Scandinavian Style Sewing Series

This post is the culmination of some serious last minute sewing. It's not like I haven't had almost half a year to prepare an outfit for the cute Scandinavian Sewing Series being hosted by Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy. These last few months have been all kinds of crazy. Right now I'm coming back to reality after an amazing weekend and months worth of preparation for the recent The Crafts Sessions retreat, where I was teaching sewing, of all things! I promise a full report soon. So Scandiniavian style ey? A fun theme, but it had me scratching my head. Scandinavian kids style is pretty definitive and Sabra totally nailed it here and Mie here. But Scandinavian adult fashion, what exactly is that? My usual search for Pinspiration confirmed what I thought I knew about Scandinavian style as less is more, simplicity, clean lines and understated cool. Which morphed into a striped knit dress, polka dot bomber jacket and some clogs. We'll just go with Essence of Scandinavia, yah?

Starting with the dress. The fabric is a viscose lycra knit from here, purchased with loose plans for a casual dress. But I've been unsure what season to sew for, which is happening a lot lately. I kind of fell in love with wearing Winter clothes in Melbourne and coming back to 30 degrees has been brutal. So there is definitely a bit of Seasonal Sewing Disorder going on. It was going to be above knee and a-line for summer, but I love 3/4 sleeves on everything so its ended up being trans-seasonal. I started with a great fitting long sleeved t-shirt and extended it downwards and outwards. I thought I'd like to make a square-ish neckline and with a facing, just for something different. I carefully drafted the facing, lovingly interfaced it, attached it and put the whole thing on to find the weight of the jersey pulled the facing right up and out of the neckline, like a big fat sad bottom lip. Which coincidentally, matched mine. Anyway, thankful for lessons learned and I saved the dress by folding the neckline over to the inside and top stitching. Yep, the perfect garment is indeed a myth.

A Bomber! A Bomber! I made a Bomber jacket and its quite possibly one of my all time fav handmade pieces. Kind of a good thing, considering how emotionally invested I was in it. I cut into one of my most prized pieces in the stash (which is quite modest in case you're wondering), a thrifted $1.50 piece of navy polka-dot chambray. Who even throws out polka-dot chambray? And didn't they know I would have paid at least twice that? Anyway, its been saved for something spesh. Quite recently and very excitingly, I nearly fell over myself at the chance to test one of The Papercut Collective's new patterns from the mind-blowingly gorgeous collection, Constellation. Which was just released today! I really could have tested them all, but went for the Bomber jacket, the Rigel Bomber, the very thing I have been coveting all year, all over Pinterest and waiting for an inspiring pattern. Printed Bombers, with their unattractive boxy, masculine shape made up in a cutesy print just do it for me. It was a toss up between this print and a couple of Nani Iro florals, so I'm thankful to everyone who peer pressured me into the dots on Instagram.

Now, I'm sure part of the reason my love for this Bomber runs so deep is it's as good looking on the inside as the outside. When I wear it, I feel...neat. Schmick. Well put together. So good that adjectives fail me. You can't help but feel like the shit when you've just tackled welt pockets, chunky zips and facings. All of which make for a pretty special garment. All of which were potentially anxiety inducing if it weren't for good instructions and diagrams there to hold my hand. I loved the suggestion of binding the edge of the facing with bias tape stead of serging. I made actual bias binding. Now that's commitment right there. And now I am certain that how much you love your hand-makes in the end is entirely related to how much care and love you bestow on the little details during its making. Of course this only applies if the love is reciprocated with the thing working out awesome!

Lucky it did work out, considering I bi-passed the muslin. The fit is good; I could do with some more length in the arms but I was gifted excessively long arms. I am the 'reacher of high things' at work. If I was going to be wearing the Bomber zipped up, I could do with a bit more room in the shoulders but I intend to throw it over things so this is not really a problem. The only mod I made was to shear off some of the width of the neck ribbing but just because I liked the look of it with less. Next time, and there will be a next time, I may add some length to the arms and body but again, will likely be wearing it with the sleeves pushed up so it might not be necessary. I think it says a lot about a pattern when you're already planning the next one before it's finished!

Well, that's me vibing Scandinavian style. Be sure to check out the rest of the fun over at Boy, Oh Boy, Oh Boy.