Sparkly Rigel Bomber

After the love story that was my first Rigel Bomber I've made a second one!

I found some awesome sparkly neoprene fabric in Rotterdam. Since this fabric feels nice on the inside as well I decided I didn't have to line it. When I also decided to ditch the welt pockets it became a super fast project!

I followed the instructions and made the same alterations as I did with my first bomber.

The only issue I had was that my ribbing wasn't wide enough to cut my pieces, super annoying! I fixed it by cutting the ribbing pieces in two pieces and stitching them together. Not the prettiest, but for Burning Man it will work :)

I acted a bit stupid when I inserted my zipper into my stretch fabric. I didn't stabilize the edge first and now I have a super wonky zipper :( Its not too noticeable when I close my jacket though so I can live with it.. But next time, I'm stabilizing it! Lesson learned.

wonky zipper..

Also the bottom isn't equal, which my boyfriend pointed out to me, I think this might also have something to do with the fabric stretching a bit.. Ahh well, let's hope no one will notice in the dark!

Hmmpfh

Have you learned any sewing lessons the hard way? Would you leave it as it is, or unpick 4 seams and redo it?

Glitters everywhere! Anima pants and Pneuma tops..

Wow,
I think this has been the longest break from blogging I've taken so far.. I guess after all the sewing/writing/taking pictures for the Sew It Up competition I just really needed a rest. Then my bf and I found a rental house (so I'll be living in two places now, still need to see how that works out). I'll even get my sewing room, which I painted this week and can't wait to finish it!

View from the dining room to the living room..

My future sewing room.. 

I still have a lot of unblogged makes from before the competition (april/may makes, I'm sooo slow right now!) but I wanted to show you guys my latest makes first! I'm entering them in the Sporty Summer Sewathon and the Anima Pant competition, two flies in one squat we would say in The Netherlands ;)

I made the Anima Pants  and two Pneuma sports bra's from Papercut Patterns. I really wanted to make some items for when we go to Burning Man in august. So this was the perfect opportunity to use glitter/sequined fabric!

I will talk a bit about the tops first..

After seeing Sonja's top I knew these would be perfect for Burning Man! The gold glitter fabric is a bit thinner than the striped one, but both are lycra's from Italy. My sizing fell between xxs and xs so I cut right in between those sizes. They are super comfy, but I did have to unpick straps that are closest to my armpits at the back, since they felt a bit uncomfortable around my shoulder blades. I moved them a bit to the middle compared with the instructions. The striped one is my second try and I think the straps sit better on this one.

 My bottom elastic was exactly the same length as the width of the top, so I didn't really have to stretch it in order to attach it. I'm not sure if I should have cut it smaller, but stretch wise this works for me, it is just different then the instructions ask for.. The top elastic asks for 1 cm wide elastic, but my haberdashery store only had really thick 1 cm elastic.. I still had some 0.4 cm wide elastic in my stash, which I added and I think it works just fine :)

And now the pants!

I love them! The fabric is cotton and it is quite thick with a very soft inside and just a tiny bit of stretch. Which meant that I couldn't get the cuffs over my feet when I tried it.. So I decided to make another plan and just add more glitter fabric! (At first I was only going to add it to the pocket).

I cut them in between sixe xxs and xs and I'm really happy with the fit. They are a bit more fitted than I expected looking at the pictures, but I think this has everything to do with my fabric choice. I'll be making 2 shorter versions asap in thinner, stretchier fabric, so I'll see what happens!

The only thing I did differently than the instructions call for was the waistband. The instructions have you stitch one side of the waistband to the pants and then fold the rest over and topstitch it. What I like to do is assemble the waistband first, by folding the fabric in half with the elastic in between.
I then start my topstitching from the folded over edge and continue this as many times as needed, making sure to keep the waistband fabric nice and straight. Then I attach the finished waistband to the pants and finish the edges on my serger. Doing it this way gets me out of topstitching the folded over waistband (since I always mess that up..) I hope this makes sense, if not just let me know!

Topstitching the waistband, the fold in the fabric is on the right, I just make sure to keep everything
nice and straight on the other side as well.. 

Bf wanted to take some Burning Man appropriate pics.. beer and sun it is..

I know I promised you a give-away and it is coming! I just have to take pics of the fabric.. Slow, I know!

Do you have any festivals coming up? Or sweet summer/winter plans?

Finally, the Rigel Bomber

There are so many gorgeous Rigel Bombers popping up everywhere, that I couldn't resist and made one myself! My sister gave me this pattern for christmas, thanks Mieke for the amazing present! (Even though it is a bit of a selfish gift, as she already had one on her wish list as well.. 

So when I went to the Antwerp meet-up I was only looking for Rigel fabrics.. I spotted this fabric at  Moens fabrics, it feels like a suede, but I actually think it is a fake suede (price and thickness wise). 

I cut a size xs and only lenghtened the sleeves an inch, which is a normal adjustment for me. At first I also lengthened the body with an inch, but after seeing other finished ones, I decided that the length would be perfect if it was just a bit shorter.

After reading about how most of you preferred to line their Rigel I decided to follow.. I had a silk panel from Italy in my stash.. I really liked the print, but it was too much for a shirt, so perfect lining material! I really had to squeeze it in order to be able to fit all the pieces onto the silk, so no perfect pattern matching unfortunately.. Ahhh well, I can live with that, I'll even show it to you..

 I also made this shirt I'm wearing, I love the print on this silk! And I've got 2 more meters..

I topstitched the lining at the bottom, not the prettiest, so next time I will follow Elizabeth's tips!

I made version 2, which has a cool geometric detail on the shoulders. It felt like a small puzzle putting it together, which I really enjoyed..

 It was my first try at welt pockets, I ended up using the Craftsy tutorial, which I found quite helpful. The only small issue I have is that the neck ribbing has the tendency to wrinkle and stand away from my neck a bit.. Anyone else have this? Or any suggestions how to prevent this next time?

Because there will be a next time for sure! My sister keeps hinting at the fabric she has, which will make a perfect summer Rigel..

I've hardly taken it off since I finished it last week.. I even had a girl asking where I got my jacket from and after telling her that I'd made it myself she said: Ahhh I was afraid of that, since I didn't see a label.. And then she asked me if I was studying fashion or something similar :D
I really do have to get some nice labels though..

A sneak peek.. And lots of wildlife photo's!

Hi guys!

Just wanted to let you know that we didn't get eaten by a lion, but almost by a leopard.. We were having g&t's outside the safari vehicle when all of a sudden our guide spotted a leopard watching us from about 60m (about 200ft)... Needless to say I got into the car quicker than you can blink your eyes.

After coming home I have been sewing, just haven't had time to photograph it yet. So for now some sneak peeks of my Rigel bomber!

And I've made some spring sewing plans. Just waiting for my fabric swatches from Linton Tweeds to arrive.

I've made a small selection of some of our pics, if any of you are interested!

I've been working on my Crash sweater

She was standing right next to our (open) safari vehicle, quite thrilling!

 We went camping.. And it was amazing! There were only two tents and it was super luxurious.. We had an elephant walking right next to the tents one afternoon.

 After she almost had us for dinner..

 You see the most gorgeous birds! Using those colours for an outfit would be interesting.

We also took a Mkoro boat ride, it's like a canoe but then with hippo's and crocs.. And some dragonfly's, frogs and lots of spiderwebs in my face!

 I absolutely love zebra's!

Unbelievable sunrise.

 Having more g&t's, this time with a big elephant bull in the background! Crazy!

Next up will be my finished Rigel, promise!

My waterproof Minoru and the give-away winner!

Hi guys!

Thank you all so much for the super sweet comments on my Watson jacket! It was awesome reading all your fabric ideas and plans.. So first things first, the winner of the Watson pattern is.... 

Drumroll please....

Lisette! She blogs at What Would Nancy Drew Wear and she was super sweet to let me borrow one of her pictures from the meet-up.. Please email me your details at Revesmecanique (at) gmail.com and I'll email them to Katie from Papercut Patterns!

And then, my next make, another jacket! I've wanted to sew up the Minoru jacket ever since I saw Lladybirds version in real live at the meet-up. I followed the Sew-along and it was super helpful.

Finished Minoru

I cut a size 6, even though the hip width is too wide for me. I figured I'd just try and see how I would like it. For my next jacket I will take it in a bit at the hips, as it stands out a bit right now. 

I used waterproof fabric that I got in Italy for 3.5 Euro's per meter, (discounted 50%) so that was super nice! I'm really happy with the colour, even though it might not be the best colour for me in winter..

To show you how waterproof it really is we did a little experiment this afternoon.. For once we had no rain in The Netherlands for a whole weekend, so we had to simulate some! (Which my sister was super happy to do) At first I was like, wtf aaarrgh! But then I realised that my jacket was actually waterproof and I could relax a bit.

Good result right? Considering she poured like 4 watering cans (gieters in Dutch) on me..

This jacket will mainly be used for walking the dogs (often in the rain), so I added side pockets into which the doggy-poo bags fit. I followed Amy's tutorial on how to add side pockets.
The instructions were easy to follow, especially with all the pics on the Sew-along. I noticed I was short on thread, and two sewing supply stores didn't have the same colour as I was using, so I switched to using the bobbin as top thread and use another close matching colour as the bottom thread. For topstitching I used the triple top stitching setting on my machine which worked fine. Another issue I had is that the zipper which was supposed to go in the collar didn't fit, it was too small, so I ended up using my front zipper and then having to go back to the store to get another long zipper. I still don't know where I went wrong, but in the end it worked out fine.

Marking the elastic casing

For the lining I used a cotton, only the sleeves were lined with a much more slippery polyester, which I still had in my stash. I changed the internal pocket size, so it would fit my phone. Here are some close-ups for the internal details.. 

Sleeve lining..

Velcro closure pocket 

Triple topstitching 

The hood, which can be hidden into the collar

Overall I'm super happy with my jacket and can't wait to bring it with me to Berlin in 2 weeks!

 My next Minoru will be a thin wool version, I'm thinking of adding some extra layering, so it will be more winter appropriate..