Ottobre designs- balloon suits?

I have in the past enjoyed my Ottobre designs for women subscription. There were always some good, slightly funky, around-the-house or basic patterns in every magazine. And I loved the fact that the models were real, rather than unreal, women.


And yes it made me feel sort of cool to sew up a Finnish design. Like I was a woman who went cross-country skiing before breakfast, and ate a lot of cheese and wore clogs and was progressive and so damned healthy. You know, like chunky jewelry and bangs.


However I don't know what to think of this autumn/winter selection. I probably won't be renewing. These are some pretty damned weird coats IMO.


Have I lost my edge? Am I too suburban/North American after all? Not enough fresh air? Cheese? Style?


Or will this be one of the many new profiles I think is nuts at first and once I see it everywhere, and just about when it is going out of style,  decide it's OK?


What do you think?

Hats

Last night I was on a conference call for some consulting with some business folks. It was one of those things where everyone sounded so smart and they all used the lingo that business people use these days (although no one said they were going to drill down on the issue it was close). At the end of the call one of the women who I have never met in another city said, "excuse me are you the Barbara who has written for Threads?" Yes a wrote I some things, but it made me laugh, it was so odd to have my real life, my sewing person, come out in that context.

Sewing is about who you really are and most people who see you only as you go about your business don't realize that there is this real person with another life who is really herself when she sews.

So I woke up this morning thinking about that, about blogging and about all the women I have met in this virtual world who really are this sewing person and I want you to know that I know who you really are. I think of you this morning, it's 6:30 a.m. getting on buses and maybe trains or in cars going to work in something you made, or getting up to take care of family or taking care of your own business and thinking of how you are going to fit sewing into your day today.

We all wear hats, but we are all sewers.

And speaking of which some time ago in a moment of low self-perception I bought a bunch of shocking pink wool jersey to make a dress from. After a while I decided that would be a lot of shocking pink on this body and I decided I wouldn't feel all that comfortable wearing it, and that after a couple of years of lack of nerve that I would end up throwing it out.

So I went into a trance and washed and dried the whole lot of it and shrank it into something felted that was really cool. And then I made this hat and this scarf out of it from this season's Ottobre and you know I have worn this very warm hat and scarf nearly every day, after all I live in Canada, and this was the right decision for this particular fabric as all my winter coats are black.

The pictures this morning are not that great, the colour seems to vibrate, but hopefully you get the idea. Two great patterns.

Oh BTW if anyone hasn't seen the latest Ottobre for spring, it is simply kick ass. Great plus sized patterns and some wonderful real life older women as models. I love those guys at Ottobre.

Happy New Year

Many resolutions this year but one of them is to just make time to sew more. In evidence of that I just finished this Ottobre top, design number 12, under the wire as my husband waits for me to start making our curry for New Year's.

It was my first Ottobre pattern and I must say I really enjoyed it. I have been troubled for some time about my failure this past year to actually sew anything from my Burda World of Fashion magazines. I used to sew from these magazines almost exclusively for years and loved the style. I used to look at my BWF and feel I wanted to make, and wear, just about everything in the magazine.

But somewhere along the line that changed.

Or maybe I did. And maybe that is something I should be concerned about. 

It seemed to me for a long time that Burda clothes were highly fashionable but very wearable. These were days too when I was a young mother and only worked part-time. But now it seems to me that the clothes now look less and less comfortable. The words "plunging neckline" appear a lot, the shoes all have 5 inch heels, and everything just looks so tight. And there are 42 pattern pieces to many things.

Don't get me wrong. It is probably not them, it's me. I still love many of the coat patterns but my sewing time is tighter than my clothes need to be, and I wonder sometimes how long some of the styles will be around. I worked with a fabulously dressed Russian woman at my last job and she sewed all her clothes from Burda mag.They were great, but I couldn't help thinking that many of them would go old fast, so I started to look more critically at what I would actually sew from the magazines that I would still think would be cool in 4 months.

While I was spending way to much time on worrying about this, when I should have been thinking about the economy for instance, or world events, I ordered some Ottobre magazines on a whim. Ottobre is famous for its Finnish kids patterns but twice a year they also put out a woman's issue. One thing I noticed when I looked at the pictures in Ottobre was that the models all had funky, comfortable Scandinavian shoes, like the ones I actually wear, and that nearly everything there (maternity clothes excepted, although if I don't cut back on the festive chocolate soon I may fit into them) was something I would put on and wear to work in my real life.

The rayon jersey (thank you Fabric Mart)  T shirt here is my first attempt and I found the instructions clear and interesting. Thanks too to Debbie Cook for her excellent instructions on how to end a coverhem that solved that mystery and problem for me.

The way it looks to me tonight Ottobre may give me one route to add a little Euro style to my wardrobe that actually fits into my prosaic East coast Canadian lifestyle.

Neat.

Oh, resolution #1 : Sew more Ottobre designs.

Happy New Year!