You know how life happens once in a while, and you just can’t seem to find the time to sit down and look at your me-made photos and post about them? Well, that. I’ll do a big catching up post today, though…

But first – I just wanted to mention that there is a

Summer Street Dress Sew-Along happening over at Patternreview.com.

This is the dress, you may remember, that Deepika from Patternreview designed and I drafted and which is available only through Patternreview.com.

I’m looking forward to see everyone’s interpretations of the pattern!

I made these trousers in a grey sweatshirt fabric with dark grey ribbing. In short what I did was that I added patch pockets with zippers on top of the side seams, and added cuffs to the hem.

Here’s how:

I used MariaDenmark Laura Lounge Trousers and cut it per the pattern – except I shortened each leg by 3 cm.

For the pockets I cut 2 pieces of 16 cm x 13 cm (converter to imperial can be found here) and 2 pieces of 16 cm x 6 cm (to have two sets for two pockets). I pressed 1 cm under at the top of the large piece and the bottom of the smaller piece so that they now measured 16 cm x 12 cm and 16 cm x 5 cm. I then stitched the zippers in place. (not very straight, though. I considered pretending to you guys that I had had some child help me with the stitching – but really: It was just me in a rush to get these finished and I didn’t even notice until later..)

Then I overlocked (serged) around the edge of each pocket.

I had already sewn the side seam of each leg, but not the inseams. I placed the pockets where I wanted them (I just held up the trousers and decided and then pinned the pockets in place). I made sure the placement was the same on both legs, then I stitched just on top of the overlock seam.

Then I just did as the pattern says – inseam, crotch seam, waistband.

For the cuffs I cut 2 pieces of ribbing 25 cm x 15 cm, stitched the seam and folded and pressed it wrong sides together (just like the waistband).

I then sewed to rows of gathering stitches (long stitch length and loose needle thread tension) to the hem of each leg and gathered each hem to fit a cuff. I made sure to align the cuff seam with the inseam and to match the raw edges. I then stitched the cuffs to the hems, pressed the seam allowances up, and voila!

Monday was work-at-Mariadenmark-day so I was at the computer doing patternmaking stuff all morning, then at the post office and then had lunch with my husband at a café. Then I went home and the sun was out and it was lovely (20 degrees C (68 F)) so I went to work in the garden. I had planned to do some sewing later, but instead we made a bonfire to get rid of all the twigs and ended up cooking dinner on the bonfire.

May 4th: Long Saturday working the fabric store cutting table. Need comfortable and stretchy clothes. Dotted MariaDenmark Kirsten Kimono Tee it is, then! (and also stretch jeans and comfortable ballet flats).

Weather was lovely! 17 degrees C (63F) and sunny – but with some wind. I didn’t get to enjoy it until I got home at about 4 pm, though. And then I just sat with my coffee and my book in the sun for an hour or so before getting dinner.

May 5th: Sunday: I spend most of the day working in the garden (15 degrees, partly sunny) – wearing old, ragged and not me-made jeans and an old sweater. But I did wear me-made fleece socks in my wellies. In the evening I collapsed on the couch wearing my teal lounge trousers and some (clean) fleece socks.

Today, Friday May 3rd is work-at-MariaDenmark (i.e. from home) day and I’ve spend the morning doing accounting stuff and processing some pictures. Working from home allows me to taking a break to go outside and enjoy the sun. And so I did.

I’m wearing me-made Birgitte Basic Tee in a boat-neck version (fitted well with the water theme, I thought) – and also some fleece super socks in my wellies. And since this themeFriday subject for Me-Made-May is water, I thought I’d get a picture of me watering the beds.

I spend a couple of hours this afternoon working in the garden getting the beds ready and planting potatoes, fava beans and lettuce. We are about a month late with the earth temperature this year, and crops will be a bit delayed.

He has always supported my fabric and sewing obsessions and have even been known to lecture other men in what an overlocker machine actually does!

So it should have come to no surprise when he told me that he was going to make me a height adjustable work/dining table.

It all started when I was tracing some pattern pieces on my dining table (I think i have mentioned before that my office/sewing room is next to the dining room – which you know means that the dining room is an extra sewing room.) and I was complaining a bit about my lower back pain from standing in a bend over position. This was a few days before we left and the cat/house sitter was there and we talked and she said you should totally have a heigth adjustable table – like we have in the fabric store – and I was like yay that would be so cool I wonder what that would cost. And then Dennis said from the other room: I can build you one when we get home – we already have the legs and motor (which we got when Dennis’ company moved and I had totally forgot about).

And so he did. On Tuesday we went to the home improvement store, bought some table tops, and then he put it all together and now we have a height adjustable dining table (well, you know, and I know that it’s a cutting/tracing table, but for the rest of the world it’s a dining table!)

Genius, no?

P.S. We off course decided to make the table larger than the one we had so we can seat more people without having to resolve to the coffee table .Might not have thought that through: Now I have to make all new table cloths, and we all know how much I love sewing home dec stuff..

I had a long day at the fabric store today: First ordinary hours and then our sewing night, which I’m the hostess of. I got the ladies to pose in a group (Iphone) pic with me – I’m the one wearing the name tag

It’s spring weather, but still rather cold – and had I been forced to be outside I would have needed thicker tights. But these opaque worked well with my red ballerinas (not in the photo) and I  drove right home at 10 pm and changed into night time lounge trousers, fleece super socks  and a kimono tee. Then I went straight to bed.

I’m still jetlagged (I’m so sensitive to time change – it usually takes me a week to recover from daylight-saving-time change.) I hope to adjust soon to the 6 hour time difference, though, especially since I have a really long day tomorrow and I hope to be able to sleep longer than to 4 am!

I haven’t been sewing much for the last couple of weeks (I have actually sewn in some buttons during the stay so I can’t say I haven’t sewn at all) – but I did go fabric shopping!

I went to Alta Moda Textiles in Kuta with my Mother in law and her best friend and I shopped. It’s an experience to go there. So many employees – you always have a couple right behind you – and so much fabric. Some very pretty – some not so much. My purchases fall in 3 categories:

1. Silk: I got silk organza, raw silk and washed silk.
2. Too weird to leave alone: I got some animal print, you guys, and it had flowers on it as well. Also some ombre print.
3. Bathing Suit Fabric: I think I have mentioned how hard it is to get bathing suit fabric here that’s not black? It is. we do have some dancing gear fabric in other colurs, but never anything with a print. Here they had shelf after shelf of printed baathing suit fabric. And nothing in plain. So I got some dots and some zebra. Because I could.

We were sad to leave Bali – the warmth and sun was lovely once we got over the first days of heat chock – the trip home took 27 hours – but included a 7 hour layover in the best airport in the world (Changi Singapore). We enjoyed relaxing in the pool and getting the very last bit of summer and swimming before boarding.

And then we landed in Finland to grey and brown and fog and winter.  A few hours later we were in Denmark where the spring is further along. But there is a long way to 32 degrees. I’ll just have to comfort myself with fabric:

Oh, I almost forgot:

I am of course going to participate in Me Made May 2013 – and hopefully do better than last year.-)

I, Maria of MariaDenmark: Wool and Weeds , sign up as a participant of Me-Made-May ’13. I endeavour to wear at least 1 item of me-made clothing each day for the duration of May 2013 and document it on Twitter (I’m MariaDenmark) and on my blog.

So I’ll have to write more tomorrow.-)

The first week in Bali just flew. We were in Candidasa – a village on the east coast of Bali and while there are a lot of tourists and resorts, there is also a lot of beautiful scenery, roosters and chickens, cows and even pigs running around just behind the hotel, and a lot of locals living, cooking, eating, selling all kinds of stuff and talking and relaxing. A very lovely place.

Now we are in the Kuta area -  a different world, I must say. The resort is lovely, the pool is great and the weather is still very warm. And we are having a great time. But it is a different experience from last week.

I have seen so many interesting things and still have 6 days left in Bali – maybe I’ll do a picture post when I get back.

Did you see that I have a new pattern out?

Well, it’s not just mine – it’s the secret project I hinted in the last post: MariaDenmark Summer Street Dress for Patternreview.

It’s a great little easy knit dress – designed by PatternReview and drafted by me. Only available through PatternReview.com!

Well, I’ll go have my swim and then a drink before dinner. After all – this is a vacation:-)

Today I put this notice on my shop

I’m packing the 5 Game of Thrones books (haven’t watched the series, but have heard many good things, so will read it instead), the e-book reader filled up with other books, bathing suits, a few dresses for dining out, baggy trousers and lounge trousers (for the flight), shorts, kimno tees and tank tops. Oh, and plenty of sun block. I’m also bringing my computer and will have WIFI access, but I don’t know how much I’ll actually be using it – apart from sharing a few pics on Twitter ..

These weeks leading up to being ready to leave has been really busy – and there are some patterns waiting for instructions and release when I get back – want some clues?

Anyway.. I so need this vacation and plan on being all zen and super relaxed and energized on my return!

Talk to you soon!

They look a lot alike. And they are almost identical twins. The only difference is that while Audrey B was drafted for the usual B cup (as almost all European and most American patterns are), Audrey C is optimized for a C cup (and sized accordingly).

I am trying this because a lot of people seem to be interested in buying patterns for their bust size – and if it proofs popular, I’ll continue to do it on other patterns in the future. And maybe even include more bust sizes…

Both patterns will let you make a comfortable jersey dress (it’s my favourite thing to wear at the moment) that has enough structure, shaping and details for it to not look too casual.

I’ve worn it to work in the fabric store (with flat ballet shoes), teaching (heeled boots and thick structured tights- it’s still winter here) and for family parties (pumps and thinner tights).  And I’m looking forward to it being warm enough for me to wear it with sandals and no tights!

I’ve worked  a bit with the pattern layout, and have found an even better way to make it easy to print and assemble the pattern: Now I have included red dotted boundary lines to make it easy to see where to cut and overlap the pages before you tape them together. And the grid lines are still there as well.

What else can I say about this pattern? It’s knee length (I hemmed it a little shorter because I wanted to wear this version with flat shoes, and then I need the hem to hit above the knee), it’s versatile for both prints and plain jerseys (I’m dreaming of one in a raspberry jersey with blue edges). It takes 1.5 m – 2 m of fabric. It’s a fast sewing project. It’s a great dress.

Oh, and you can of course get it at MariaDenmark.com (Audrey B is here and Audrey C is here) and on Crafsy.com (Audrey B on Craftsy – Audrey C on Cratsy) – and on Patternreview.com!

Meanwhile on my sewing table: Another pattern draft – this for a woven blouse (do you think I’ve had enough of dotted fabric soon?)

PS. The pattern name, Audrey, came from Vicki Kate, who suggested it in a previous post. Thank you Vicki Kate!