Hello everybody!
It's been a while since I have last posted but I was out of town and exploring my new country again. And to be quite honest, I was totally sick of the looooong winter of upstate NY, so I escaped to California for a little bit. One of the most awesome things I did was this:
Shopping at Mood Fabrics, Los Angeles!
I love love love this store and you might remember that I went to the store in New York City for the first time, in December of last year. I knew that if I ever make it to Los Angeles I would have to go to the store there. And so I did, on April 2, to be exact!

The store is located at 645 South La Brea Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036. It is smaller than the one in NYC but just as well organized! And to be honest, there is still so much fabric to choose from, it gets a little overwhelming. One half of the store has all the fashion fabrics and the other half all the home decor fabrics. I spent about two hours in the store and left with four fabrics.

There is also a huge collection of buttons, buckles, zippers and all other supplies you can possibly think of. I mean look at the picture with all the buttons! Isn't that amazing??

And these are the fabrics I bought:
I started off in the knit section since I love nice cotton knits with prints and they are just so hard to get. This one is definitely going to be made into another summer dress, like the one I already made a couple weeks ago, with the Rochester skyline on the back. I even found this fabric online on the Mood Fabrics website, if you want to check it out.

I also bought this knit fabric with a large scale print:

My favorite is this next one! I was looking for a fabric to make a maxidress using a Burda style pattern and I found this awesome silk fabric:

This is the pattern I want to use. I haven't tried this one before but I think it will look really gorgeous with that fabric. I just hope I won't screw up on this one because I could not forgive myself if I did :)
If you are interested in this pattern, it is in the Burda style May 2013 edition and you can also find it on their website.

This is the last fabric I bought. I am not really sure what I am going to make of this one but I kind of liked the color combo. I could make it into a skirt for instance and it will match a lot of my tops. It is a Marc Jacobs fabric for $ 18/yard, so I couldn't resist.

I hope you enjoyed looking at my new fabrics! I know I do. If you ever make it to LA or NYC you have to check out Mood Fabrics. It is seriously one of the most exciting fabric stores I have ever been to (and that includes stores in Europe). I have been to both of them within four months and couldn't be more excited about it. I hope to be able to go back some time...

I remember that a few years ago there was this cool tutorial in one of my Burda magazines which showed you how to paint a city skyline onto a scarf. There was a stencil included in the magazine which portrayed some random fake city skyline. I thought the idea was pretty cool but if I am going to have a skyline on my clothing I want it to be a real one! So why not put Rochester, NY onto a dress?? If you are interested in making something like this for your city, here's what I did:

You need:
- a picture of your city. Print it onto a letter size sheet of paper
- tracing paper
- cardboard
- scissors and ideally a carpet cutter
- doublesided tape
- black fabric spray paint (I used Tulip Fabric Spray Paint "Asphalt")
- a fabric pen matching your fabric - I used a red one with glitter effect (make sure it is a "pen" and not "slick" fabric paint which is dimensional!)

1. Trace the outlines of the city onto tracing paper. Then cut out the interior parts and discard them. Place the cut out picture onto your cardboard
(You may also cut the original picture if you don't have tracing paper or don't want to do the extra step but I thought using tracing paper was a little easier)
Trace the outlines onto the cardboard and then cut out the interior parts of the cardboard. This is going to be your stencil.

Before proceeding: I highly recommend trying your stencil on an old piece of fabric or muslin. You want to make sure you like the silhouette before you spraypaint the fabric of your garment! I am glad I used some simple yellow lining fabric to try out my stencil and my pens. I accidently bought a slick fabric paint pen which is dimensional and the result didn't really look nice. And I had cut out the bridge in the foreground of the cardboard at first which I also did not like. I removed the bridge part from the stencil so that I would have exclusively the outlines of the skyline. Everything structuring the skyline would have to be painted in later with a fabric pen. 

2. Tape the stencil to the fabric with doublesided tape. Make sure to cover all edges of the stencil with tape. It is important that the stencil will be attached securely to the fabric to prevent the spray paint from running over the edges. You also want to make sure to cover up the rest of the fabric with newspaper or some old fabric from your stash. For my garment I found this cotton/rayon knit fabric and love the pinkish/purplish color. I only bought a yard and thus knew that I only had one try to make this happen. No pressure at all :-)

Spray paint your fabric. Make sure to evenly distribute the paint and to get every corner. Let your fabric dry for at least a few hours before proceeding.

3. Take off the stencil and admire your work! So far so good - I actually procrastinated for about two days before proceeding to the next step. I was too scared I would screw up my nice skyline silhouette.

4. Now it's time to turn the silhouette into an actual skyline. I used the picture of Rochester for help and looked for significant details on the skyscrapers. E. g. the one in the center has a roof with slanted edges that reflects the sun. This part would be painted red to stand out more. The building on the left-hand side again has a very structured look with all those vertical lines, so I tried to draw in as many red lines as possible. The building on the right-hand side however is very dark, so I just draw the outlines and nothing else. As you can see I used the original stencil part to draw the bridge. I didn't want to eyeball this one since I am pretty sure I would have messed up on the proportions.

All done! After letting the paint dry for another few hours it was time to sew up the dress.

As for the dress I made with the fabric: it is a very simple pattern taken from Burda style magazine (April 2013, but they have the same pattern in the Spring 2014 edition which is available in stores right now). The pattern just uses one panel (cut on the fold) for the front and back and two facing pieces for the neckline. There are four pleats folded into the upper front part but I went with six since the neckline was a little too wide. I neglected the pockets. I like this pattern a lot and think the dress looks really good with a belt. Otherwise I would have probably made a more fitted version. 

And I really do like the skyline on the dress! Not everybody carries their city on their back :) Thanks for reading and if you like this tutorial please leave me a comment below!
Have a great week everyone!

As some of you might know I have a little addiction to Project Runway. I love this show and think it's a nice way to get inspired by all the different styles and aesthetics the designers bring to the runway (and well, don't we all love the little drama of castinghows??).
Anyway, anybody remember Sonjia from season 10? She was eliminated in episode 12, right before the finale. She created a lot of interesting looks during the show but the one that I loved most was a jacket she made in episode 8 ("Starving Artists"):

When I saw that jacket I knew that I would try and make one for myself that was similar to hers. Fast forward 1.5 years and here we are :) I am really into sewing clothes lately and this jacket is my newest project. I used a thin, soft wool fabric that I had gotten from my mom several years ago. To make a nice contrast I picked an orange/white/gray colored lining.

For the top part of the jacket I used a pattern from Burda style magazine (December 2009).
I simply cut the pattern right at the waistline since this is were the peplum starts. I sewed up the top part and while I like the asymmetric look of the original jacket I decided to keep the front panels straight - mostly because I couldn't wrap my head around how to design this part of the jacket to be quite honest.

For the first time ever I used muslin to construct the jacket. This was due to the fact that I had to come up with the pattern pieces for the peplum by myself and did not want to risk wasting my precious wool fabric.
For the peplum I pretty much just looked at the picture of the Project Runway jacket, drafted the pieces and cut them out from the muslin and attached them to the top part. And then I keep altering the pieces until they had the look I intended and that matched with the look on the picture. Let's say it took me a while :)

I put three gray buttons onto the front panel and went for a decorative orange botton to go on the collar, just to pick up the colors from the lining. I found the same buttons in a smaller size and decided to put them onto the back of the sleeves as an additional accessory (you can see them in the picture below).

I have only sewn maybe a handful of jackets/coats so far and I find it quite a challenge. Especially fitting in the lining properly is still a mystery to me. That being said I think my jacket could have turned out a lot worse LOL! Of course it doesn't look as polished as the original (also because I think Sonjia used cashmere... I wish!!) but overall I am pretty happy with the outcome. It is just too bad that it's still only 10°F in the Rochester area, so this is another item that will still have to sit in my closet for a while...

It doesn't happen too often but every now and then I take a look into this big green Pfaff bag which my sewing machine came in when I bought it in 2007. This bag has had one purpose ever since: keep all my UFOs - aka unfinished (sewing-)objects - out of my sight.
I am not lying when I am telling you that the last time I checked out what's in there was years ago, maybe even before the bag left Germany... who knows?

BUT! I am even more proud of myself that I took one of those UFOs and finally finished it. Yay to myself!! This project is a skirt that I started back in the days when I was more comfortable in jeans. It took me a while to figure out which kind of skirt (short and fitted) I like and this project definitely came from another era :)

I remember that I stopped sewing because I thought it looked hideous. Actually the fabric is really nice, a soft and not too thick wool fabric in black (or more like anthracite), with a little hint of white and orange. Practically matching everything!

I looked in my stash for some lining fabric and luckily I found this dark purple one. I quickly sewed up the lining skirt and attached it to the exterior. After completing the waistband there was only a buttonhole to be made and a button to be chosen. I found this purple one and thought it was perfect with the lining. Sure, I am the only one ever seeing the lining but I get a kick out of things like that - you know, when you put on your skirt, you see the purple lining and it just looks awesome with the button? Love it!

The pattern by the way was an older (German) Burda pattern which I slightly changed:
- I decided to put the zipper to the right side and not to the back.
- I put the darts to the front part of the skirt (for some reason this is where I need them when sewing cothes. Not on my butt obviously...)

After a long break from sewing garments (ever since I caught the bag making bug!) I am now getting back into sewing clothes again. I am really enjoying this process. Especially because I find it fascinating how easily and quickly a skirt or a dress can be sewn up!

Thanks for reading! If you like my skirt please feel free to leave me a comment. I am always glad for feedback :)

Happy sewing!

Only two more months of winter and then we can slowly get ready for spring... <sigh>...

To put me in the right mood I decided to make a dress out of one of the fabrics I got at Mood Fabrics in NYC in December.
I usually don't go too bold with my clothing but I just love love love the print of this knit fabric. I think it's phenomenal (just like the store I bought it from)!
(Read about my trip to Mood here)

I wanted it to be simple and casual, so I chose a New Look pattern. I made three changes:
1. I got rid of the sleeves
2. I made it a maxidress, reaching all the way to my ankles.
3. I doubled the bodice. I have a store-bought dress with a fully lined bodice and I really like it since it gives it more structure and a neat finished look.

When I bought this fabric I had absolutely no clue what to make with it. So I bought 2 yards, thinking I would be on the safe side. I am rather tall (5'9") and the fabric was hardly enough for a maxidress. I had to use another knit fabric (plain turquoise) from my stash for the inner back part of the doubled bodice.
I also couldn't play with the print like I had originally planned. The print ist bold and dark on the left-hand side of the fabric panel and kind of fades out to the right-hand side. If I had had more fabric I would have probably cut both the front and back part kind of in the center of the print. Now my front skirt panel is widely patterned and the back panel is rather plain :) To make a contrast to the colorful front skirt part I decided to use the more plain part of the fabric for the front bodice.

It took me a few moments to figure out how to line the bodice but it is actually pretty easy. I decided to share my technique with you, in case you want to try it out yourself.

How to double the bodice:
Note: for your convenience I am offering this tutorial as a PDF file if you prefer to have everything in one structured document. You may purchase it here for only $2.

1. Cut your bodice part for front and back twice each.

2. Put the two bodice front parts right sides together and pin. Stitch along the neckline and the armholes and make sure to start and stop approx. 2 cm (0.75") from the edges (see picture to the left). You will need this gap later to finish your bodice (I forgot to do it at first and sewed all the way up to the top, like shown on the pictures below. Don't do that!!). Turn right side out.

3. Repeat for the two pieces of the bodice back part.

4. Put the outer shoulder parts of the bodice back and front right sides together. Pin in place and stitch.

To do the same with the inner shoulder parts of the bodice front and back you will have to pull the two pieces through the bodice. Pin in place and stitch. Your bodice front and back will be connected at the shoulder seams now, with the gaps still open.

5. Repeat the previous step with the side seams of the bodice: Sew the side seams of the outer bodice parts rights sides together. Then sew the seams of the inner bodice parts right sides together. 

6. To close the gaps on the bodice part, simply fold the seam allowances to the inside. Then topstitch along the whole bodice part (neckline and armholes), at the same time closing the openings.

7. For the skirt part of my dress I used the two panels that came with the New Look pattern and added about 15" in length for a maxidress. The front panel is wider than the back (the back has the exact width of the back bodice). It has to be gathered to the right width so that it fits the bodice front part.
Stitch your skirt front and back together before proceeding.

8. Attach the doubled bodice to the skirt:
Put the skirt part and the bodice outer parts right sides together and stitch around the whole piece. I used a serger which will finish the edge neatly at the same time. You will be stitching through three layers of fabric: the skirt, the outer bodice and the inner bodice.

Finding the right length for my dress took me a while but I finally figured it out. I wanted it to be as long as possible, but without risking to fall or to have the fabric touch the ground (and dirt!) when not standing straight.

I had just a tiny bit of fabric left and decided to make a headband. I simply cut three strips of fabric and braided them. The strips I cut were about 4 cm (1.5") wide and 45 cm (18 ") long. To make the braid stay in place I stitched right over it at both the top and the bottom ends. Now I only have to tie the two ends together and my headband is ready to go!

I think the dress turned out really nice. I can't wait to wear it!! I hope you like it too. I am glad I already made it even though summer still seems like a million years away... Are you already sewing things for summer?
Happy sewing everyone and stay warm!

Last week something rather unexpected happened to me: my friend Amy asked me if I wanted to go through her late grandmother's sewing supplies and told me I was free to take whatever I could use.  I never met her grandma but she must have been a sewing addict just like me! There were hundreds of hundreds of fabrics, as well as thread, zippers and just everything you can possibly think of.
It took us several hours to look through everything and I found some really nice fabrics, some of which could even be vintage. I decided to show you a small selection of what I brought home. It would just be too much to show all the fabric I got!!

We also found these old, handwritten receipts from 1980! And this pretty little paper box with fabric, a matching zipper and seam binding. I wonder if she got that for Christmas a long time ago? Or if it was meant to be a Christmas present and she decided to keep it for herself (been there, done that!)?? Some of the things we found really made me wonder about the story behind it.

And it gets better: we found hundreds of spools of thread! I decided to keep almost all of them, a lot of them hadn't even been opened yet! If the thread is still usable (does Polyester thread ever expire and get fragile I am wondering?) then I will never have to buy thread again in this life :)

And more fabrics (all not ironed, sorry!):

And there was also this: Mary Poppins!! And her bottomless bag and her parrot head umbrella as well! I have absolutely NO clue what to do with this fabric but I knew I could NEVER leave this behind. I loved Mary Poppins as a kid. Actually I still do!

I also got a whole bunch of seam binding and bias tape in all the colors you could think of. Also some elastic and a few buckles! I especially love the green buckles. I will definitely use them for some of my bags.

I was really moved when Amy offered me to take a look at her grandma's sewing room and I am happy that some of the fabrics and sewing supplies now have a new home in my little sewing studio. Joann Fabrics will not be seeing me for a while, that's for sure!

Happy New Year to all of you! I hope you had nice holidays. Before I flew to Germany for Christmas I treated myself to a short trip to NYC. I had never been there before so during the two days I spent there I wanted to do some sightseeing of course, but something else - not less important - was also on my list:
check out some fabric stores in the Garment District of Manhattan!!

I didn't really have too much time but I made it to three different stores. The first one didn't really impress me at all, which is why I won't share anything about it. But the two others were amazing!

1. Mood Fabrics
225 W 37th St 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10018
I doubt there will be any sewer who is not familiar with Project Runway or this awesome store. After riding the elevator to the third floor you will feel like entering paradise. At least if you are into making clothing. This store is huge but so well organized! There are actually two floors with an enormous selection of apparel fabrics. I was a little bit overwhelmed by the amount of bolts in each single aisle but they have a very good labeling system which made it easier to find what I was looking for. I particularly wanted to check for cotton knit fabrics and for tweed. I spent about 1.5 hours in the store and two different - very friendly - staff members helped me find the right fabrics for my purposes. This is what I bought:

Two knit fabrics both of which I am planning on making into some sort of summer dresses. I especially love the left one with this phenomenal print and color scheme.
They are both 100% cotton which I love since I am having a hard time finding knit fabrics in my local stores that are not made of polyester. I should have probably bought so much more. But I was scared my suitcase would be too heavy in the end. I guess I will have to come back some time :)

In the wool section I bought this purple tweed fabric. I was looking for something for my mom for her birthday which was at the end of December. She is a sewing addict as well (she is actually the one who got me into sewing, thanks Mama!) so I thought some nice fabric from Mood would be a perfect birthday gift. She likes making short jackets and coats and I think this fabric will look perfect on her.

At checkout they even signed me up for Mood Rewards. Now I have a pretty key chain which I carry around. Even though it might be a while until I come back :)

2. The City Quilter
133 W 25th St
New York, NY 10001

This store is perfect if you are a quilter or bag maker. It has a decent size with a nice selection of cotton fabrics and also some home decor fabrics. They are all sorted by colors which I loved! First of all it just looks really nice and second of all it saved me a lot of time since I would only check out the shelves with my preferred color schemes. I bought four different fabrics here which of course are all going to be made into some sort of bag :)

In case you are interested here's some information about the designers (from left to right):
1. Juggling Summer by Brigitte Heitland of Zen Chic for Moda.
2. Ladies' Stitching Club by Liesl Gibson of Oliver + S for Moda.
3. Twenty Three by Eric & Julie Comstock of Cosmo Cricket for Moda.
4. 1000 Cranes by Rashida Coleman Hale for Cloud 9 Fabrics.

I can't wait to get started on sewing with my new fabrics! What is your first project for the new year going to be?? Maybe you even got some new fabrics for Christmas? I would love to know what you are up to for the new year so just leave me a comment if you like :)

A couple weeks ago I participated in the Sew Sweetness Bag Contest on Sew Mama Sew and I was really thrilled to see that my Petrillo Bag made it to the TOP 15!! There were about 60 entries and my bag got picked by a jury to be among the top 15 bags of the contest. And here is how you can help me:

Everybody can vote for their top 3 favorite entries among the 15 finalists! So please please please take a look at all the awesome bags - and vote for me :) And then vote for two other bags that you like. I promise it is going to be a really tough choice!
See picture below for my bag :)

Thank you so much everyone!! :-*

I posted this free tutorial the other day about how to turn an xxl-shirt into a dress and I finally made a second one! I had to wait for my new t-shirt to arrive, which I got from my choir. I joined the Rochester Oratorio Society last year and I really enjoy singing with them. A couple weeks ago they offered the opportunity to order shirts and hoodies with their logo on the front, I already have a hoodie (in light pink :-)) and since that other shirt for my friend turned out so nicely I decided to order a big shirt for myself and turn it into a dress as well.

For the basic steps to make this dress, please refer to my free tutorial. Below I will show you how I lengthened my shirt, embellished the sleeves and made the belt.

--- This tutorial is free but for your convenience I decided to offer the complete tutorial as a PDF for download for only $2, if you prefer to have everything in one structured document ---

1. Embellish the sleeves
I didn't want to go with regular sleeves and since I was planning on lengthening my shirt with some nice coordinating cotton fabric I thought I'd be a nice idea to add a small strip of that fabric to the sleeves as well. Another thing I did was attaching a piece of elastic to the wrong side of the sleeve, to get a nice effect. To do this you will have to measure the height of your sleeve and take a piece of elastic of about half that height. Place the elastic centered onto the wrong side of your sleeve, starting approx. 0.75" down from the top edge. Stitch it down to the fabric while pulling it tight, so that the other end of the elastic ends about 0.75" from the bottom edge of the sleeve. This will make the elastic to create crinkles (nice ones!) on your sleeve as shown on the picture to the bottom right.

Next I cut two strips of my cotton fabric (each with a height of 2"), which had the same width as the bottom edge of the sleeves. I put the sleeve and the fabric right sides together and stitched. Next I folded the cotton fabric over to the wrong side of the sleeve, folded down the seam allowance and pinned the cotton fabric down on the sleeve, with the its clean edge being pinned down just about 1/8" above the seam you made in the step before.

Topstitch from the right side of the sleeve to make sure your stitching is even. Stitch approx. 1/8" down from the top edge of the cotton fabric.

I also pulled a strip of elastic through the cotton fabric and tightened it just a little bit, for the sleeve the get a nicer and rounder shape. Stitching the ends of the elastic to the cotton fabric made sure it stayed in place for the next step.

Next I folded my sleeve in half so that the two short edges were aligned and stitched them right sides together. Then I was ready to attach the sleeve to the shirt (see my previous tutorial for this step).

2. Lengthen the shirt
With a height of 5' 9" I am fairly tall and so I had to lengthen the shirt or I would have risked showing to much... and we certainly don't want that :) So I added two 4" long strips of my cotton fabric to the front and the back of the shirt.

3. Adding a belt
I decided to add a little belt to my dress since I didn't quite like the look of it. I wanted it to be fairly long so I actually had to stitch two pieces right sides together along the short ends to get a piece that was about 64" long. I made two of these, so both of my fabric pieces ended up being approx. 64" x 1.75". I put them right sides together, all edges aligned and stitched along both long edges using a 1/4" seam allowance. I used a turning tool to turn the belt right sides out and folded down the seam allowance of both short edges and topstitched them closed.
I acutally put on my dress to find the right height for the belt and pinned it down on the two side seams of the dress. I made sure that the center of the belt was aligned with the center of the back of the shirt. Then I simply topstitched the belt down on the two side seams of the dress.

This is acutally more of a summer dress but I don't think I can wait that long before wearing it. I really like the way it turned out and it took me only about 2 hours to make it :)

Thanks for reading and I hope you like this project :)

Happy Sunday everyone :) It is really cold here and I decided that this is a perfect chance to spend all Sunday sitting on my sewing machine! I bought some new fabrics yesterday - I posted earlier today on Facebook - and will make them into a bag of some sort (what else??).

Just wanted to show you some of my latest creations, all completed last week. Maybe this will give you some inspiration for a Sunday project of your own :))

Fabrics I bought yesterday:
- Flora from the Impressions Collection by Ty Pennington
- Bear Essentials 2 by P & B Textiles (turquoise)
- Classic Elements by P & B Textiles (gray)

The following items I actually made for a review that I am working on right now, which will be posted on Sew Mama Sew in December:

A Classy Clutch:

Exterior fabric: The Painted Garden by Dena Designs for Free Spirit

Lining fabric: Dear Stella

A small purse that can be used as a clutch, a wristlet or worn across the body. This is a new design that I made up rather spontaneously :) I will probably make a sewing pattern from this. It could even be a nice beginner pattern, since it is fairly easy to make but still has a little bit of embellishment and uses some hardware (hence is not too boring. That was my point :))

This pattern is an old Burda bag sewing pattern that I found in my stash. I had a little bit of that beautiful purple fabric left and decided to use it for this bag design (I previoulsy made a California Sunshine Bag with this fabric).

Exterior fabric: "Queen Anne's Lace" from the Piper Collection by Dear Stella
Lining fabric: "Citron" from Garden Pindot by Michael Miller

Happy sewing  and stay warm :)