Me-Made-Mittwoch #6!

Last week I promised I'd be wearing a skirt today... Well, THINK before you make online-promises! This really would have been a pants day, with the chance of rain here in Vienna. But I am using the opportunity to introduce to you one of my early pieces again. It was my own idea, "design" and I had to figure out construction and everything on my own. I was not a very accomplished seamstress back then, which is annoying, because while I actually love the skirt, the execution is so poor, that I don't consider it really wearable any more... But since it's mostly a stay-at-home-day today, voilà!

It is made up of ties entirely, most of them old silk ties. I'll tell you more about it further down the post...

The little Bolero thingy is knit by me, too, of course. I think I found the pattern online, but I don't know where from the top of my head... If you REALLY, REALLY must know where I got it, I could spend some time to find it again. :-)

Sorry about the fake smile. It's that kind of day...

For close-ups and a little more information about the tie-skirt, read on...

Amazing Fleamarket Finds...

As promised, I am posting some pictures of things I found at the fleamarket on Saturday. But don't worry, I'm not doing this to make you jealous or anything - you will actually profit from some of my finds, I promise!
I'll go in the order of how I found them...
First, this amazingly beautiful collar, hand-embroidery of it's most accurate kind, in best condition...

Black velvet, gold embroidery with different sized beads. I don't know how old it is. I am not sure whether I will keep this for myself or sell it in my shop... Yes, you heard me right, I am planning on opening a little shop....

Then, oh WOW, these two beauties (as always, click on the images to enlarge):

They were quite pricey, but I had to have them. I don't really know how old they are, I can only guess (30's?). They are hand-colored and I have now framed them and made sure the edges don't tear any more. I really feel like making these costumes some day... The first one says (the original is in French, I'm translating):

Queen of Flowers: Bodice in shape of calyx made of green silk, the top is cut in strips. The very voluminous sleeves and skirt are composed entirely from rose-colored organza petals.

The second one:

The Spring: Straight bodice made out of rose-colored "pongé" (a light weight fabric, a silk/wool mix). Skirt simulating a flower, from petals cut out of two different tones of yellow organza. Garland and trail made of flowers.

Corrections are welcome...
There's more! Click on that little "read more" button below to do just that!

Enjoying Easter quiet time...

Did you have some creative time, too?
I will hopefully rock your world these coming days when I show you what I found at the fleamarket on Saturday, and what cool posts/tutorials I am planning for this blog. Until then, enjoy your evening!

I AM all that!

Another Award for me! Beangirl has created this award. Oh yes, it is still quite a new award, but I bet you that sooner or later it will be the only one that counts. Because it asks the truly important questions. About shoes. About poisoning. About kissing. I will answer them. Here and now. And only here, and only now. One of my very favorite bloggers, oonaballoona has passed this award on to me, and I am flattered beyond kalkatroona.

1) What size shoe do you wear?  If you wear a size 7, can I borrow your shoes?

A European 37. Which is a Japanese 22,5, a U.K. 4, an Australian 5, a Russian and Ukrainian 35, a Korean 238, which measures 9 3/8th inches, or 23,8 Centimeters, or 238 Mondopoint. Oh, right, it's a U.S. and Canadian 6,5 (Shoesizechart here!), and no, you cannot borrow these:

 

BUT yes, go ahead, take these:

And if you MUST bring them back, maybe you could clean them?

2) 30's or 60's?

PURELY from a fashion interest point of view, I'd have to say 30's, preferably in Europe. We are NOT taking politics and economics though!

3)  Have you ever kissed someone you shouldn't have?

Uhm, I'll have to admit that most of my relationships started that way. The person who said I shouldn't kiss the guy was usually myself though. What bad judgment I had - I am now happily married to one of the men I shouldn't have kissed. So there, who's to say who you should and shouldn't kiss?

4) Have you ever been poisoned?  Was it by the girlfriend of the person you kissed??  That is awesomely "Knot's Landing".

No, no "Knot's Landing" in my life, I don't even know "Knot's Landing", I grew up without TV. Because of that, you could say I am a truly UN-poisoned person. But I once had food poisoning and will probably never eat oysters again.

5) Who's on your "Celebrity Free Pass" list (top 5)?

Theoretically I would say that any man who thinks he can pull any sort of a free pass because he is a celebrity would really turn me off. But guess I would reconsider for Bono, Jon Bon Jovi, Sting, Keanu Reeves and Matt Damon... Oh great, now I'm embarrassed. Thanks a lot.

Ok now you know all kinds of things about me you didn't need to know. I'm kind of glad this award came so early in my blogging life, this way, not too many people will read this :-)
Here are the five nominees! Come grab your award,  it's not even hidden, so much easier than finding Easter eggs...

1. Honigbärenbiene
2. Another Sewing Scientist
3. Yoshimi the Flying Squirrel
4. Farmhouse Garden
5. Pedilu

Have a look at their wonderful blogs!

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!

You know what I did last Sunday?

Yes, we are all excited about spring kissing our cheeks. But I am behind schedule with my winter set. Luckily it is a Fall-Winter-Spring set (a travel set with 10 interchangeable pieces of clothing), and this was the last really wintery item on the list. It makes the hopefully short return of the 1-digit-temperatures more bearable:

Oh, don't say it... I know it. Santaclause, right? So what? I like the little bit of Santa-ness of this jacket, and I know I will love it when the next winter comes around. Somehow it's more of a before-Christmas garment.
I once bought a really great coat in the middle of summer, and it made the arrival of  winter so much better! On that note, this jacket has built in make-me-happy-power for next October.
I came up with the pattern myself. It's basically a circle. If you want to see how I did it, read on...

Wow. Cool!

So wow, this is all so cool. I have to be careful not to get totally sucked up in the supportive world of blogging and loose touch with the real world around me completely. I did go shop at the farmers market and communicated with a lot of people there, so I should be ok. 

It's just so good to get this kind of feedback when you are starting out. And STYLE is actually exactly what I am trying to re-discover for myself. I once had it. Then I felt I had to look like everybody else. Long story, don't ask why!

Anyway, Charlotte from Sew Far Sew Good has passed this award to me, thank you so much!

I am asked to share 7 things about myself that you might not yet know (easy) and which might be of interest to you (hard).

1. I am originally from Switzerland (Zürich), spent 1 year in California (High School), 5 years in New York and am now living in Vienna, Austria.

2.  I actually wanted to become a costume/set designer and somehow ended up on stage (I am musical-theater and classical singer).

3. I am a Capricorn with Scorpio in my Ascendant (I believe that is called the Rising Sign) and people who are into Astrology pity me for that.

4. None of my many lists will ever help me get everything done that is brewing up in my busy brain. I make them anyway. All the time. Every day. This is one too, but I actually got asked to make it. So there.

5. I would love to be really funny and witty in this list, but that would cost me a lot of brain power. I adore people who make me laugh.

6. My great-uncle was a designer and actually had runway shows in Paris, Milano and all these great places. I wasn't aware of that until about 2 years ago. My Grandma was a seamstress.

7. I love ZEN. When I eat, I eat. When I dance, I dance. When I drink, I drink. When I sew, I sew. My reality isn't always that way though, unfortunately.


So now I get to pass on the award. I choose Lauren from *dear golden*. Every time she posts something, I gasp. Check it out. True beauty. In every post.
Have a lovely weekend!

Brogues, a Coat and Courage

What is your reaction when you see these?

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!

Blushing. Lovely. Thank you!

You guys - yes you, in front of that monitor - are very special to me. I have started this blog less than a month ago, and while there aren't that many readers yet, the ones I have are wonderful. Thank you for your input - thanks to you, my experience to the blog'o'world has been a very positive one so far, and until this changes, I shall continue.


Now I have been given this lovely Blog award from Vicky, of Another Sewing Scientist.

It is an award for new Blogs, with no more than 300 readers, and I really appreciate it. It is meant to help spread the word about other Blogs that might not be so widely known yet, and I will gladly do so.
Apart from Vicky, I also think these people should definitely be on your reading list, and I am passing on the award to them:

Oonaballoona from Kalkatroona - this lady is so funny. And she can sew!
Paper Doll - Fashion illustration SO amazingly beautiful!
Miss P - with lots of sewing basics, glad to have just discovered her myself!
And if you love vintage patterns, don't miss out on these: A Few Threads Loose and Annabellebumps!


Have fun discovering them!

New Coat, Old Pattern - from 1935!

It would have been much easier to come up with a 10 piece winter travel set if it didn't include outer wear. The set from 1953, which inspired me to do my winter 2011 version, included outer wear, so I couldn't cheat out of it either. The coat had an almost impossible list of requirements to meet:

• Well, logically, it has to work with absolutely all the other pieces
• I have to be able to wear my cold, cold weather faux fur vest or knit jacket underneath without the armholes tearing
• It had to be elegant enough for me to take it to the opera without leaving it self-conscious next to all the fur coats while waiting for me to come out
• While at the same time being sporty enough for a snowball fight

Well, look: this one actually does that all!

Click that tiny little "read more" button right underneath, if that's what you want to do...

Me-Made-Mittwoch #3!

Since weeks I say I'll re-organize my closet TOMORROW, which is why I just throw things in wildly. For the first time now, I actually couldn't find a skirt I was looking for. Which is why I ended up with a combination I wouldn't usually have tried. Somehow it works. Let's call it the refashioned menswear look. Or whatever.
For new English speaking visitors: Mittwoch means Wednesday. Every Wednesday, the participants wear self-made clothes. Here are the other outfits!
And here is Cat-und-Kascha who came up with this great idea.

The top is part of my 10 piece winter travel set, I called it a Shirt-T, because it is a long-sleeve T-Shirt with a refashioned mens shirt (collar and cuffs) blogged about here, and the skirt was originally a pencil skirt so tight at the hem that I couldn't board one of those old fashioned cable cars we still have here in Vienna. I used the small part of a tie as belt, and the wide part - well, you can see that yourself. :-)

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).