The Patrones haute hoodie

Finally – the sun was shining, the coats came off and the Pimm’s very nearly came out! This weekend was strangely summer in October here in London, and we finally got plenty of sunshine to showcase my green Patrones sweatshirt. As you recall, my impatience kept me from finishing this sooner, but the Halhuber jacket from Patrones 272 finally came to be:

AllisonC made a beautiful traditional interpretation of this jacket if you’re interested to see it more in keeping with the original design. I opted to go a different route entirely (as you can see!) though I made surprisingly few alterations to the pattern. I lengthened the sleeve cuffs by a few inches as the sleeves came up pretty short, and I cut these and the waist band in ribbing on the fold to nicely finish the edges. And apart from adding the hood and pockets, that’s pretty much it!

It’s funny how fabric choices can make two creations with similar “bones” look so different!

A chic little… sweatshirt?

It’s not the first time I’ve done the “upmarket sweatshirt” thing before – some of you may remember my Haute Hoodie back in 2008, but I think this new take has got even less in common with the usual sweatshirt idea than my earlier one!

The pattern here is Burda September 2012 #106 but it’s also available as purchased download pattern, too. I’m really liking that the English BurdaStyle.com site is finally getting the magazine patterns up more quickly these days, sometimes even before my print edition arrives!

I bought this turquoise sweatshirting back in 2010 from Fabric.com and had my parents bring it in their suitcases when they came for the wedding – it’s so difficult to find sweatshirting in non-traditional colours here in the UK! I’m not quite sure why it took me so long to sew this, as I love the colour and the sweatshirting is really nice quality, too.

Happily, I finished sewing this just before we left for our week’s holiday in the Loire Valley, so you get to see this top in a French pastoral setting rather than the usual London maritime one!

Manequim magazine

If you were building your dream pattern magazine, what would be in it? Maybe some swoon-worthy evening gowns? Designer fashion homages? Patterns from exotic locations? An upmarket twist on casual fabric? Or maybe just some really sharp Fall/Winter fashions?

Well, someone clearly saw my wishlist, because all of this is in the April 2009 issue of the Brazilian pattern magazine Manequim!

The first feature in the magazine is Oscar fashion! I don’t know how they did such a short turnaround, but they took six designer dresses that big celebrities wore to the 2009 Oscars in late March, and made patterns to replicate them! Included are the dresses that Angelina Jolie, Anne Hathaway, Kate Winslet, Natalie Portman, Jessica Biel, and Meryl Streep wore (I wasn’t as keen on Ms Hathaway and Biel’s dresses)!

Green bolero – in progress

Ok this is finally the last of the green sweatshirting from Pennine Outdoor! Seen previously in my Patrones haute hoodie and my nephew’s birthday sweatshirt, if you recall… And this bolero (though really it’s a cropped jacket since it closes in the centre) pattern is from the March 09 KnipMode, the same issue which bore the recent faux-wrap jeanskirt.

So here it is on my dressform, Susan, looking pretty darned complete. What’s missing, I hear you ask? Well, it’s not got the FehrTrade label yet, for one, but the only other thing that’s missing is the painted silver design I’m planning on adding to the back! I know,, I know – me in “decorative” shock!

Birthday blue sweatshirt

James’s birthday was on Thursday and since we can always use more warm, comfortable clothes around the boat, I decided to try BurdaStyle’s free Amin pattern that was just posted a few weeks ago. The example made in the photos uses a thick and chunky sweater knit, but I opted to make James’s as a more practical sweatshirt that could be tossed in the washing machine at will.

It’s got really nice lines for a mens pattern – princess seams (or would that make them “prince seams”?) that flow nicely into concealed hip pockets, but I decided to make these one better and create an iPhone pocket-within-a-pocket –

November workwear log

At the beginning of the month, I thought it’d be an interesting experiment to document exactly what I wear to work over the course of a month in order to observe how much of my wardrobe I actually wear, and how much of that I’ve made. I made a really informal attempt at this in the form of my Most Worn Awards last winter, but I felt it was high time to do something slightly more scientific and allowing FehrTrade creations to go head-to-head with ready to wear.

I didn’t include weekends into this because my clothing choices are usually the same grotty work clothes for doing boat DIY, and also because I change a few times during the day which would complicate things. I made a real attempt not to let my experiment influence my clothing choices in the morning, and I think I’ve been as impartial as I could’ve been.

Monday 3 Novbrown twill trousers and Uni Qlo white cashmere sweater
Tuesday 4 Novgreen corduroys, brown sleeveless turtleneck, and mom’s vintage mustard cardigan
Wednesday 5 Novchocolate brown bamboo wrap dress
Thursday 6 NovThames jeans and beige cashmere sweater
Friday 7 Novstretch jeans and blue KnipMode twist top

Mini me!

After the success of my green Patrones hoodie I thought that I’d make something similar for my nephew Logan’s birthday using the same fabric. I liked the look of #7 from Patrones Ninos 271 (Patrones magazine is normally all womenswear patterns, but they have two special childrens issues each year).

Even though it’s modelled on a girl here, it’s definitely a unisex style, and I thought the dark green sweatshirting was definitely more of a boy colour anyway, and this was much nicer than the other styles for boys his age in this issue. So I sewed this up on my overlocker in a few hours, and now it’s off to the post office in time for the big day! Unfortunately my would-be model neighbour girl has gone away for the past few days so I’m limited to a flat photo until Logan wears it himself…

Crafting for Christmas

It may only be mid October, but preparations for Christmas are already well underway at Chez Fehr. The electricity feeding my sewing room was out all weekend due to a bunf junction box (fixed by James’s dad yesterday, hurrah!) so I took the opportunity to do all the non-machine prep possible while that was out.

The craft table in the saloon is usually pretty clear as it’s where I do my cutting (conveniently, I can stand down the steps at the end so I’m not bending over too much) but right now it’s full to bursting with upcoming Christmas gifts: