• Alpi trousers by Named clothing.
    Clothes refashioning,  My projects,  Patternreview,  Sewing

    Alpi trousers and a refashioned blouse à la Indiana Jones

    I managed to grab literally the last Alpi trousers pattern from Named clothing. I was lucky since I had planned on making these trousers for a while. However, don’t bother trying to buy this pattern, at least from Named. Some of their retailers might still have some of these pattern left even though this pattern is fairly old. Anyway, I like the basic look of these trousers. They are quite masculine, pretty loose and have a bit lower waistline than in most of the trousers I have lately made. I got some nice army green cotton sateen in a nice bargain from Materials, Helsinki. The fabric has a tiny bit…

  • Clothes refashioning,  My projects,  Sewing

    Cape refashion

    Several years ago I got a wool wrap as a present. It was soft and made of a great quality wool, but the style did not really suit me and the wrap stayed in my closet. Finally I decided to refashion the wrap into a stylish cape. I found a cape pattern from a Finnish Moda sewing/crafts magazine. Unfortunately I have since lost the magazine so I cannot tell exactly which pattern I used. This is how the wrap looked like: I shortened the pattern a lot, since I wanted a short cape. Because of the length of the wrap I had plenty of extra fabric to make a standing…

  • Clothes refashioning,  My projects

    Dyeing cashmere

    I go through my closets regularly to throw away any unnecessary items. These two cashmere cardigans have haunted me for years. They are not super expensive top quality cashmere but they are soft and warm and expensive for me. However, the colour doesn’t do me any favours in neither of these cardigans and I don’t know why on earth I did buy them in the first place! (Probably, because they were the two least ugly colours available…) The blue is so 50s ice-cream bar cutie blue and the gray makes me look mousy. The pearly buttons do not help. I’ve been dreaming of dyeing these cardigans but I couldn’t find…