Can’t. Stop. Sewing. Shirts. Help!! I made this little beauty on Sunday and I’m sure I’ll be wearing this a lot if the weather stops being so un-springish. I guess making shirts is my new addiction, because I already have three new ones in the making. Okay, not in real life, but in my head I’m already sewing :)

Note to self: smile more

This is another version of the Trapeze Sundress from Weekend Sewing. I cut off 23 cm (9 inch) and made the straps a tad wider. On Heathers blog, she suggests making one big box pleat instead of two smaller ones in the front if you are busty. Baaad idea. It looked totally puckery and not really flattering, so out came the seam ripper and back to two small ones. The great thing about this shirt is that it uses exactly 1 yard of focus fabric and a fat quarter for the bodice. If you make the small version, and not the large as I did, you may get away with a yard for the whole thing. 

As much as I want to sew some more I’m not sure if I’ll find the time this week, so why don’t you check out the great submissions to the Spring Top Week and get some inspiration - maybe it’ll be your new addiction too!

I know you probably all want to see some fabric shots from my new haul at the market yesterday, but I haven’t gotten around taking some pics yet. So I’ll just show you two of me new favorite prints. As soon as I saw these I new I had to have them! They reminded my so much of the little paint pots I used to have and of my eyeshadow palettes, especially the green ones (yes I’m a little make-up crazy).  I hope all of you had a great weekend, I’m off to finish my new shirt now, woohoo!

Erin Michael

Painter’s Palette in moss and villa

Want to show off your Stash? Join the Sunday Stash at 1/4 of an inch.

Wanna see more stash? Check out the Sunday Stash flickr group.

You could go to a fabric market with a friend…

… and buy a whole lot of stuff

You could hang out in Tony’s  yard ….

… and play Tuna’s favorite game: catch the rubber spider.

The Dutch Fabric Market was awesome! For the German readers, here are the future dates for other cities. I was totally overwhelmed with all the fabric and in the end both of us bought more fabric for garment sewing than for bag making, which was really weird. My luckiest find was Freezer Paper! This may sound strange, but you just can’t get this in Germany. I spend way too much money considering I still need to shop the U.S. online stores. Exhausted but really happy, I went back to Tony’s to play a little bit of “catch the rubber spider”. Okay, Tony played and I took the pictures but from Tuna’s point of view it doesn’t matter as long as someone throws her spider :)

I can’t stop making clothes from Weekend Sewing, seriously, it’s like an addiction! I never, ever thought I would even start with garment sewing, all I ever wanted was sewing bags. Thank you Heather, not only did you design my favorite fabric ever (everything from Mendocino) you also created my favorite sewing book so far. I could sing praises about Mrs. Ross for the next 3 pages but I guess you all know by now how much I adore her work, so on to the Trapeze Sundress.

Remember my first try on the Summer Blouse? I still had plenty left over from that sheet and after seeing Starr’s pretty  Sundress I just had to try it.

Well what can I say, it’s a nice little dress and I would definitely wear it on the beach, but since the next beach is about 1000 km away, I’ll probably never get to wear it. It looks ok from the front, but since my “girls” and bottom are kind of, uhm, big, it’s not really flattering from the side. So what to do? Cut the whole thing off and make a shirt!

Ah, much better now:

(I really have to find another way to take pictures of myself, my green corridor is starting to annoy me and I just can’t get a clear shot)

As far as the pattern goes: it’s a breeze to sew! Heather explains it very well and I wasn’t lost anywhere in the process. I can’t remember how long it took to finished it, but it felt rather quick. I used the large version and even though the upper bodice band is a tad too wide, it fit’s perfectly around my bust. I already have a new one in the making and some ideas about alterations for future shirts: front pockets, buttons on the straps, elastic on the hem….

I’ll add this to the Spring Top Week over at Made by Rae and if you have some time on your hand, why don’t you make a shirt this weekend and join the fun?

If you’re too lazy to make one yourself, you can always stop by at Karen’s brand new home (former Craftermath) and buy one. She makes a very similar version out of her beautiful pashminas! 

It’s nearly midnight here, so I’m off to bed soon because tomorrow I’m going to the dutch fabric market. I didn’t even know we had something like this in our town, but Melina over from HomeMadeStuff gave me a call today, so tomorrow it’s all about two girls with coffee in their hands, sun over their heads and and probably empty wallets :)

Ladies, I need your help: A colleague of mine is going to the States in two weeks and I can order some stuff online that will be shipped to his sister in law. Normally I order from Etsy so I’m not really familiar with any other good online fabric stores. I’m mainly looking for pretty solids and linens, any brand name and online store suggestion would help. Oh and are there any crafting and sewing magazines I can’t live without?

Remember my Spring Quilt I started way back in Febuary?  Well, I actually managed to finish all the blocks and sew them together! Please excuse the washed out pictures, it’s impossible to take a good shot in my apartment, the lighting is so off :(

The layout is inspired my Denyse Schmidts’s “What a bunch of Squares” quilt, I just didn’t use her design for the blocks but came up with my own and then just went improv crazy with the different prints. I used some brown linen for the sashing and cut each square slightly different like Denyse suggested. As much as I like the look and feel of the linen, it’s a bitch to work with because its fraying like nobodies business. The quilt is kind of busy and I did a bad job of mixing the different blocks, but so far I really do like the outcome. 

Now I only have to come up with some kind of design for the back and then I’ll have to quilt this beast. I would love to do some free motion quilting but I think this ones too huge to try out my skills. With 165cm x 200 cm I’m lucky if I don’t mess up straight lines. 

Some Heather Ross

Some Joel Dewberry

And lots of Amy Butler