Jul 23, 2017

DIY Sweater Workshop with Partywoods


I have wanted to meet Anne from Partywoods for as long as I've known her blog as I've always admired her creative genius at the sewing machine, so when she posted about her new sewing workshops end of last year I took my chance to participate in her sweater workshop at the Zick Zack sewing supplies shop in Steglitz. (You can find this years workshops here)

With the help of a well fitting sweater we would create a custom pattern to make a whole new sweater ourselves. Making her own patterns is one of Anne's specialities, so I was extremely interested in how it's done!

I picked this slim fitting Batman sweater from the husband, since the sweater was supposed to be his christmas present. All the fabric was bought at the fabric store where the workshop took place.

Okay, let's get started! Here's how we drafted the pattern*:
*Disclaimer: This is not a tutorial! I am just showing you some of the steps so you can get an idea of how the workshop went. All participants get a Handout with the tutorial to take home. If you want to try it yourself the web is full of turorials, for example this one.

We started by folding the sweater in half and outlining it. The front and back piece are basically the same except for the neckhole. We also outlined part of the arm, which will go on a seperate paper later on though.
        

This is what the front and back patterns looked like withe the arms still attached. Since we were making a raglan sweater, the armpieces were cut from the armpit to about 2/3 of the neckhole.

Then we drafted the arm pattern by putting together the front and back piece and extending it to the right lenght.

And finally we can cut the pattern out of the fabric. I chose two complementary fabrics for the body and arms of the sweater. The body fabric had an animal pattern on it which I carefully placed to be symmetrical before cutting it out. We added a centimeter of seam allowance and since I forgot to wash the fabric before cutting it I had to add a couple of centimeters on the bottom in case it would shrink in the laundry.

Then it was time for the actual sewing!
                
        


I didn't take too many pictures of the actual sewing, but as you can tell from the picture we used a zig zag stitch for stretchy fabrics to connect all the pieces and to serge the edges. The trickiest part of sewing everything together were the cuffs of the arm and neckholes, but we all managed it in the end!

Thanks to Anne for taking these photos of me!
        
And here's the creative genius in action! Anne was so patient with all of us, no matter how "stupid" the questions or mistakes were. I loved getting to know her these three evenings of the workshop, even though I had to "share" her with the other participants ;)
If you're interested in participating yourself you can find all the new workshop dates on Anne's Blog Partywoods right here.

And this is where the workshop took place. Look at all of those awesome fabrics!


Now to the finished Sweater:

I also had a little sneaky surprise photoshoot with the husband. (Can't plan these, because he'll just get grumpy :P)
                

Look, he actually smiled for some of the pictures! Oh, and of course he couldn't wait until Christmas to see his sweater. Well, I kinda didn't want to wait as well, because I was pretty proud of it! Can't wait to try this to make a sweater for myself.

Jul 8, 2017

Picturesque Month 05'&06'17

                          
~ May the 4th be with you! I showed off my handmade Star Wars skirt on Star Wars Day.
~ Sooo, can I get married again, please? Just kidding, but isn't this second hand wedding dress just gorgeous? Saw it at the Humana thrift store at Frankfurter Tor.

~ So excited to see the Gorillaz for the very first time in November this year. I've been a fan since their first Single: Clint Eastwood <3
~ Free Comic Book Day Haul. I also got the most recent Walking Dead comics. I started getting the comic books after reading the third compendium, the story was getting too exciting to wait for the next compendium!
~ I'm really happy about how many people took part in my Guardians of the Galaxy Give-Away! The husband got to draw the lucky winners and the Hoff presented them ;)

~ I went to see Embrace in the movie theatre. All my lovely ladies: Please watch this movie! It's got such a powerful message. We even got the chance to meet Nora Tschirner and Taryn Brumfitt fter the movie for a Q&A.
~ Tom Schilling & The Jazz Kids played at Columbiatheater. The concert was pretty cool (apart from some obnoxious audience members), but the evening spent with some lovely ladies was much more fun <3 4/5 Bazooka Points for a jazzy & girly night.
~ There was another cool showcase at work. This time it was Joseph J. Jones whose talent I already got  to witness at Communion Night in February. 4/5 Bazooka Points for some broody manlyness in the work environment.

~ I went thrift shopping with my dear Lu from Luloveshandmade. Just for future references: If you ask me if I want to go thrift shopping, I am most likely to say Fuck Yeah! (Funny story: I was at Humana Second Hand when she asked :P) We were shopping at Vintage Berlin, which is full of gorgeous vintage dresses!
~ Thrifted lots of flowery clothes!
~ The husband is showing off the octopus bag I brought him from Fuerteventura. I bought it from the talented Camelia Neata at the Lajares Craft Market.

~ Had a lovely mini bachelorette adventure playing an exit game at Claustrophobia and having some Cocktails at Tiki Heart afterwards.
~ Thrift Haul Deluxe! One of my best hauls yet <3 Found Star Wars Vans in my size for 15€ and some Moscow Mule cups that I've been looking for forever among lots of other cool stuff.
~ We made another batch of Ginger beer! I hope I'll get to post the recipe soon.

~ Made a hoggy friend while cycling through the woods.
~ Mirror Selfie.
~ Went to the Malzwiese Festival where Dawanda was offering multiple diy workshops. I made this cool bead chain for my sunglasses (which are kind of useless for me, because I can't take off my glasses without putting on other glasses, cause I'm blind. So I gave it away to a friend.)

~ Went to Hamburg with a friend from work to see Amanda Fucking Palmer. You can tell we're very excited!
~ The concert was great, bt since she was touring with Edward Ka-Spel and their new album so she played very few of her own songs. 4/5 Bazooka Points because the journey is the destination, right?
~ Late night fun in Hamburg's red light district. We even dared to go on Herbertstraße, which is "forbidden" for non-business ladies.

~ Visited my favorite Hamburg AirBnB again after staying there last year for the Ronan Keating concert. I really love the wooden pallet style all over the apartment.
~ Of course we had to stop by Mamalicious for some delicious pancakes again! Definitely a must if you're visiting Hamburg.
~ The next travel destination was Nuremberg for my dear Sophie's wedding. I even got the husband to smile in a picture!

~ After all is said and done, it was a beautiful wedding! Being the maid of honor was a bit challenging at first, but the wine helped (had to translate the bride fathers speech simultaneously for example...).
~ We did a bit of sight seeing in Nuremberg, visiting the castle and the old town. A beautiful city really, too bad we only had half a day to explore before the bus took us home again.
~ Made a Pop-Up Card to hold my wedding gift for the happy couple. We used to call our group of friends the Undead and I was the Zombie ;) We also had a Vampire and a Corpse and the three of us all made cards that we connected to make a mini pop up book. It was much appreciated <3
                          
~ Cool kids in the castle.
~ Home sweet home! I ordered the 4th and 5th season of Bob's Burgers for my birthday. It's our favorite breakfast show, cause everyone knows you watch cartoons for breakfast!

~ Won this supercute Pygmy Puff by the talented Helen at a charity auction on a Harry Potter DIY page on Facebook organized by Drachenherzfaser & Zentaurius.
~ Went to a DIY workshop the the Dawanda Snuggery, not knowing it was going to be my last workshop there :( We made cool stuff out of quick dry concrete, so of course I brought my Star Wars silicone forms.
~ Sadly Dawanda downsized and is closing up the Snuggery and let go a bunch of their employees. I'm really heartbroken for everyone who was fired and that I can never spend any creative evening there ever again. Thinking back to my first workshop at the Snuggery 4 years ago...

~ The husband was kind enough to heave this pallet up to our apartment on the 4th floor. Its home to all my baby palnties now.
~ Always a pleasure to visit the Gemeindehof in Karow where our wedding took place 3 years ago. Once a month they hold a fleamarket, which I try to visit as often as possible, because I always find so much cool stuff there (for super cheaps!).
~ This is my last thrift haul from that fleamarket. All together this stuff cost me less than 15€ :D
                          
~ My pumpkin baby is growing like crazy! By now it's even got a bunch of flower buds.
~ Anniversary time <3
3 years of marriage and 12 years of knowing this goofball that i call my husband.

~ Reflecting on my Mindfulness workshop at work. I'm so glad we get the chance to educate ourselves during work hours.
~ Birthday time! I turned 30 on June 21st and got this awesome Awesome Mix from my colleague.
~ Brought cookies to work for my birthday.

~ Here you see a 30 year old playing with LEGO at the LEGO store in Berlin.
~ It's been so rainy lately! Good thing I always have Totoro on my back to lend me his umbrella.
~ Love is Love! Same sex marriage was just legalized in Germany <3

June is definitely my favorite month and this year proved that once again!
Cheers, Anni
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