5 Things Inspiring Me Now Part 3

Regular readers will already be familiar with my occasional series called 5 things inspiring me now, but if you’re new around here then, “hi! Nice to meet you, why not stick around, you’ll love it!”  And I hope you enjoy this post 🙂

Anyway, so these posts are mini-collections of stuff that inspires me. Often it’s something that inspires me to use up some fabric from my stash, or it can be an image that inspires me to style something in a different way. I want to keep all of these things together in one place for future reference and by sharing I hope that you feel inspired too.

Today’s post is a tiny bit different to the other two (you can read them here and here) and you’ll see what I mean when you get to number 5 🙂

So let’s get started!

5 Things Inspiring Me Right Now

ONE First off is the idea of large/ voluminous puffed sleeves. It’s a trend that’s been rumbling around for a while and is gathering more momentum for the new season. I’m loving some of the sheer or softer fabric styles because I prefer the look with less structure and more drape…more practical too. I think. These images that I found on Pinterest really appealed to me:

I love the long cuff on this one by Dice Kayek:

This sheer overlay is a wonderful idea:

And this is such a cool looking top by Hellessy:

I have a lovely gauzy scarf that is just crying out to be made into a top with big sleeves. I may even add a deep ribbed cuff on it.

TWO The second on my list is actually an accessory and it’s knee-high boots. I’m a huge fan of the style and love to wear them with culottes in the Autumn and Winter. Again this is a style of boot coming into its own more than ever this year. Many appeared on the runways (ps, don’t forget to look out for my big trends post in a few weeks).

Here are some styles to whet your appetite:

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THREE Next up is leather. I’ve been thinking about leather jackets lately because I have 2 lovely pieces of faux leather and it’s high time I made one of them up. This lovely DVF bomber style has been on one of my Pinterest boards for a long time and it’s calling to me. I have some soft deep red-toned cognac coloured faux leather that could work well.

This one is also gorgeous by Burberry:

Would you believe that I’ve never sewn with faux leather before?? Well, Santa bought me some Teflon feet for my sewing machine last Christmas so I have absolutely no excuse now 🙂

FOUR Next is the idea of tops that have a very defined asymmetry. I’ve seen a few images on Pinterest (do you get the feeling that I’m obsessed with Pinterest??) and I’ve been intrigued about the idea of a top that has a stepped effect rather than an angled hemline… like these have:

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FIVE And finally, something a bit different and instead of an idea, accessory or clothing item I’m going to be featuring someone from the sewing/style community (from blogs or Instagram) that I find inspirational. I’ll be doing this from now on each time I publish one of these posts.

So today I want to introduce you to Karen Dolen AKA @intostitches on Instagram who very kindly agreed to let me use some of her photos.

Karen lives in the Seattle area of Washington state in the US, she’s sewn for many years and I’ve followed her for some time now, and I adore her style! She wears floaty long kaftans equally as well as a leather jacket or boyfriend jeans. She tells me that her favourite colours are yellow, green black and cream and she adores making coats and jackets (I do too!).

These first two photos are of the Ziggy jacket by Style Arc which is made with soft faux leather from Stylemaker Fabrics. Look at that quilting and fab lining too…wow! And I just love how she’s styled the jacket over the animal print dress with those tough chunky black boots.

This next outfit is a recreation of a Pierre Balmain 1960 ‘Afternoon Dress and Coat’ originally made for the Queen of Thailand. She put hours of prep into the initial stages of making the coat and sourced the fabric from Mood. Go and check out more of Karen’s IG posts about the coat to see progress shots.

I adore this styling with the casual boyfriend jeans!

Thank you for sharing your sewing style with us Karen!

Why not go and give Karen a follow on Instagram and I dare you not to be inspired 🙂

So I hope this post has got your creative juices flowing…just writing it has fired my creativity.

Let me know what you think in the comments and whether you might try some of the ideas yourself. As always, thanks for reading and I’ll catch you soon.

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