result of a battle

Remember I told you I never finish sewing anything for myself? I don't know, either that fact - besides of the sewing related reasons I told you back then - was because of the haunting echo of my mom's words when I was a kid, whenever I wanted to try something new "but you never finished anything" or if it is simply a proof of the truth in her words. While my fabric stack as well as my ideas are growing higher and higher, my guts to start anything for myself was actually getting smaller and smaller. It brought me to no where but suffering inwardly. There is always a battle inside of me - one side of me wants to try things out, to see either my ideas would work or not, and the other side of me tries to kill it - ugh!

The past weeks I tried to embrace different words "focus on one thing at a time" and put all my worries and thoughts of anything behind - simply anything. No, I wasn't in the mood to draw or to lampwork or to felt. I wanted to sew and so I sewed, sewed and sewed. For my son, for our sofa (this project isn't finished yet, but one day it will ;)), but especially for myself.


Ok, the tunic is not to be worn together with the Marlene-style trousers - I had to crop my photo, not to make myself  look short and wide, even if I think it looked okay on the mirror (now, is that a sign of narcissism? :P) LOL

I've been wanting to make the trousers back in 1999, when I first saw it in the Burda magazine. At that time I subscribed the magazine and the 08/1999 issue was my most favorite one - even after such a long time. I own only jeans, thus I need something chic for some (probably never occurred) occasions. The fabric is a mix of wool and silk. I managed to follow everything in the pattern incl. every details, without one single alteration - which is not common for me. Needles to say, I was very proud of myself, when I finished it.

The tunic pattern was self drafted. I took my measurements and drew a simple pattern down. It's made of two parts (three with the neckline backing). It has kind of a kimono-style, straight-cut shoulder and sleeves. To be honest, the motivation to do so was because I'm still a little bit afraid of attaching sleeve-parts to the bodice - I've done it about three times for my son before, but I was always nervous and I got even more respect to do it  using single-jersey fabric. I had to alter my original pattern, because the sleeves were too big and it didn't look nice (my son said, "Mom, you looked like a general!" because of the standing sleeves LOL). I made them much smaller, so they won't stand too much - the wrinkles on the sleeves are thus part of the design ;) The slight wavy bottom part was a spontaneous action, which I'm not really satisfied with. But all together I'm pretty pleased with the result.

And now, on to the next project, as this battle is over ;)