outside, LOL! Wasn’t the easiest thing I ever had to fix. The pattern is from the Danish craft magazine Ingelise once more – same issue as the tunic, Summer 2008.

I like it – but I’m curious to learn what you think! Also – which top should I use for my entry in The Spring Top Week – this one or the summer tunic?

Finally, I’d just like to mention that Ronja’s tree is now blossoming. Small, pink, perky, lovely flowers – I love it when her tree is in bloom.

Ronja's tree blossoming