Dear blog

Dear blog, I kind of missed you. You know, one month is really a long time.

Let's not talk about resolutions and such stuff. Let's leave it at how happy we are to have each other back again. See, I even dressed up a little bit for our reunion. Well, as dressed up as I still feel comfortable to be. With my uniform of course: striped shirt, skirt and boots.

cardigan: hand-me-down from my mother | shirt: boden online shop

skirt: vogue 8435 (shortened)

As the weather gets warmer, I particularly enjoy these days where you can still wear boots but can leave out the heavy coats. I hope you too enjoy your MeMadeMittwoch. I certainly do over at Cat&Kascha, who kindly hosts this weekly get-togehter.

Love, Ulrike

My resolutions, where are thou?

Well, dear readers. It's not even the end of february and I already have some serious struggles with keeping up the resolutions I've made for this year. Neither dresses are on my agenda today nor my SWAP. And although I want to show you something me-made, you might already have noticed that it is not exactly wednesday (it's rather thursday...). Still I call it a Me-Made-Mittwoch today and promise to show more dresses (for my SWAP) in the future. As the year is quite young, there's still room for improvements, isn't it?

t-shirt: simplicity 4076 view d | jeans: jalie 2908 | cardigan: RTW

Love, Ulrike

nostalgia

Do you still have your very first self-sewn garment?

When I unpacked all the boxes of clothes in the new appartement, I had this moment of nostalgia when I found mine. It's a flower-print blouse from spring 2006 - made from cotton voile and a burda pattern. Today in the morning when the city was still grey and cold, I decided it was the perfect moment to wear it again. Just to remind me of spring and how much I love sewing. Well, it's not ironed and over the last six years it got a little snug around my bust and short over my hips, but today I don't care.

I am sooo curious to get to know about your first self-sewn garments! Have a sunny winter day everyone and have a look over to Cat&Kascha for the MeMadeMittwoch people.

Love, Ulrike

daily mess

It's now one and a half week since we started living in our new appartment and still I feel surrounded by chaos. So please ignore the mess you see in the background of my photo (I tried to darken it anyway...). Yesterday evening was actually the first time I got to use my sewing maschine here and it felt like ages since I did this last time. Well, not so much sewing going on since I first had to search for my pins and thread and so on. When it's finished I will post some photo of my sewing place. But please don't expect this to happen any time soon.

Today's bag is made from Griselda's Claire bag pattern, albeit made long ago.

 And a close-up:

Hey, have a nice day everyone! And have a look over at Cat&Kascha for your weekly dosis of MeMadeMarvelousness.

Love, Ulrike

academic dressing

One of my favorite comic strips from Jorge Cham is about dressing in science or the academic dress code. (If you haven't heard of his series "phd comics", check out. Though most of it might only be funny to phd students in (natural) scienes.) Anyways. As the occasion where I had to give a presentation of my recent work was semi-formal/semi-casual, I decided to pull out my female equivalent to khakis and elbow pads: a knit dress and a cardigan.

For the dress I can only say that I (a) hadn't had enough time to finish it properly and left on friday with unfinished arm openings*, (b) changed a thousand things** and (c) ended with a skirt portion that was too small***. Therefore you get to see an overexposed outfit photo toghether with a detail of the front bodice.

 dress: new look 6067 | cardigan: store-bought

bodice detail

Before I come to my short pattern review, I want to say that I am über-exhausted from our move (I again have no sewing room in our new place. Not even a sewing corner right now, though this will hopefully change soon). Every centimeter of myself feels sore and sorry for itself. So please be gentle when commenting. Thanks. Also a big 'thank you' to Catherine for hosting the MeMadeMittwoch!

*) I know that this is not very professional, but ponte knit doesn't care whether it is finifshed or not. And nobody noticed anyway, because I wore my cardigan all day.

**) pattern review:

pattern: new look 6067

fabric: black ponte knit

alterations: I omitted the zipper, because my fabric was stretchy enough. It was indeed so stretchy that I had to take out 1 cm from the side seams and back seam each, even though I already started with a smaller size than usual. I disliked the pleated skirt, once I basted it to the bodice and tried the dress on. So I took everything apart and cut the front piece smaller to remove the pleats and ended up with a bottom that was too small. D'oh! So I let out every seam I had and decided that the dress was thight but not too tight to stand in front of a small audience and talk about science. 

***) Well, only very few questions were asked after my presentation, so maybe nobody payed attention to what I said because of my dress or nobody cared for what I said - or everybody was already too tired on friday evening?! Okay. Sorry, this shouldn't be part of a pattern review. So back to business.

fit: Yeah, I already mentioned twice, it was too tight. But this was due to me recutting the skirt.

Will I sew it again: Nope.

Love, Ulrike

variation of a theme

When I am unsure of what to wear, I usually opt for my uniform: shirt - skirt - boots. Today's outfit is even more of a uniform for me because it involves a striped shirt. And a day cannot be bad with a striped shirt.

You must have heard of this rule before, haven't you?! 

The skirt is a variation of the pattern I reviewed here.

shirt: store-bought | skirt: simplicity 2452

As we are about to move to a new apartement, sewing and blogging time is a bit short right now. All the more I appreciate you stopping by my blog. Thanks! Also a big thanks to Catherine who hosts the MeMadeMittwoch.

Love, Ulrike

PS: A quick note on my dress - I finished the bodice, skirt and sleeves and now I have to bring all the pieces together and hem my good luck charm.

slow progress

It's not like I haven't warned you before... but I am so slow. Sometimes I am even astonished by myself at how slow I am. Seriously. I need my black dress by friday and all I've done by now is cutting the fabric. Well yesterday evening I sewed the bodice lining and realized that a thousand things need to be altered. So now I am thinking about my possibilities and the one I am opting for involves nightshifts... many nightshifts. Miracles and wonders are highly appreciated now.

inner bodice of new look 6067

As always when I need to finish something soon, I procrastinate and start something else instead. (Great strategy, isn't it?) I prepared the pattern pieces for a pencil skirt today, but am still unsure what fabric to use with it.

Okay, that's it for today. Please keep your fingers crossed for my dress. I want to go to this event on friday in a self-made dress so badly - I have to give a talk and wearing a self-sewn dress would definitly make me feel better. (It will be hard enough anyway because I am always so über-nervous during presentations).

Love, Ulrike