Thursday, March 27, 2014

Out and About Dress by Sew Caroline

Oh, lookie lookie...a blog post. And yes this dress is exactly as stylish yet comfortable as it looks. Love at first sight for me.

It is the Out and About Dress from Sew Caroline.


I absolutely love this style of dress with a fitted bodice and a skirt with some width in. It fits my pear shape perfectly.


This is a size M with no alterations....except adding a bit more length to the knee length option.....which is absolutely expected when you are 5"10 like I am.

I might also move the waist a tiny bit (up or down...not sure yet) but again that is just me who has a very long upper body....perfectly the times I have been pregnant not so perfect when you are sewing standard size patterns, ha. And moving the waist would really just be nit picking for the absolute perfect fit...it already works as it is.


Because the pattern is so simple it really is a great base for tons of variations. I am dreaming of making a high-low version and now that I have seen Alexia's (Lexi Made) non-gathered skirt (slash and spread) I totally want to do that too. And maybe I one day will get the courage to make the maxi skirt version....Am I the only one who has nightmares about falling in a maxi skirt? Yikes. But my legs could really use some covering up most days if you know what I mean, ahhhh.


The fabric is this super soft and pretty light/medium weight heather grey/hunter green striped cotton jersey from Girl Charlee. Seriously perfect for this dress.

Thank you SO much for inviting me Caroline. That made my day!

You can buy the Out and About Dress HERE.

Thank you.


Monday, March 17, 2014

Industry Insiders - Line, Seamstress and Sewing School Owner.

Today's Industry Insiders guest is a bit of a rock star for me. Not only is she extremely focused on, and determined to deliver quality - both regarding sewing techniques and fit but also fabrics. She is a Liberty fabric addict and knows the names of the different prints...I mean who does that or is that just me? 

Her blog Marapytta was also the very first sewing blog I ever saw - before Rikke (from the very first Industry Insiders post) showed it to me I did not even know you could blog about sewing. She is definitely without doubt a big inspiration for starting my own blog.


She has started a sewing school with a unique concept and is now sharing all her knowledge and her super cool style to all her lucky students. I wish I lived in Denmark so I could go there just so I could sew her amazing patterns.

Okay, let's hear Line's story:



Name, age, civil status, kids:

Line Galst Jørgensen, 41 years old. 
I have been married to Sebastian for almost 11 years....wow, that long!!? 
We have a daughter Lily, 7 years old.

Education (where, when, what)

Seamstress/sample machinist - 2002 from CPH West.

Current job:

Own and teach at 'Marapytta Syskole' (Marapytta Sewing school, Edited to add.)
I offer classes both during the day, evening and on weekends.
The sewing school is build around my personal universe. 
Once in a while I have students with their own personal projects, but mostly the students are sewing my self-drafted kids and women patterns. The students have free access to them during the classes and are allowed to copy the patterns and bring them home to sew more at home.



I have all the models sewed up  for inspiration. (You can see a lot of them on her blog Marapytta. I know it is in Danish but do yourself a favor and just scroll through and look at the photos - AMAZING clothes! Or check out her Made By Me Pinterest Board. Edited to add.)
I started the sewing school 3.5 years ago with 6 students - now I have 60-80 students a months - and yes sometimes I pinch myself!


Former (sewing related) jobs:

I have worked as a freelance streamstress in the Danish fashion Industry for many years before I opened the sewing school.

I have worked a little bit on costumes for movies, theater and commercials. And I have sewed a lot of wedding dresses and other custom orders.

I never had a full time/one place job - always freelance.

You can see my portfolio HERE.



What do you like the most about your current job?

I absolutely love the thought about me having build up this little business. All by myself with no start up money and no one to help me with the process.....since there are hardly any sewing schools and definitely no one with this concept in Denmark. Today I can live from the income the sewing school is giving me.

It all started almost by coincidence. The fashion industry was not doing good because of the recession so I needed a new income source.
Through my blog - which is just a hobby for me - someone encouraged me to start a sewing class - and from the 6 original students it suddenly took off.

It gives me so much back to teach. It is an absolute pleasure to see my students grow and enjoy their new found skills. I am being confirmed daily that this is a special place.

I have a skill (sewing) that I am very proud of and I value it so much more, now that I am teaching and sharing it, compared to when I was working in the hectic fashion industry where everyone is always so busy and stressed.


And the least?

The worst about being self employed is definitely the boring bookkeeping.
I wish I could afford a book keeper and a cleaning / tidy up assistant.
I hate when I do not have time to be creative and the ideas just keep piling up because I have to do all the practical things first.

How does a normal work day look for you:

My day usual starts with answering a lot of emails. Then I love to take a trip around cyberspace - Instagram, blogs, Pinterest etc. I am always looking for new inspiration.

When I am not teaching, I am drafting new patterns and sew whatever I want.
Almost everything I sew is used as inspiration for the students at my school.

Sometimes I am teaching during the day and other days my classes are in the evening.



If you could forget about logistics, family, sleep, money etc: what would your dream job be:

Honestly, this is my dream job and I could not imagine doing anything else.

BUT if I won the lottery, I would buy a beautiful house somewhere nice in Copenhagen and I would invite my creative friends and 'colleagues' to make a workshop with each their specialty on each floor and we could be one big creative collective.

It had to be a big house because I work best when I am alone so I need my own floor.

But it could be soooo cool. You could take embroidery classes at the 1st floor, textile printing on the 2nd, knitting on the 3rd floor and so on and so on. (Uhm YES that would be cool! Edited to add.)





Line thank you SO much. 
Please don't ever stop what you are doing! 
You are amazing!

 And raise your hand (or leave her a comment here) if you think she should look into the pdf sewing pattern market! I know she is thinking about it, so maybe she just needs a little friendly push?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have more amazing and interesting ladies who have said yes to participate but I am not sure when I will receive more material from those busy ladies sooooo all I can say is stay tuned because it is hopefully not over yet.

Friday, March 14, 2014

Small Fry Skinny Jeans by Titchy Threads



I am last stop on Titchy Threads' Small Fry Skinny Jeans World Tour...or something like that (together with the amazing ladies Tasha from I Seam Stressed and Celina from Petit a Petit and Family - make sure you do not miss their posts!). 

You can always judge the quality of a pattern on the results of people's sewing (and jeans is not an easy thing to make)....but we have seen one amazing pair of jeans pop up after the other. Yeah, this pattern is amazing!


Flat felled seams, top stitching, zip fly...you name it and Laura gives you a clear instruction on how to do it. 


My industrial sewing machine is a dream sewing jeans on and is 'made' for top stitching. I definitely got reminded how (sewing) geeky it is to sew jeans and I totally loved it.


And yeah....I made color block again....I am sorry! I am even boring myself now, ha. But I really really like the mini trend with patchwork jeans (Farrah from Mingo & Grace made an amazing upcycled pair HERE) or what about THESE from GAP or THESE from Comme de Garcons that I have pinned - love! 

I wanted to make a spring version and all the fabrics are fairly light weight and mostly light colored.
For the same reason I was planning on making them with roll ups on the legs so I added bias tape to the lower part of the seams (see photo further down in post) - except the inner seams that are flat felled and already pretty pretty.
  


I reinforced the zip fly with some bartacks. 




I skipped to decorate the back pockets. I guess the color block was making them busy enough to look at. That is also the reason why I kept most seams with just a single top stitch.




They turn out real pretty on the inside too.



Here you can see the bias tape to make a pretty roll up.....and a bit blurred vision of the flat felled seam from the inside (the seam to the left with the double stitch).


A few close up photos in questionable quality. It was the most beautiful warm spring sunday when I took these photos and I just completely ignored the few things I know about photography....one thing is: do not photograph in direct sunlight. 
Yup, good advice....because they turn out like this, ha. But the photo shoot was nice near our little local dam, river and greenway so you know..... 


Get 20% off the Small Fry Skinny Jeans Pattern until March 15th (yes tomorrow so go go go) with code TOUR20.

But don't forget to check out all the other amazing jeans that have been made on this tour. A click on the names below will take you to their blogs.

Paisley Roots RebekahSews Handmade by Brienne If Only They Would Nap Mingo & Grace La gang à Nat Lexi Made Sutures & Sandpaper Elsie Marley Probably Actually Groovybaby and mama 2 Little Hooligans Sew Jereli Kitschy Coo Sew a Straight Line A Jennuine Life Lauren Dahl Miss Matatabi Welcome to the Mouse House Things for Boys Skirt As Top sewpony Charming Doodle EmmylouBeeDoo Caila Made Heidi and Finn Max California Petit à Petit and Family Sewing Like Mad I Seam Stressed

Thank you Laura for inviting me and congrats on an amazing pattern!


Friday, March 7, 2014

Industry Insiders - Stine, Designer / CEO

For this week's Industry Insiders we are back in the fashion world but from a different perspective than the first post in this series (you can catch up HERE in case you missed it).

Stine has taken three fashion relevant educations (gulp) and started in 2009 her fashion line called The Baand with her friend Julie.


BUT it is not just a fashion line.....it is mostly made with eco-friendly materials and sustainable production. SO Cool! 

Let's hear more about it, shall we!


Name, age, civil status, kids:

Stine Bauer Boskov, 33, married, no kids (yet) (edited to add: they now have a daughter). For many years I thought I did not want kids, I wanted a dachshund instead. As time has gone by, I now have 2 cats and I do want kids. Luckily my husband is ok with all of it ;) 

Education (where, when, what):

Trained as a seamstress and finished about 6-8 months after Mie (December 2003) if I remember correctly. After that I specialized in Textile Purchasing at TEKO (finished in June 2006) and recently I decided to go back to school and learn some more - which has been an absolutely amazing experience, and I finished just a few weeks ago with a bachelor degree in Brand Design from KEA



Current job:

I am the founder and owner of The Baand. We do high quality fashion basics and call them "everyday heroes". They are the kind of wardrobe staples that just go with everything and makes you look and feel good. We work mostly with eco-friendly materials and sustainable production in Peru and Nepal.
It is buttery soft T-shirts in all shapes and sizes along with knitwear in to die for chunky alpaca and sleek cashmere. 



Most of our garments are made from cotton. But cotton is not just cotton. Cotton comes in many variations. It all depends on the fiber. Cotton fibers comes from cotton plants, but just as there are many different sorts of roses, there are also different kinds of cotton plants. 
The "pima" cotton grows only in Peru. It has very long fibers which makes it softer and more longlasting. The handfeel is very different from the cotton most people are used to touch. Many customers think there is silk added to the composition of our garments, but no - it is just pure cotton! 
The superior quality of the cotton we use for our garments, is often something we hear mentioned by our customers - they are surprised to have a white T-shirt that stays white after washing many many times. The shape stays the same for years. Some of my own T-shirts are now 4 years old and still looks as new. Pretty amazing!



In the US you can find "sub pima" cotton, which also has long fibers, but the peruvian cotton is even softer. "sub pima" is of course much nicer then the cotton used in highstreet shops. 

We use only organic cotton. Organic cotton is free from pesticides and other chemicals which can be harmful for us as consumers. Chemicals like pesticides are very harmful to the enviroment. 

In Peru they pick all cotton by hand. They do not have the equipment to do it any other way. This means cotton farmers are exposed to chemicals more or less on a daily basis, meaning a lot of the farmers working with conventional cotton die quite young.

My collage Julie and I travel to Peru approx. once every year. I still remember our first visit to a cotton field. It was a great experience! 

When you pick cotton in Peru, the weather is hot. Blue sky and full sun, and then you have to wear long sleeves and pants. No T-shirts or shorts. Because the cotton plants will scratch your arms and legs while you are moving around on the field picking the cotton balls from the plants. 

I got so dizzy from the heat that I had to sit down in the shade for a while to get back to normal. But it was beautiful! We also got to see how they treat the cotton balls after they have been picked and until they end up as threads ready to make fabric of. 

It is a lot of work. 


Photos from a visit to an organic cotton field in Peru.

What do you like the most about your current job:

Since it is my own company and we are only 2 people working fulltime, my days are never the same, and that is proberly what I like the most. My colleague, Julie, handles most of the production and I do sales and marketing. The design we do 100% together. 



Former (sewing/craft/fashion related) jobs:

For a short time I worked for Danish brand Punk Royal, which was great - fun people and fun fashion. 
(They got a HUGE over-night success with a pair of military style pants with a 'Punk Royal' print on the 'behind' that half of Denmark's young population decided they all wanted to wear at once. I bet that was fun (and chaotic) to work there at that time. Edited to add.)

What does a normal day look like for you:

The last 2 weeks has been all about visiting customers and collecting orders, but also to get to know the customers better - to learn what they want to see from The Baand and how we can deliver better collections so we all benefit from it. We work with sales agencies in Germany and The Netherlands, so I also have to spend time emailing back and forth with them a lot these past days. As I also do our marketing, I am updating our Facebook and Instagram in between paying bills and doing the book keeping!



If you could forget about logistics, family, sleep, money etc: what would your dream job be:

I would love to travel more because it would help our production to visit the producers more often. But the trip to Peru is expensive, so we can not go as much as we want. We are going in April - I hope. But other than that I am in my dream job :)




Stine thank you SO much for telling us your story and for teaching, at least me, lots of new things about cotton and sustainable productions.
Very, very interesting!

I just want to start wearing your clothes every day.

I wish you both the very best success with your business!

---------------------------

Next week Line* will be my guest. 
She has worked several years in the Danish fashion industry as a freelance seamstress/sample machinist - sewing salesmen samples and show pieces but decided to start her own sewing school in Copenhagen a few years back. I can't wait for you to hear her story and show you the AMAZING things she sews. She has a blog too and her blog was the first sewing blog I ever saw. She definitely inspired me to start my own. Oh and then she matches Celina Bailey's number of Pinterest followers....yup, there are two Queen's of Pinterest and I know they will be happy to share the throne, ha.

*(Lii-neh...not --------- haha, get it?!)

So long!