Plaid Archer sisters

I've made two more Archers! 

When my sister travelled to The States this september I knew it was the perfect chance for me to order some Mood fabrics :) So I ordered some of their gorgeous flannels, since it's almost impossible for me to find nice flannels over here. The only thing was that she made me promise to sew her a shirt with one of the fabrics.. I was hoping that my Archer would fit her too, since it would save me having to tape together another one.. Luckily it fitted her perfectly! 

After sewing my first Archer the construction went way faster and now it only takes me about 2 days of relaxed sewing here and there to finish one, yay! I used Lladybird's tutorial for plaid matching, which is super easy to follow and then it's even fun to do.. I did cut the inside yoke on grain, to prevent any stretching that might occur.. 

After making two plaid shirts I'm noticing mismatching plaids everywhere! Sunday at the movies (Wolf of Wall Street, great movie) there was a girl with a shirt whose plaids were so mismatched, it wasn't even funny anymore! 

Anyone else checking all the rtw plaid shirts for plaid mismatching or is it just me?

Nicely lined up.. 

I got really angry when I managed to fuse the interfacing to the right side of my collar twice, and then only noticing it after I've started sewing it, twice! Hmm maybe I need more sleep? So this is me taking it out on an innocent collar..  

  I ordered metal snaps from Cowgirl Snaps on Etsy. The snaps are really cute and the colours are great! The only issue was that they were being held captive at the Dutch customs office, (no idea why), so it took me about 4 weeks before they finally arrived.. All that time my Archer was just lying there, waiting to be finished. I actually checked with my bf if it was ok to wear a shirt without buttons, but he just looked at me strangely, so I decided it was a no-go..

 I had to think twice when I sewed the cuffs and plackets, to make sure I didn't end up with two left sleeves again :)

My sister is really happy with her shirt, I also made her another sweater for her christmas, so she is happy with me sewing at her desk and making a general mess of it.. Well, I did clean out my left over fabric stash and donated two big bags of scraps to Goodwill :) Now there's just the rest of the mess... 

 On another note, saturday there is a big sewist meet-up in Antwerp! So if anyone wants to join, just let Anneke from Annette Tirette know! I'm already looking forward to it!

Another love story, my first Archer..

Wow, I feel like I've been living under a rock, for not making an Archer sooner.. After seeing all the super cool Archers that you've all made I finally joined you and made one myself! Perfect timing as well, as december is Archer appreciation month!

Usually I don't really like button up shirts, but since I finished my Archer this sunday I've already worn it twice.. And I really like the style and fit. This is supposed to be a wearable muslin, and it is super wearable indeed, but I did make some small mistakes which I will show you later.

I really like the view from the back

I cut a size 4 (or 2? can't remember right now and I'm at work.. sorry!) and added 1 inch of length to the pattern pieces. Since I've come to realise that I have a longer upper body then most patterns are designed for. I followed Jen's tutorial which made it super easy. I really like the length now. For all the other assembly steps I also followed the Archer Sew Along, because I find that seeing the photo's really make the construction process much easier for me.

Since this was intended as a muslin version I used a not-too-expensive cotton, which I still really like. It has small red/purple blocks on it, which have a darker spot in the middle. My next version will be a flannel (which I ordered from Mood) version, kinda (or really) similar to Lauren's super cool one. And for summer I can't wait to make a black silk one with some coloured details..

So now for my screw ups.. I cut the pockets slightly off grain, which doesn't really show, but I still need to keep this in mind when I make my plaid version.. I also folded and sewed the pleats wrong at first, but luckily I found out before I attached the yoke.
The bigger screw up however are my cuffs.. I folded one of the sleeve plackets to the wrong side, so that resulted in me also sewing on the cuffs slightly wrong, so now my two cuffs face the same side.. Ahh well, leason learned!

Look at my cuffs, all coordinated..

I also have some other finished objects and some fabric shopping photo's from Singapore and Bali, which I will share with you soon, I promise!

Sewing with a plan, fall 2013

After reading Sophie's  post yesterday morning it felt like she had been reading my mind! Sophie talks about the fact that it is just much more exciting to buy and sew with prints than with solid colours. The only issue, offcourse, is that you can only mix so much print items together. A good solid item on the other hand can be worn with a lot of other items.. 

Lining with a print doesn't count right?

Two weeks ago I went fabric shopping while on holiday in Italy and I already knew that I had to buy more solid colours for my fall sewing plans. So I made a list.. 

The patterns I want to sew this fall are:

• The Robson trenchcoat by Sewaholic
• The Minoru jacket by Sewaholic (maybe even two): finished!
• Archer shirts by Grainline Studio: check them out, here and here
• a shirt from Drape Drape
• two Victoria blazers from By Hand London

And before I start working on those, I want to:

• finish the Sew Bossy Challenge, succeeded!
• finish my Saltspring dress from Sewaholic in time for the sew-a-long, one of my favourite makes!
• make my Anna dress from By Hand London, done!

My Saltspring dress, it is actually black silk

 So when I went to the fabric store I had a plan! I even made my boyfriend pay attention that I didn't buy too many fabrics with print, only the lining was allowed to be busy (and fun).. From the outside the shop doesn't look too promising, but when you go inside, wow! It is my fabric heaven and I can easiliy spend hours there!

Here you can see a bit of the wool suiting collection on the left. The first fabrics on the right are polyester, but the rows after that are all silk. Also the complete right wall is all silk. They have a lot of designer silks ( I got silks from Missoni and Max Mara last year) and most of their silks are around 15 euro's per meter (around 15 dollars per yard)! Not bad at all right?

This was the 50% off stash 

Knits in all sorts and patterns

 So what did I get?

• Two fabrics for my Archer blouse, the blue one with the small purple dots is cotton, and the other one is a polyester. I don't usually like polyester fabrics, but this one felt super soft and was only 2 euro's per meter, so this will be my wearable muslin.

Cotton

Cotton and the polyester

• Water repellent fabric for my Robson trenchcoat. This coat needs a lot of fabric! Around 4.5 meters if I remember correctly.. That's why I chose this fabric, it is slightly grey with a hint of a denim look (but nothing too much, trust me!) and the best part, it was on sale so only 2.5 euro's per meter! The Robson coat is unlined, so no excuse for prints here. 

The Minoru jacket on the left and the Robson on the right

•  Fabric for my two Minoru jackets, one in water repellent fabric (camel colour) and the other one in wool! At first I only got the water repellent one, but when I arrived home I wished that I had also gotten some wool to make it. So two days later I went back to the fabric store and found some lovely wool, which absolutely made my day!

Lining, yay!

The water repellent fabric and it's lining.

Wool in close-up

Another lining with print!

•  For my Victoria blazer I got a silk linnen, I didn't get a lining, but I'm sure I have something suitable in my stash. I also have some fabric I got in Paris in March which I want to use for a Victoria blazer, it is a gorgeous fabric with some shimmer in it!

Silk linnen

 My Paris fabric!

•  And then I got some black jersey to make this shirt out of, it is from the book Drape Drape. I also got some other black thicker jersey to make a sweater of some sort.. 

Overall I'm really happy with my choices and can't wait to start sewing my Minoru jacket! I think that will be the first one on my to do list :)

What do you think about my fabric choices? Do you have a fall sewing plan?