I kicked off my sewing vacation with a Geneva tee! Except it's not - it's a Geneva sweater, made from lambswool. And not just that, but made from a massive, scratchy, hippie-ish 8-gored lambswool skirt that I got at some secondhand shop in Munich for 10 euro awhile ago. I was cold when I got to Munich and it seemed a nice way of getting back into things. So don't mind the holes, I kept a scrap of the fabric to fix them.
My Geneva pattern is size 36 based on my measurements. It's a good fit for the thicker fabrics but maybe too loose for finer jerseys. I like the shoulder darts - they do have to be ironed down but I don't mind emphasis on my wide shoulders, and I think they also fit really nicely on me. Possibly if you are narrow shouldered you would need to size down.
It passed my first test, so I made a few more. My second Geneva was a thin slubbed jersey with stars, from The Sweet Mercerie. My order from this shop was amazing. The fabric is sooo cheap, it's just like the pictures and there are awesome knits. I had to narrow the side seams by 1 cm on each side to get a better fit, with this thin fabric. I think that the fabric would have been better suited to a Renfrew because it's so light jersey. Since this pattern has normal hemmed sleeves and bottom, they tend to stretch out a lot over the course of the day. I hope that it'll improve when I have access to a dryer and the fabric shrinks, but at present I think the Geneva doesn't seem like the best fit for a simple, thin jersey tshirt.
Sorry about the in-between and headless poses. The light jersey is also pretty unflattering in photographs so I struggled to get some that looked decent.
The final version is a transformation. I started with this sweater which was a going away present from my housemate Camille:
I wanted to use only the black parts but it wasn't long enough and I prioritised saving the hem, and so it cut into some of the dirty white. I think the lace distracts from the, er, dirt and stains, though. The stretchy lace is from Das Blaue Tuch, a lovely eco-fabric shop in Munchener Freiheit. It's a rayon and something else blend, and is very soft. When I was sewing it caught on all my callused fingertips and started to run, or pill, so I was glad that this was mostly a recycled project (first) and that I have a half meter left over for later (second.) After wearing it for a bit I guess I'll have a better impression of how fragile the lace is.
Anyway for a recycled top I'm super pleased with it! The neck binding was a pain because it has mechanical stretch but curls up and thins when you stretch it like one of those chinese finger traps. Other than that it didn't cause me any trouble sewing at all.
Overall I don't know why this pattern (specifically) inspired me to such heights of recycled creativity. Sometimes a pattern does, though. Like the Papercut Hoody pattern, this one just makes my fingers itch to make more and to modify more. Maybe it's just that I adore raglan sleeves?
The Geneva was also an unplanned experiment on using different types of knit fabric - the wool sweater turned out better than I expected with the random extra ex-skirt seams, and using the cotton sweater made me more comfortable with taking the fabric from one item and making it into another, taking into consideration what you start with. I'm really proud of that; this sweater may be humble but I feel like it represents a more personal foray into why I really wanted to sew - making one (hideous, sorry Camille) thing into another awesome one.
The Geneva pattern rounded out my week of sewing. I sewed a Geneva first - the sweater - and wore it my entire week in Munich. I sewed the other two shirts at the end of the week. Overall out of my sewing vacation I got: one Briar, one Mission tank top, one slinky Mission jersey dress, a Geneva long sleeved tee, a Geneva sweater and an stunning Falda summer jacket. My friends got: one red Sallie jumpsuit, one Strathcona tee, and one Briar. My storage box got one lambswool Geneva (because in Ukraine it was already getting too warm to bring it back.)
It wasn't easy to plan a sewing vacation with my head full of dreams, limited time, and luggage restrictions. I reckon I did a good job. I'm so much happier now that I can wear me-mades most days - they may be imperfect and idiosyncratic, but they mean something that RTW doesn't and I definitely felt the lack in my wardrobe in the past few months. The next step for me is to force myself to remake more of my wardrobe rather than giving things away so blithely. It's a step I can't take right away but that I hope to integrate over the next year, and of course would be much easier if I would stop moving every year!
My Geneva pattern is size 36 based on my measurements. It's a good fit for the thicker fabrics but maybe too loose for finer jerseys. I like the shoulder darts - they do have to be ironed down but I don't mind emphasis on my wide shoulders, and I think they also fit really nicely on me. Possibly if you are narrow shouldered you would need to size down.
It passed my first test, so I made a few more. My second Geneva was a thin slubbed jersey with stars, from The Sweet Mercerie. My order from this shop was amazing. The fabric is sooo cheap, it's just like the pictures and there are awesome knits. I had to narrow the side seams by 1 cm on each side to get a better fit, with this thin fabric. I think that the fabric would have been better suited to a Renfrew because it's so light jersey. Since this pattern has normal hemmed sleeves and bottom, they tend to stretch out a lot over the course of the day. I hope that it'll improve when I have access to a dryer and the fabric shrinks, but at present I think the Geneva doesn't seem like the best fit for a simple, thin jersey tshirt.
The final version is a transformation. I started with this sweater which was a going away present from my housemate Camille:
I wanted to use only the black parts but it wasn't long enough and I prioritised saving the hem, and so it cut into some of the dirty white. I think the lace distracts from the, er, dirt and stains, though. The stretchy lace is from Das Blaue Tuch, a lovely eco-fabric shop in Munchener Freiheit. It's a rayon and something else blend, and is very soft. When I was sewing it caught on all my callused fingertips and started to run, or pill, so I was glad that this was mostly a recycled project (first) and that I have a half meter left over for later (second.) After wearing it for a bit I guess I'll have a better impression of how fragile the lace is.
Anyway for a recycled top I'm super pleased with it! The neck binding was a pain because it has mechanical stretch but curls up and thins when you stretch it like one of those chinese finger traps. Other than that it didn't cause me any trouble sewing at all.
Overall I don't know why this pattern (specifically) inspired me to such heights of recycled creativity. Sometimes a pattern does, though. Like the Papercut Hoody pattern, this one just makes my fingers itch to make more and to modify more. Maybe it's just that I adore raglan sleeves?
The Geneva was also an unplanned experiment on using different types of knit fabric - the wool sweater turned out better than I expected with the random extra ex-skirt seams, and using the cotton sweater made me more comfortable with taking the fabric from one item and making it into another, taking into consideration what you start with. I'm really proud of that; this sweater may be humble but I feel like it represents a more personal foray into why I really wanted to sew - making one (hideous, sorry Camille) thing into another awesome one.
The Geneva pattern rounded out my week of sewing. I sewed a Geneva first - the sweater - and wore it my entire week in Munich. I sewed the other two shirts at the end of the week. Overall out of my sewing vacation I got: one Briar, one Mission tank top, one slinky Mission jersey dress, a Geneva long sleeved tee, a Geneva sweater and an stunning Falda summer jacket. My friends got: one red Sallie jumpsuit, one Strathcona tee, and one Briar. My storage box got one lambswool Geneva (because in Ukraine it was already getting too warm to bring it back.)
It wasn't easy to plan a sewing vacation with my head full of dreams, limited time, and luggage restrictions. I reckon I did a good job. I'm so much happier now that I can wear me-mades most days - they may be imperfect and idiosyncratic, but they mean something that RTW doesn't and I definitely felt the lack in my wardrobe in the past few months. The next step for me is to force myself to remake more of my wardrobe rather than giving things away so blithely. It's a step I can't take right away but that I hope to integrate over the next year, and of course would be much easier if I would stop moving every year!
