Me-made from Head to Toe!

English: Grey Textblocks
Deutsch: Grüner Text


It's been a while since I last participated in a Me-Made-Mittwoch (Mittwoch is German for Wednesday), but I think this outfit is worthy for a return.

Es ist schon eine Weile her, dass ich bei einem Me-Made-Mittwoch mitgemacht habe, aber ich glaube dieses Outfit ist für eine Rückkehr würdig.

Hat, Blouse, Pants and yes, Shoes are all made by me.

Ich habe Hut, Bluse, Hosen und ja, auch die Schuhe selber gemacht.

A pair of pants and the turning point in London

English: Gray textblocks

Deutsch: Grüner Text

Pants...

Pants! At least I konw I am not alone in my struggle of finding pants that fit well, are comfortable and look good... Whether I buy them or make them myself, they are tricky to get right!

This pair came out quite to my liking, they are from Burda Style 2/2010 and were actually made for extra-tall women. Which is funny, because if you’d put me into any special-sized group, I’d be in the extra short one. It was amazing how much length I had to take out of those legs!

The pattern was too good to pass up though – it sports great style lines and

I love pants that have room around the hips, but get narrow at the ankle...

Hosen! Wenigstens bin ich nicht alleine mit dem Problem, Hosen zu finden, die gut passen, bequem sind und gut ausschauen... ob ich sie nun kaufe oder selber nähe, es ist echt schwierig Erfolg zu haben damit!

Diese Hose ist ganz gut heraus gekommen, sie sind aus der Burda Style 2/2010 und waren eigentlich für besonders grosse Frauen gedacht. Was lustig ist, weil ich eher in die Gruppe der besonders kleinen Frauen gehören würde, wenn man sich mal ans Sortieren machte... Es war schon erstaunlich, wie viel Länge ich aus diesen Hosenbeinen nehmen musste!

Das Schnittmuster gefiel mir aber zu gut, um es nicht auszuprobieren. Es hat interessante Naht-Verläufe und ich liebe Hosen mit genug Platz in der Hüft-Gegend, die dann gegen die Knöchel enger werden.

How-To: Turn Men's suit pants into Women's slacks

The jumpsuit-how-to post 1 is all about how I fitted the pants. You can use this tutorial by itself just to fit pants, or you continue on to the jacket post to make the whole overall (Link is at the bottom of this post)...

So I started out with a dull grey suit... You want to make sure that the collar still looks good enough for you to want to wear, as well as the sleeve cuffs... Generally, the whole suit still needs to be in pretty good condition.

A Traditional Chinese Pants Pattern!

YOGA HOSE AM ME-MADE-MITTWOCH #17!

This pattern really attracted me right away - not so much because of the final shape of the pants, but because of the simplicity of the pattern. It is put together from two rectangles and an elastic waist band. Nothing else! See here:

(Don't worry about figuring this out yet, I will explain it later in this post!)

Maybe you have already seen my circle jacket or the one I made out of a simple rectangle - yes, I am fascinated by turning simple geometric shapes into garments.

The final pant shape is similar to harem pants. I actually still haven't made up my mind about harem pants yet, and I haven't even made up my mind about these Chinese pants either. I consider the two versions I am showing you here muslins... wearable maybe, as pajamas and/or yoga pants, but I am curious whether I could turn this into elegant street pants... What do you think? Do they have potential? I'd love to hear your input!



 The pattern is put together from two identical rectangles like this one:

This rectangle will make up one pant leg and half of the crotch/hip part. Because it is so simple, the  measurements you decide on will be crucial. I wear a European 34/36 and I will tell you the measurements I used, along with the explanations how I came up with them.

This rectangle is actually made up of three parts (indicated by the vertical dashes). You could just use one piece of fabric, but the extra seams add interesting style lines. I did my first muslin with just one piece, so you see what that looks like in the pictures below.

Line A-C = 95 cm (37,5''), this is the total pant leg length from the waist band down.
Line A-F = 3 x 25 cm ( 10'') = 75 cm (30'') (They don't necessarily have to be equal though!)
Line A-G = A-B = 28 cm (11'')

No seam allowances included!

The distance from A-G (A-B) is how far you will overlap the two rectangles for the legs and it decides how low the crotch will drop!

The remaining length G-F is half the width of your hip opening, so unless you want to add a zipper, it has to be at least half of the measurement at the widest part of your hip.

My 10 Piece Travel Set: 9 down, 1 to go!

Wow, I am actually getting closer! These are my pieces number 8 and 9 for my ten piece fall/winter/spring travel set! I have already presented them on my dress form in the last post, but here they come, modeled by me:

I have already presented the skirt, too, with a full how-to/tutorial HERE, in case you are interested. It features half-circle pockets and a visible zip in the back:

But my biggest pride at the moment is this shirt:

Me-Made-Mittwoch #5!

Wednesday (Mittwoch) again! Try my new Tool in the column on the right: The Google-Translator!

Liebe deutschsprachige Besucher - in der rechten Spalte gibt es jetzt den Google-Übersetzer - er wird Euch zwar wohl kaum helfen, das Englisch besser zu verstehen, aber bestimmt zaubert er Euch ein Lächeln auf die Mittwochs-Backen!

Did it help you understand? I bet not. Did it help you smile? I bet!

I recently took stock of all the things I have made so far, and I was surprised how much it is. So I decided to make my Me-Made-Mittwoch outfits as me-made as possible. Here you see three pieces combined - or maybe I should say two and a half...
The blouse I made a long time ago, it's surprising that I can still wear it, as it was my very first go at a real blouse with collar, collarstand and a button closure. It's the Burda pattern 7831, and it was one of my first things posted in my BurdaStyle studio.
The jacket is from a pattern from 1935, from the same magazine I took the pattern for this white coat I recently finished and blogged about. It was originally meant to go with my linen dress, posted here in the BurdaStyle studio...
The pants are not entirely me-made. They were skinny pants and I don't do skinny pants. I mean, they were labeled a 34 I believe (which is usually a size too small for me anyway), but man, they were beyond skinny. So as you see, I was very bold, removed the back pockets, cut both legs open in one straight line , set in a strip of darker fabric and put the pockets back on. Now I can wear them. I swear I look skinnier in them now than I did before, pressed into them like a sausage....

Find out what the other amazing participants are wearing today HERE. Oh, and you'd be welcome to join in the fun any time. Thanks to cat-und-kascha for organizing this!
Have a lovely Wednesday, everybody!

Me-Made-Mittwoch #4!

Here we go again, a Me-Made-Wednesday outfit. Ich spreche übrigens auch deutsch... :-)

I made these pants, it's a Burda pattern and I highly recommend it. I posted it here in my BurdaStyle studio. I made it fit my exact personal measurements with the help of the book "patternmaking for fashion design" (Joseph-Armstrong). I think the extra effort is really worth it - the fit is just most crucial for pants...

I also knitted the sweater a long time ago, from left-over wool. Perfect for April, not the T-shirt type of weather,  but not the sweater kind either...

Oh, by the way: The fabric on the floor is for a summer coat I am making, with Sherry's wonderful RTW-sew-a-long tutorial over at Pattern - Scissors - Cloth. It's lying on the floor, because I am finally starting to cut out the pattern pieces (I am a bit behind), and because the stripes matched my outfit so well :-)

Jetzt freue ich mich schon auf alle anderen Mittwoch Kleider! Here you see the other participants outfits!

Have a lovely day, everyone!

A Paper Doll gets dressed!

So I have dreamed up this 10-piece Winter Travel Set, and my first paper doll can show off an outfit! She is sporting three pieces: The very warm tweed pants, as well as the newly finished Shirt-T (I feel all smart about that name, too) and the Faux Fur Vest (click on any image to enlarge).

If you want to see what they look like on her, click "read more". Also if you want to see what they look like in real life, on me, though I'm definitely not as cute as her (and I forgot to put on the hat).

Very Warm Tweed Pants

May I present to you my first piece for the "10 piece winter travel set"?
It's a pair of warm trousers, made of a tweed that I instantly fell in love with. I LOVE tweed. Even though it's basically brown, it's somehow much more than that, if you know what I mean...

Here I combined it with my Jean Top, which I had planned as part of my 10 piece set too, but it got kicked off the list...

The legs are cut really wide, so that I can wear it with very thick, woolen grandmother tights, which is just not possible under jeans, right? And I lined them, so they slide easily even with those heavy duty tights under it... (click the button to read more!)