Where we're at

Well, a month without a post, I think that's a record :) I'm back here to give you a heads up on what's going on. Last month was a very busy month. We packed our stuff, handed in the keys to our house and left the town where we lived for the past 10 years. After a week of getting the necessary truck maintenance and goodbyes, we drove off to Kassel, Germany to meet our good friends. We had a lovely few days with them before driving down to France. We're in the Morvan region now, staying at the house of Stef's parents. It's a 300 year old farm situated on a hill overlooking a green valley, and we have it all to ourselves!



We'll stay here until we've released the Jade skirt. The pattern and instructions are finished, it's down to the new website, shop and blog. During the course of the coming months, this blog will also move to another domain, but I'll let you know when that happens. While Stef works on that, I've begun making samples for the second pattern! I'm really excited about it and I can't wait to share my progress with you. I've already given some hints on what pattern it will be, but let's concentrate on getting that Jade out first, right?



I'm afraid I don't have much to show you in terms of finished items. I made some Espresso Leggings and although I'm really pleased with them, they're just black leggings so I won't bore you with those :) In the meantime, for smaller updates you can follow us on Facebook (Paprika Patterns and Joep de Zoeperd, our travel page) and Twitter (Paprika and Joep) as well. Talk to you again soon!

Camí-Archer Hybrid

However much I liked my Camí dress, I knew I had to change it into something more wearable if it were to survive the Big Trip Sorting. A cotton shirtdress isn't very practical, but it would be a shame of that nice bodice to just stow it away for a year. I've become much better at altering or throwing away handmades, because you've already learned your lessons from them. It won't give you anything by just sitting in your closet. So then Jen's colourblocked Archer came along and I was triggered. I didn't have the Archer pattern yet, but through some strange coincidence I won the Archer pattern just by participating in #fabricchat, hosted weekly by Leila on Twitter. Excellent! Now I could use the Archer pattern to complement my Camí bodice and make my own colourblocked shirt!



I knew I'd seen the same cotton fabric in black, so I chose to use that one for the bottom half. There's no better way to make sure the fabrics have the same weight. The seam ripper took care of the skirt and the blind zip. To get a more shirt-like fit, I let out the back darts completely, and the front darts as much as I could without losing too much shape. I traced the Archer back and front from the waist down. It was still much larger than the Camí bodice so I had to take it in some more. I replicated the Camí button placket and voilà, turned a shirtdress into a shirt.



I also let out the shoulder seams a bit, to get just that much more room to move around. It's still not a perfect fit, I'd have to remake the entire bodice to get that, but it's good enough for this experiment. I also thought of adding a black pocket, but I sort of forgot about it. Pauline just posted about a pocket template for the Camí dress, so that would have been nice.



I don't really know what the rules are when it comes to colourblocking, where you should put the dividing lines. I had no option but the waist, but I'm not sure if you should cut yourself in half like that. I did notice that you have to be careful with the proportions. At first the hem was 4 cm longer but it looked kind of weird so I shortened it. I'm in that place where you've looked at something too often and can't see it anymore. What do you think, a succesful colourblock?