Eva's unicorns

Most unicorn fabrics are over the top girlish, with glitters and pink everywhere. If you have followed here for a while, you might have noticed that this type of fabrics is not quite my style. But for the first time in history I saw a unicorn fabric that I actually LIKED. 

It's called Eva unicorns, a sweater knit fabric by illustrator Eva Mouton for About Blue Fabrics/Bambiblauw. Of course I had to make a sweater out of them. 

The lucky unicorn girl is Mila, Livs bigger sister and another one of my favourite girls to babysit. She is 10 so I didn't want the sweater to be to baby-ish. Therefore I opted for black instead of pink as coordinating color.

And I added some 'cool' details like leather shoulder pads and glittery frills at the shoulders (I used the frill pattern piece of the Cocoon Dress for them). 

The fabric is so soft that she insisted on wearing the sweater without a T-shirt underneath. 

Hop over to MinnieMie, Lily & Woody, MeToezie and Emma&Mona for some more unicorn inspiration! Bambiblauw ships worldwide now so no more excuse for not buying these cute fabrics :-) 

Pattern: Leather Sweater (La Maison Victor), size 134

Fabric: Eva's unicorns, Bambiblauw, 1m

Lotte Martens & LeChaperon(un)limited (Project Sew It!: May)

Lotte Martens is a Belgian textile designer who prints all her fabrics by hand. I am in love with her work, as you might have noticed :-) I've already made one two three four five dresses in her fabrics! Together with slow fashion company LeChaperon(un)limited she launched a textile box filled with 13 little pieces of fabric. I was so lucky to receive three of them!

Een foto die door withlovebyeva is geplaatst op 7 Mei 2016 om 11:27 PDT

The scraps of fabric in the box range from A3 format to 10x10cm. Measurements and extra information can be found here. The box contains all types of fabric, from quilting cotton to knits to felt and everything in between. I chose two ribbing fabrics (Bask Mint and Bask Rose) and one fake fur (Niyona fake fur). 

I combined the blue ribbing with grey sweater fabric for this simple but sophisticated sweater for my little sister.

The pattern is self drafted, I already used it here. On her demand, I made it a few centimetres wider for a more oversized look.

She was so happy with it! When she woke up and saw I finished her sweater, she immediately put it on and whispered: "Eva, this is the most beautiful thing you've ever sewn!". Seeing the enthusiasm in her eyes gave me a wonderful feeling.

I bet you can even see her happiness on the pictures!

She chose the blue ribbing, so I kept the pink ribbing and the fake fur for myself.

Another grey sweater, but a little less 'plain and simple' than hers. I added white pinkish lace to the front and back panels. The pattern is the Leather Sweater by La Maison Victor. It's actually a children's pattern, but I made the biggest size (16yo) for myself and it fits me perfectly.

I used the fake fur and some piping for the shoulder parts (included in the pattern).

In the back, I added a special detail. An inverted pleat that subtly shows the ribbing.

Two totally different sweaters made using the same fabrics! For more inspiration with these (and other) fabrics, visit Ik ben Vink, Compagnie M, Petrol&Mint, Paspelpoezen, Remi & Henri, StraightGrain, Hilde@Home and De Zuster Van !

In this project I also used my new labels for the first time. I'll tell you more about them next week!

Grey-blue sweater:

- grey sweater fabric: Pauli (brick and mortar shop in Leuven)

- ribbing: Bask Mint in the textile box by Lotte Martens & LeChaperon(un)limited, for sale here

- pattern: self drafted

Grey-pink sweater:

- grey sweater fabric: Pauli (brick and mortar shop in Leuven)

- lace fabric: De Stoffenstraat (brick and mortar shop in Kasterlee)

- ribbing: Bask Rose in the textile box by Lotte Martens & LeChaperon(un)limited, for sale here

- pattern: Leather Sweater - La Maison Victor - size 176

The scent of summer

Summer has a very special scent to me. Not just the smell of sunscreen or watermelon or swimming pool chlorine. No. To me, the start of summer is marked by the scent of freshly dried hay in the fields around our house. A few times a day, the farmer comes to turn the hay, and the rest of the day it just lies there with its perfect summery smell (I'm so glad I don't have a pollen allergy, because I love it!). So I took my sister outside for some pictures of her newest sweater in the hay.

The sweater is a co-operation: we sewed it together! She did the cutting and the stitching, I did al the serging parts. 

Every little bit of it is completely her choice. The fabrics, the pattern (oversized with separate shoulder parts), the position and color of the pocket. The only suggestion I made was adding some zippers to the shoulders instead of piping, and we're both happy with the way that turned out. It adds some 'cool' to the sweater.

In this sweater, she is ready for a Belgian summer full of rain and wind. I'm hoping she won't need to wear it that often!

Maybe you were wondering where my Project SewIt contribution of April went. Well, it was a big secret until now! My little friend Liv, the seven-year-old that I babysit, celebrated her Holy Communion and I was the one who had the honor to make the dress for that special day. I'll be showing it on Thursday!

Susanne Cardigan for my mom

The very same moment she saw the Susanne pattern for the first time, my mom ordered one for herself. A few months later, here it is!

She chose a non elastic woven fabric which was beautiful on both sides, so I didn't have to line the pockets. I just finished them with elastic bias tape. Because the fabric had almost no stretch I sewed her a size bigger than the sizing table told me to, and that's perfect. I opted for the long version because she likes long cardigans, but next time I will have to lengthen it. My mom is quite tall and the long version looks more like a short one on her ;-)

She loves the cardigan (it has been worn almost every day since I gave it to her!) but she hates posing for pictures. I put her in front of the freshly painted white wall in my sewing room and gave her a cup of coffee to have something in her hands. She gave me five minutes to complete the photoshoot, so all I could do was hurry to catch her smile.

Nothing is more rewarding than sewing for my mom. She is just so happy with this cardigan and she wears it all the time.

Seeing her in my creation makes me happy every time. I think I'll do some more sewing for her in the future!

Tulip sweater for men

My brother has a clearly outlined clothing style. He likes simple but refined: no prints or flashy colors, but patterns with special details.

Since he is more than two metres long, finding clothes in store for him is rather difficult. Most of his sweaters are a little short. But for his birthday, I wanted to sew him a long and perfectly fitting sweater! I drew a pattern based on one of his store-bought sweaters and added a Tulip back.

Drawing a pattern for a sweater yourself is really not that hard. I took pictures while making it and I am planning to write a tutorial!

The fabric is a super soft elastic wool mix. I bought it at the stocksale of children's clothing brand Strass last year. Blue with a subtle grey stripe in it, totally his kind of thing!

For the collar (extra wide, since my personal trendwatcher told me this is the new fashion for men's clothing) and the little triangle I used the wrong side of the fabric.

The back side got its Tulip part. I wrote a tutorial on how to draw this HERE. The original Tulip has curves, but to achieve a more man-like shape I just drew straight lines instead of curved ones.

Happy brother, mission accomplished!

Susanne Cardigan

My most read post last year, on the Dutch as well as on the English blog, was the one with my entry for the Compagnie M.-contest. I sewed a dress for myself which was a mix up of the Louisa dress, the Lotta dress and the Ileana dress, and a matching cape with it. Sadly, I haven't worn the dress a lot, since the Belgian weather was too cold and I didn't have a matching cardigan to wear with it. Until now! Compagnie M launched a cardigan pattern for kids, teens and women and I was lucky to be one of her testers! 

All testers were invited at Marte's house to sew the cardigan together. I almost* managed to finish the cardigan in just one evening! The Susanne cardigan is a very fast project. 

*Note: I would have finished it in one evening if I hadn't decided to redo all the seams by hand, of course after I had already sewn them with the twin needle. And perhaps I would have finished the hand sewing as well, if I hadn't tattered so much while sewing ;-)

I used a grey knit fabric with a golden touch, bought at a sale in Antwerp last year.  I chose for the option with a doubled front panel and piping, which Marte generously gifted to me.
The only change I made (haha, I always have to make at least one change to a pattern!) was lengthening the cardigan. I am more than six feet tall so even the long version would have been quite short on me. So I cut the pattern through at the waist and added 12cm to make sure the cardigan had exactly the same length as the dress I was pairing it with.

The grey and gold match nicely with the dress colors, but what I like even more are the pocket lines from the cardigan and the dress. They accord perfectly!

In the meanwhile I have sewn a second version for my mom. Hers is black and red, completely different from mine! That's why I'm saving it for a next blog post. I wouldn't want you to get a headache from the color combination :-)

The Susanne cardigan pattern for kids, teens and women is for sale here. The voucher code SUSANNE10 gives you 10% off until March 20.

Sister twinning

You've got lovers and you've got haters. Some people always dress their kids in matching outfits, others never do. I'm not a tremendous fan of twinning, but I made an exception for my little sister!

My little sister celebrated her 16th birthday (Huh? 16 already? When did that happen?) She is the sweetest sister I can imagine, check the Christmas present she gave me! So lovely! As a birthday present I wanted to sew her a sweater since she wears sweaters all the time.

After cutting all pattern pieces for one sweater I realized I had just enough fabric left to sew to! Sister twinning it would be!

The pattern is self drafted, based on a sweater hanging in my closet. Very simple: a square piece for the bodice, two sleeves and some cuffs. Most teenagers wear sweaters with quotes on them so I adde two quotes that fit us!

"She leaves a little sparkle wherever she goes". Perfect for my little sister who can make everyone laugh just by being their. To add a little more sparkle to the sparkle, I cut this one word out of glitter flex foil. The other words are cut out of flock foil.

For myself I chose a quote from the Annie-movie. "Never fully dressed without a smile". Have you seen the video clip of the song? It always makes me smile!

The word "smile" also has glitters on it. With a little imagination you can see that the last two letters form a wink-emoticon!



We took pictures on a rainy day, but at least the sun shone on our faces!

Two sweaters, alike yet different. Two sisters, alike yet different. Happy birthday, my sweet little sissie!



Fabric: striped sweater fabric bought from her
Pattern: self drafted