Tine Sews: Frau Ava

Last Friday I made an impulse buy. I saw on makerist.de that they were having a sale which also included the Frau Ava pattern by Hedi näht and since I was thinking about that pattern from the moment it popped up on Instagram I quickly hit the "Buy" button. On Friday night I taped the PDF pattern and on Sunday I made the coatigan. Of course, I wore it to work on Monday.

The pattern by Hedi, a German blogger and pattern designer, ist a loose fitting coatigan with wide three quarter sleeves and pockets in the front. It only consists of two pattern pieces, the pockets and the facings. A very quick make indeed.

The fabric I used, sat in my stash way too long, but it's perfect for the pattern. The wool fabric was one of my first purchases, when I started working for stoffe.de

I have to apologize for the very bad quality of these pictures, but it started getting dark, when I took them and I had to lighten them up quite a bite.

The coatigan is not as flattering as the Stadtmantel by Crafteln, but it's comfy.

The coatigan has no lining, only a facing around the front. That makes it such a quick make. I already have plans for a second version, but might line that as I plan on using a leopard print furry fabric.

Tine Shops: Maybachufermarkt and Nähkontor in Berlin

This weekend I had the pleasure to travel to Berlin to meet an old friend who lives there. Since today is a bank holiday in Germany I managed to stay for three nights and got to do a lot of my favourite and some new things in the city.

Berlin and I didn't get along on our first visits, I never really got the spirit of the city. Maybe that's because when I went to Berlin for the first time it was when I was about 16 and it was on a school trip. I didn't really get to see the cool places and I had a first impression of the city being an enourmous building lot.
Now that my friend lives there for about seven years already and I have visited the city a couple of more times, I slowly got to know why the city is loved by so many of its residents. Though I'm still not quite sure if I'd like to live in the city for a longer time.

What I love about the city is the diversity and the many individual and cheap restaurants. On this stay I even got to experience a night in an electro club, which is the favourite style of music in Berlins' clubbing scene. I was a bit biased, but liked it and my friends and I stayed till the sun had risen again.

Another thing I always do, when I'm in town, is hitting the Maybachufermarkt, which offers some fabric stalls and you can get really nice things for only up to 5 € the meter.
This time I also made my way to Prenzlauer Berg/Friederichshain to visit the Nähkontor. I met Nina, one of the founders, on the sewing weekends of Annäherung in Bielefeld and always planned to visit her shop one time and this time I did. The shop is really cute and easy to reach. The interior and some of the assortment is from an old haberdashery shop and Nina and her partner added some current fabrics and notions and also offer sewing classes. You should really go there, if you want to have a really cool shopping experience.

Of course I couldn't leave the Maybachufermarkt and the Nähkontor without buying something. Here you can see, what I got:

I plan to make a pair of shorts for my upcoming holiday to Venice in June and already have the fabric, that I want to use, but I wanted to have a neon pink bias tape for binding the edges. I couldn't get it locally, so I was very happy to find it in the Nähkontor and also found a matching cord, which I will use for the drawstring waist of the shorts.

At the Nähkontor I also got two pieces of quilting cotton. One is printed with cameras and one has bits and bobs of haberdashery and sewing accessories printed in vivid colours. I lately did a sewing tutorial for a small pouch at work and plan to make some pouches from these fabrics.

At the Maybachufermarkt I found two amazing rayon fabrics for only 3 € the meter. It was hard to decide which fabrics to take, because they had lots of pretty ones. In the end I decided on this confetti print and a floral print. I got 4 m of the confetti print, so I hope to be able to make a small summer collection of skirt, top and dress of the fabric. The floral print was also available in two other colorways and would have liked to get half a meter of each, but the minimum was 1 m and so I decided to get the blue one. I have few blue things in my closet, so that will be a nice addidtion.
I also got 4 m of zipper band in yellow and some pins, because I tend to bend my pins at home.

Have you already visited Berlin? Did you get to go fabric shopping? Constanze from Nahtzugabe has written a couple of good posts about fabric shopping in Berlin.

Tine Sews: Scuba Skirt And Shirt

When I was on holiday in the beginning of September I also stopped in London, because I found a good flight to the South of France from London. Of course I needed to go fabric shopping there, despite travelling with a backpack only. So the amazing Charlie from This Blog is not for you was not only so kind to host me, she also showed me the famous Walthamstow Market in the east of London and together we found some bargains. One fabric that I got was this scuba jersey printed with roses and as soon as I came home I sewed up a skirt and matching shirt from the 1 meter that I got. I was quite surprised that all the pattern pieces fitted on the 1 meter by 1,5 meter piece, but it worked out and so I got myself this lovely ensemble.

 

The skirt is a simple pencil skirt that I made using an old pattern. About six years ago I could fit that pattern in a woven fabric, but nowaday with my more womanly figure I can only use it for fabrics with stretch. I'm totally fine with that.

The shirt was made using the free pattern from the German edition of the book belonging to the first season of The Great British Sewing Bee. In Germany you can get the patterns on this website.

 

I serged all seams and then stitched over the beginning and end of the seams with a zig zag stitch to prevent the opening of the seams.                                                                                                                            

The print is a colourful, probably digitally printed rose motif on a dark background. 

I was immediately drawn to the fabric, as I believe that I've seen a similar fabric used on a very expensive wetsuit from an American designer.

 

The skirt has a small waistband that I serged to the front and back and then secured with a row of zig zag stitches.

 

It's a good length, flirty but not too short.

Both of the pieces can also be worn as seperates, either pairing them with a dark sweater or a black mini-skirt.

The shoes I'm wearing in the first pictures are my new Victoria sneakers, which I got in Biarritz. They are from a Spanish brand that still manufactures in Spain. In the shop it was the last pair in my size and the shop assistant had to get the second shoe from the window decoration, but I'm very happy about finding them as I needed shoes to replace my worn out Vans that I go three years ago in San Francisco. I like to buy shoes on holiday as a memory of the trip.

Tine Shops: The Dutch Fabric Market in Hamburg

Every couple of months the Dutch Fabric Market stops in Hamburg. Never heard about it before? The Dutch Fabric Market is an institution in Germany. It's basically an association of different Dutch fabric retailers that travel around Germany and present their fabrics and notions. In every city also some local shops have stalls and show off their cloth.
I've never been to one of the markets, so when it came to Hamburg on a weekend that I was staying in town I jumped at the chance and went to Alsterdorf market, where it took place. You couldn't miss that place and already at the subway station I knew where to go, just following the ladies with the big shopping bags.

 There were lots of stalls with brightly patterned jersey fabrics and fabrics for children, but I also found some great fall fabrics and wools.

 These hight quality wool fabrics weren't cheap, but I've never seen them before offered in a store. It's not my style, but I know that they are liked by many women on the market.

 The 50 cm cut offs of cotton jersey are really popular at just 4 € the piece. Not really my thing, but definitely a great ressource for mums and if I ever have a niece or nephew, I'll surely make something sweet of that kind of fabric.

 More bright cottons and cotton jerseys.

There was a big stall with very fashionably fashion fabrics, like jersey, wool and sateens, which I really liked. They sorted the fabrics by colour and it was a really attracting display of the fabrics.

In my last post you can see what I got at the market. Some of it cheaper than at work, some of it I'd not seen before and on the notions I totally lost my money, because they are definitely cheaper online or at other stores.

Apart from the fabrics and some haberdashery (only three stalls), they also sold pattern making supplies and pieces of laminated fabrics as well as homedecor fabrics and patchwork supplies.

Changing a needle can change your life!

This week at work I wrote a text about sewing needles and during the research I often read that the effect of a bent or slightly broken needle can highly effect the machine. So when I came home first thing I did, was changing the needles of my serger. I hadn't used that machine for about two years, because it didn't work properly anymore. So, I set in the new needles, which were still in the little box belonging to the machine and voilá - machine works perfectly again.

To celebrate this and welcome back the machine in my life I used it every evening since then. Not one, not two, but four tops and one blouse were sewn on the machine in the past three days.

The first item was a blouse made of fabric that I bought on my Paris trip last year for Valentines Day. I had already assembled the body of the blouse with French seams and just needed to attach the collar. I tried it with my regular machine, but didn't like the end result, so I wanted to serge it. With my "new" machine I had done the task in less than 30 minutes.
Here is the result:

The pattern is a vintage pattern from Burda Moden March '77. It's two pieces and the collar, so it's quite simple. For the side and shoulder seams I used French seams and for the hem I simply zig zagged a sort of rolled hem, to prevent the hem from fraying.
In the front piece is a slit on the neckline and the collar can be tied in the front. If it was a little bit longer you could also tie a bow, I can just knot it.

Here you can see the fabric in detail. See those little hearts? So sweet and such a good memory of Valentines Day in Paris.
In the next days I'll show you the other finished projects like my new metallic jersey drapey top and tiny tank imitation.

Me-made May 2013 Day One to Five

I'll post a round-up of the me-made outfits every five days, because that fits best into my busy schedule this month.

 Day 1 consisted of the me-made outfit, which I want to wear every Wednesday (challenge!). This outfit consists of me-made pants made with my trusted pattern from Burda, a simple top made of a Burda pattern and a self-drafted cardigan in a lovely mustard yellow. Fabrics are all from stoffe.de, but unfortunately sold out right now. I have some remnants from the pants, and I hope that it will be enough for a skirt.

 Day 2 was a comfortable outfit for work, where the me-made item ist the top. It's a simple raglan sleeve top from a magazine called Sabrina. The jeans were bought second-hand in Redwood City and are actually Target. The fabric of the shirt is actually a fabric which was once used by H&M in a spring collection.

 Day 3 is a simple and comfrortable outfit for working at home. Later I changed into shorts, because the weather was so nice. The shirt is from a self-drafted pattern and has a wide back and small cap sleeves.

 Day 4 was a dress and cardigan. Here in Hamburg one really raises eyebrows if you are dressed too summery in May!, so I wore the cardigan to tone things down a little bit. The dress is actually self-drafted from the same pattern as the shirt from day 3. Fabric is from Karstadt, about two years ago. I made the dress for my California road trip.

Day 5 was a simple woven top, which looks like a tee and some cut off jeans. The fabric is silk and cotton and feels great on the skin, perfect for a warm spring day.

Fresh Fall Fabrics

For Fall I try to make garments that coordinate with each other. I already got a mustard cardigan and a blue shirt blouse and I'm going for a late 70's look. Which means wide leg pants, which I will make of the berry coloured corduroy velvet. I'll probably have some leftovers of the fabric, because I orderer 2,5 m so I guess that means I'll make a skirt as well. Then some skinny corduroy pants from the brown corduroy. I already have a similar pair that I got second-hand and where I made the legs skinny, but it is a bit uncomfortable and has no stretch so I will replace that one.
The purple fabric is a knit and will become my trusted drapey cardigan, the striped knit maybe a turtleneck dress and the green fabric with lots of stretch was already turned into a pair of skinny pants. Maybe I'll get a picture of them on the weekend. They attracted some comments by my colleagues, but a random woman in a shop also told me " I just have to say that, your pants are really cool!". That made my day!

A look into the future

J.Crew

J. Crew

Today I had a very fun day at work. I did not only write some texts for our blog and organized the material for a tutorial, we also had a meeting with one of our suppliers and got to see the fabrics for spring/summer 2013. Together with my colleagues we decided which fabrics should be purchased and I have to say it was not easy to decide. Lots of beautiful flower prints, some digital prints and great jersey fabrics. The final decision was made by my boss and I can't wait until January when the first deliveries will come to our storage. As I haven't been there when the autumn/winter 2012 fabric were chosen, everyday I try to get a glimpse of the new fabrics before they are shot for the website and I really need to restrain myself to not buy everything. We will have further meetings with other suppliers and I'm looking forward to see what they offer. So, if you have a certain fabric in mind and can't find it anywhere, just give me a shout and I'll see if one of our suppliers offers it. A certain lady once told me that she would like to purchase some Swiss Dot cotton...Well, we'll offer that next year, unfortunately you were too far ahead of the trend Katarina!
The two looks are by one of my favourite inspiration source J.Crew ( all pictures by style.com)

One Part of my Stash

This is what you get if you work in fabric retail. The plan to keep all my fabrics in a box beneath my bed didn't quite work out. But I just can't resist a good bargain and if I see how quick some fabrics sell out, I need to purchase them before. So, may I present to you the purchases of , in my defense, four months.

From top to bottom:

• greyish blue twill cotton with some percent of elasthan will become a muslin for a pair of skinny trousers and a skirt
• snakeskin jersey to make a simple skirt, nothing to difficult
• red and blue striped jersey, might become a peplum top similar to the one of Zoe
• white jersey printed with popsicles should become summer jammies consisting of the Colette patterns Sorbetto and the Madeleine bloomers
• grey and light pink striped jersey should become a v-neck t-shirt
• dark blue jersey with some woolen content should become a loose sweater
• mustard yellow jersey, quite thin will become a drapey cardigan
• white, brown, neon yellow striped jersey will become a t-shirt or top
• cotton twill with elasthan printed with flowers should become a pair of skinny trousers
• shiny jersey, the shine comes from a coating with some kind of silver paint, very cool, will become a loose sweater

Some of the fabrics are still on stock, others are sold out. I'll try and update this post with links, but now I have to finish my thesis to be able to print it tomorrow.

Edit: In inserted some links to the fabrics that are still on stock as of today (07-10)

Black Dots On Gold

I scored this great fabris at work. It's a black jersey which is coated with a layer of golden foil and the foil has some holes in the shape of dots, which gives the fabric a really interesting texture. I bought just 0.7 m to make my simple skirt. I made it today with my new black thread ( rPET recycled Polyester thread from Gütermann, I'll write about it soon) and could manage to get the pieces for the skirt and a bikini out of the fabric. Oh, and with the leftover I can make a simple turban, which gives every outfit a special touch.

Here are some different ways of styling it. The top with geometric print is also made by me, another one of my staple patterns. I'm currently trying out different styling ideas to see what suits my body best. I like the highwaisted style, which you can see on so many bloggers but I think I'm abit too large and not curvy enough for that and have not enough waist to pull it of. The styling with the twist in the top covers the humps and bumps and looks much more flattering. Maybe I should try some shapewear? Has anyone experiences with Spanx? The sandals are one of my score from a fleamarket in Bonn last year, they are uber comfortable even though they look terribly high .

Stripes and dots look fabulous together, at least in my opinion . The pink necklace adds the final touch. I made it myself simply by crocheting some rows of stitches on to a metal chain. Anyone interested in a tutorial? The waistband of the skirt was attached again with slipstitching by hand. It took about two episodes of SATC. In the episodes I watched Carrie was wearing an amazing wrap dress, which is now on my to-do-list. I already have a good pattern from an old Easy BurdaStyle in mind which will be perfect. Now, I only need to find the best jersey with a similar print. I've seen some samples at work and I think I will find something suitable in the Summer Sale. There are some good fabrics in the sale, so hurry up and get them before they are sold out!
Oh and by the way I got a look at the new Burda patterns for autumn winter 2012/2013 today. There are some really interesting pieces in the collection. But the best part is the styling! Some models even wear the blogger-famous Litas from Jeffrey Campbell.

The Summer Sewing Swap with Inge

Some weeks ago Kestrel announced the Summer Sewing Swap and curiously I decided to take part in this fun event. I was partnered with Inge from Ingemaakt and after browsing her blog ( and translating bits and pieces with my favourite Mozilla tool - the translator function) I got an idea what she liked and gathered some ideas. Last week I shipped the parcel and she already told me that she liked what she got. Naturally I was curious what she would send me and today I had her parcel in the post.
Let's have a look, shall we?

This is the parcel which came from the Netherlands to Germany. Probably not the longest way from all the parcels from the swap I suppose?

The content was in this cute plastic bag. Lovely!

Everything was wrapped once again in wrapping paper and made me even more curious. Now, you probably can't wait any longer. Let's see what's inside the paper!

The parcel contained 1,5 m cotton lawn, a crocheted flower, lovely ribbon in dutch colours with little hearts, which looks very nautical to me and which I want to use for decoration of a shorts or skirt. Furthermore some small green buttons and medium-sized buttons in white and turquoise, which fit to the cotton fabric. And, as if Inge had known me forever, she sent me a sewing magazine! I love sewing magazines, this one is even in four languages, so I can understand the explanations. What a well thought of parcel! Thanks a lot Inge! The patterns of the magazine are really cool and I already picked a couple of things, which I want to make.

Platz ist in der kleinsten Hütte

I know, I know, I usually post in English but here I couldn't restrain of using this German saying which means something like "Space is in the smallest room". As I already mentioned before I live in Hamburg now and I only rent a room in the house of a family. Therefore I had to accomodate my sewing room into this small room. I succeded by leaving much of my stuff behind and only taking scraps that are large enough to make something. On one of my sewing frenzy weekends I managed to use quite an amount of fabrics so soon I will be able to shop again for fabric. Of course it is very alluring if you work with fabrics the whole day and see what will be in stock soon, but so far I restricted myself to buy only a piece of lining and a high quality bamboo silk mix. The lining was used already for the dress from one of my last posts.
Anyway I wanted to show you, how I make the most of the small space that I have.
This is one corner of my room where I store all the pattern magazines, cut out patterns and my sewing machine. The Burda magazine from 7/2000 is my favourite issue so far. I already made a couple of garments from that issue and many of my simple tops were drafted using a top from this issue as a pattern.

 I store all my fabrics in this plastic container. It fits underneath my bed and makes use of the space, that would otherwise be useless. I don't have a cutting table or anything, it's back to the floor, but the parquet that I have is very good for cutting.

I got this little box in the hardware store and small items fit perfectly into the container.