That Seventies Dress

First post in about two years, lets see if I can do this better in the future, fingers crossed.

So a while ago I got a bunch of sewing patterns that my grandmother found in the attic. All of them are a bit out of my normal time period, being from either the 70'ies or the 80'ies. I haven't yet photo documented all of them, but here the one that I've decided to try out together with the fabric I've decided to go with:

Vintage pattern sweetness. Hippie chic here I come (hopefully)

I'm quite sure the pattern is from the seventies. Some of the patterns I got from my grandmother has never been open, but this one has and most of the pieces has been cut out. I wish my grandmother had added a scrap of fabric from the dress she made from this pattern, I would have loved to see that. I don't dare to hope that the actual dress is saved somewhere, if she ever finished it, but seeing the fabric choice from back then would be awesome. I have to ask her one day if she remembers the dress.

 I copied all the original pattern pieces onto pattern paper, though they don't seem fragile I see no reason to ruin the originals with more needles or tearing, so to be on the safe side I just copied everything. I really want to save these patterns for the future, so when working with them I always try to handle the originals as little as possible. I know this is not for everyone, but I'm the type that copies all of my patterns, I'm just annoyingly thorough. Sometimes I even annoy myself, when I get impatient and just want to sew NOW.

The fabric is this flowey/drapey cotton I got on sale some years back, though its more greenish irl.  I'm going for view A , but with a shorter skirt. I love those fluffy sleeves. I have a ton of dresses with short or no sleeves, so this is going to be a nice addition. I have a lot of red ric rac leftovers from another project so I'm going to try to copy the look quite closely.

Look at that, nifty hem marking devices and old school metal wire dressforms called Donna-Stilina. What is not to love?

The pattern is just called 5974, but on all the pattern pieces there is printed the name Koko, so I think that might be her name, even though it doesn't say so on the pattern envelope/paper-front-photo-thingie. In the instructions there is an add for a dressform kalled Donna-Stilina and a device that should help you make an even hem called pusta. I love this, since Stil patterns were Swedish it all ties delightfully in to something quite Ikeaesque. Those Swedes can't help themselves, names are needed for everything.

As of now I've made, what I had hoped would be, a wearable muslin. I measured the bodice to make sure that it would at least be big enough and went for it. How that ended up is for another post. I've also begun cutting out and assembling the pattern in my chosen fabric, I will take pictures in the morning so I can share progress, but right now its 2 am and I should be in bed.

I made bias tape!

Sorry for the silence, came back from Lisbon about a week ago and have had about no time at all since then. Today I have created bias tape though and it's beautiful if I must say so myself. Its the first time I've ever done it and I think it's surprisingly easy. I got some help though, from this blogpost, which was an awesome help (thank you).

Beklager den stilhed der her bredt sig her på bloggen på det seneste. Jeg kom tilbage fra Lissabon for snart en uge siden, men har haft rimeligt travlt siden da for at sige det mildt. I dag har jeg dog fået lavet en lille smule: skråbånd. Jeg er ret stolt af mig selv, det er første gang jeg har lavet skråbånd selv og jeg syntes egentlig det er ganske nemt, jeg har dog fået noget hjælp fra denne blogpost.

And now, pictures/Billeder:

As you can see I went for some black and white gingham, the bias tape folder I used makes 25 mm wide bias tape, which is fairly wide.

Som det kan ses på billederne endte jeg med sorte og hvide skovturs tern (på tilbud i stof 2000), jeg brugte den bredeste af mine skråbånds foldere som laver 25 mm brede skråbånd, hvilket er forholdsvis bredt.

I ended up with 28m of bias tape, and since I paid about 47 kr. for one meter of fabric it ended up with being about 1,7 kr. per meter (about 0.3 $/0,22€/0,179£). I don't know what I'm going to use all that gingham madness for, but I might have at least one project in near future that it might suit. This brings me to another thing, I'm going to bring a tutorial soon. It's going to be three or four posts long, so you might even think of it as a sew along themed thing if you want to. Its going to be exiting.

Jeg endte med 28m skråbånd, jeg gav cirka 47 for en meter, så det giver 1,7 kr pr. meter. Jeg aner ikke hvad jeg skal bruge alt det ternede skråbånd til, men jeg har formegentlig mindst et fremtidig projekt det vil være meget godt til. Hvilket bringer mig til et helt andet emne, jeg laver snart en tutorial. Den bliver over tre eller fire posts, så man kan også tænke den lidt som en sewalong hvis man har lyst til det. Det bliver spændende.

By the way, I went fabric shopping while I was in Lisbon, I will make another post about that soon, with tips and tricks, maps and pictures to.

Jeg var selvfølgelig ude og købe en masse stof i Lissabon, jeg vil lave en post snart med gode tips og med et kort og nogle billeder.

Sneak peek on one of the fabrics I bought (this I bought for my mother).
Noget stof jeg købte til min mor, jeg viser mere senere.

Packing and stuff

I've been trying all day to get my act together and start packing my suitcase. Instead I have had my head buried in a book (Someplace to be flying - Charles de Lint, if your curious). As always I'm in last minute, since I'm flying out tomorrow to Lisbon. It's going to be the first vacation together with the boyfriend. Does anyone know some places I should go in Lisbon? Any good fashion museums, flea markets or streets filled with fabric stores? Maybe something else?

Jeg har brugt min dag på at (forsøge) at tage mig sammen til at pakke. I stedet for har jeg brugt min dag på at læse (someplace to be flying - Charles de Lint, hvis du er skulle være nysgerrig). Som altid er jeg i sidste øjeblik, eftersom at jeg flyver til Lissabon i morgen. Det bliver den første ferie kæresten og jeg tager sammen. Er der nogle der kender nogle steder jeg burde tage hen i Lissabon? Et modemuseum, et kendt loppemarked eller en gade fyldt med stof forretninger? Måske noget andet?

OOOH and now for a preview of my newest dress, I'll reveal the completely finished product in another post, but now for sneak peeks. / Smugkik på min seneste kjole!

It's my second go on this dress, or really 1.5 go, since the first time I only made the top part since I already had the skirt finished. I have really gotten into fifties dresses lately, and have now added a new thing to the of things I always look for in secondhand shops, vintage patterns. Maybe I should ask my grandma if she has any I could get/borrow.

Det er mit andet forsøg med det her mønster, eller egentlig mit halvandet forsøg, eftersom at jeg kun brugte overdelen i første omgang og kun har brugt skørtet her anden gang. Jeg er blevet virkelig glad for halvtredser kjoler her for tiden og har nu tilføjet endnu en ting til listen over ting jeg altid kigger efter i genbrugsbutikker, vintage mønstre. Måske skulle jeg spørge min farmor om hun har nogle mønstre liggende, som jeg må få/låne.

Well on account of future projects I passed about two hours Wednesday with washing fabrics by hand (we don't have a washing machine). I took a picture of my wet fabrics hanging in our courtyard. I loved the wonderful colour display.


Nåh, når det kommer til fremtidige projekter, så brugte jeg cirka to timer i onsdags, på at vaske stof i hånden (vi har ikke nogen vaskemaskine). Jeg tog et billede af mine våde stoffer der hang til tørre i vores gård. Jeg elskede den eksplosion af farver der var som de hang der.

Is there someone who can guess what one of my great fabric weaknesses are? It might be colourful printed cotton.

On a last note. Look what came to my door today, a new iron. A red iron none the less. Sewing will be even more fun from now on! / Se mit nye fantastiske RØDE strygejern, nu bliver det endnu sjovere at sy!

Summer vacation coming up.

This is going to be a long word filled post, so I'm going to start of with a picture, just to make sure that this isn't going to be a words only post, since those are boring. / Det her bliver en lang ord smøre, så jeg vil lige starte med et billede, bare så det ikke bliver alt for kedeligt.

This is a picture of me, at the beach, in december, and it was freezing cold. The picture is taken by Thomas.

So tomorrow (or later today really, since its past midnight) is the last day before the summer vacation starts for me, this does also mean that I have and exam. So why am I blogging instead of studying you might ask. Well, it's partly because I'm right now living in denial, simply, partly it's procrastination.

I've been thinking a lot about where I want this blog to go. How I want it to look and in general about the blog. I've thought about which types of blogs I like to follow and read and such things.

Things I want to change:

• I want this blog to look nicer, tidier and more eye pleasing. Right now it's neither. There are a lot of things that bothers me. The way images sort of jump around the posts and aren't equally spaced are a big one of these. 
• I would also like the opportunity to sort my post via a menu at the top of the page, my thought is I want people to be able to look at just diy's/tutorials and stuff like that. 
• I would like a decent banner.
• I want to take better pictures. I have already started a process for bettering photos by ordering a small tripod, this will help me a little. A second thing could be getting better at asking the boyfriend for help, getting him and his far superior camera into action.
• A huge load of other things that I have currently forgot.

The big problem is that I have a hard time figuring out how to do some of these things. When I google stuff I get more questions than answers and so on. I might solves this by just asking some of the kick ass bloggers I admire for help. I really hope that some of the things will get better during the summer.

To the second subject for this post. What do I want with this blog? Well I want to share and give back some of the awesomeness I enjoy from other blogs, I want to be part of this community and maybe give some inspiration to others like I get inspiration from awesome blogs.

I have made a list of some of the traits the blogs I follow and like have:

• Cool diy ideas and tutorials.
• Inspiring pictures and ideas, others as well as the blogger her/himself.
• Re/upcycling ideas.
• Home made clothing. 
• A edge of some sort, whether it being goth/retro/vintage/recycling/hippie/silly/childish or some other thing.
• Personality of the author shines through.

I will keep these in mind as I go along with my adventure here on Kill Me With Color.

/cheers Sofie

Danish version after the jump.

New wardrobe - allmost a walkin

I've got a new closet, or in reality it's not new, I just rearranged it, getting more space with the ones I had already. The closets are about 20 years old and originates from my parents old apartment on Frederiksberg, later they moved with us to my parents house where they all so moved around. Finally they have moved with me to my apartment. Talk about reusing your stuff. They aren't the prettiest sight I've ever seen and actually not that roomy, since they are to deep to utilize reasonably. Next step is probably some white paint, since they have a yellowish glow over them. Right now though, I just feel like I'm in heaven with all the space that got created.

Here's the result in a Gif, more pictures and explanation (including Danish part of the post) to follow after the jump.

New light

I've been creative today (I was creative yesterday too).
Today I created a lampshade for the new living room/bedroom (we haven't decided yet, but what the hell). I must admit the idea wasn't my own, I followed the tutorial from The 3 R's blog. Though I chose to colour mine, I really need to choose between the British and the American way to write colour/color word soon, but it's not that obvious from neither the photo or in reality unfortunately. Well the colour/color of choice is green.
And here my version is, a little more messy than the original I think.

I really like it.
And in daylight:

It reminds me slightly of old sixties laps like Koglen by PH and the Pineapple by Frank Kerdils.

What did I make yesterday? Well, that must be for another post.

Tues-diy, dress

I bought this dress in a second-hand shop last year, the thing I fell for was the bold pattern. I started some serious remaking and came up with something wearable and cute!

First a couple of before photos:

Not something you would like to wear? Me neither.

Then the big cut and sew adventure started, it's not the first of this kind of dresses/cleaning smocks I have re-sown

 

I chose a baby-doll look, i measured myself from my shoulders and to right under my breast's, a couple of centimetres seam allowance and snip snip.  

How to cut off sleeves without losing to much fabric.

 You have to cut of the sleeves before fitting the top, it gets weird and clumsy if you don't.

Fitted, it can be a bit hard to fit stuff to yourself, if you can get help get it! 

I made the shoulders narrower with pleats, you can choose to just cut of excess fabric depends on what kind of look you're going for.

There is a big hole where I didn't take any pictures, but the finishing steps was:

1. Adding the sleeves again, pleating them at the shoulders (the armhole became smaller after the fitting) that gave them a puffy look.
2. Drawing and painting the anchor on the skirt (important, I did this before sewing the skirt and top part together, SO much easier)
3. Adding the skirt, making sure it started where I wanted (right under the boobies ^_^).
4. Making a belt  of the residue fabric.

DONE:

Who's pale? I don't know what my camera did, but I kinda like it!

In a more normal light.