Summer holiday
Time for the yearly couple of weeks on a swedish island, it can sometimes look like this....

I should not complain though, most of the days have been lovely so far, with lots of sun. 
The only bad thing is that there is no sewing machine available here...

So what do you do? Well, read books, go for walks, listen to all the podcasts that you have downloaded but never took the time for - and visit little antique shops!
There is a little shop just next to the food store that we usually go to, and this time they had got their hands on some old cotton pieces - like this coat (or whatever to call it) here. 

The woman in the shop thought it would be great as a painters coat, but I guess to call it a tailors coat will work just as well.

There are a couple of small holes, but they can be left as they are or covered by some decorative piece, like a small white flower - will see what I can find in the fabric store when I am back home.

All of the pieces come from the same place, and they all have the initials S.R on them. They are thought to be from around 1898-1900.

Linen fabric for trousers
Just started to make 2 pair of trousers, using a pattern I think must be 25 years old at least...

Didn't have so much time lately, bought a lot of good books instead - especially this one from swedish fashion journalist Sofia Hedström.

Very inspiring reading - the best idea I got from the book was to make one of my partners shirts into a skirt...but more on that later!

Summerdress ready to be used
Whenever the sun returns - the dress is ready!

Summerdress?

I am trying to remember why I am making a summer dress....

Weather Forecast Winterthur - next 5 days

Tuesday
Heavy Showers	Max: 19°C Min: 7°C
Wednesday
Heavy Showers	Max: 12°C Min: 6°C
Thursday
Rain Showers	Max: 14°C Min: 8°C
Friday
Heavy Showers	Max: 10°C Min: 9°C
Saturday
Heavy Showers

The remaining 3rd skirt
I have been kept busy the last few days....

But all good things come to an end, and work could finally be resumed to get the 3rd old skirt ready for summer.

This one will be done differently (the 2 previous ones were changed by basically sewing them onto a normal t-shirt) - in this case I will use some leftover cotton fabric for the top.

Although I did make a toile first (which I rarely do), I still managed to make the front piece too large - so I had to find another solution...but I was happy with the result.

Some fabric needs to be removed in the back,  around the armholes, it is still too wide.

Now I just need to get some more material before I can finish it off...

Why buy a new dress?
As summer is getting closer there is that little voice in your head - "are you sure you do not need a new summer dress"?
This year was no different but then I started to think about what I already have...and I thought about 3 skirts that I made a few years ago that are still nice but are not really worn a lot. Maybe they could be changed in some way?

Question was - how? It seemed that the easiest thing to do would be to place the waist higher and add a top. This way I would get a nice, empire-style dress - but what would I use as top? A T-shirt. So I did.

Now 2 of the skirts have become dresses, and the only thing left is to do the third one - however this time I actually have a beige cotton fabric so I plan to make a "real" top out of it, to which the skirt can be sewn - just have to find a good pattern to use. 

And if I decide that the dresses are not as good as I thought they would be - well, I did not cut the extra fabric off so the if the skirt is removed it is just a normal T-shirt again...