Summer Swans

A few weeks ago ago, I got the opportunity to work with a new fabric called Zomerzwanen (Dutch for Summer swans). I fell in love with the vintage style print immediately, and I knew Norah would love it too.

The design was originally only available in dresses by the Belgian clothing brand De Melkbrigade, but now Bambiblauw is also offering it as yardage. It comes in two versions: a big print and a smaller print. I used the smaller one, because I reckoned that it would reduce the chance of having to decapitate any swans. I love animals.

I started working on the dress weeks ago, but it wasn’t until this weekend that I had the opportunity to take some pictures. We went to the Harmony Park in Antwerp, where the sun stop shining the minute we arrived.

I used the fabric to make a test version of the Tinny pattern I’ll be relaunching, but I screwed up a bit. I managed to use the wrong pattern for both the sleeves and the collar. The sleeves are too wide, as you can see in the pictures. Cutting fabrics and chatting in your weekly sewing club is such a bad combination.

The collar is a mix of two collars of the original Tinny pattern: the regular peter pan collar and the pointed open collar. I’m not sure if I’ll include it the relaunched Tinny, though. It looks a bit plain I think. It doesn’t have the sweetness of the regular peter pan collar, and it doesn’t look as special as the open collar either.

I used a gathered skirt instead of a circle skirt, but Norah found that it wasn’t that bad for spinning around after all.

Let’s return to the fabric. It’s a cotton sateen, and it feels amazing. As I was sewing, I checked if it really didn’t stretch like five times, because it has the soft hand that knits also have. But: it’s really just a woven. I love the sharp print and the bright colors.

You can buy the fabric here. Thank you Bambiblauw for generously sending me a piece!