Handmade holiday wardrobe- Copenhagen

I didn’t have enough handmade clothes to participate in Me-Made May this year, so I did a miniature version when I went to Copenhagen recently. I challenged myself to wear me-made clothes for the whole six days- here’s how it went!

These are the clothes I took with me. All are me-mades except for my naked lady T shirt (see previous post) and a blue workwear-style jacket I’ve worn and loved for years.

Day One

This is one of my most frequently worn outfits; the Coco top I made as part of my Jean Seberg outfit, and my trusty navy linen wrap skirt which I wear with pretty much everything! I deliberately wore this skirt on the plane so it didn’t get scrunched up in my suitcase. The Doc Martens shoes I’m wearing are new, and I hoped this trip would be a good chance to wear them in. I took three packs of blister plasters with me, but I still ended up buying another pack at a Danish drugstore- that’s Doc Martens for you!

Day Two

The second day’s outfit was as follows: Chambray Marigold trousers, also from the Jean Seberg outfit, and a Named Clothing ‘Sade’ blouse. I made the Sade dress for my birthday, and I loved it so much I made this top out of the leftover fabric.

On this day we went to Louisiana, a modern art museum that looks over the water. I’m not a fan of modern art at all; honestly I mainly went there for the buffet, which is AMAZING and totally worth the trip. I did almost get splashed by (delicious) tomato soup several times in the mad buffet dash, but again it was worth it for those incredible fresh bread rolls. Mmmmm…

Day Three

This is one of two things I made in preparation for the trip: a tencel twill Stevie tunic. I’m going to do a full blog post on this soon, but basically, I love it. It’s so comfortable and minimalist looking, and the tencel fabric was amazing to work with and wear.

Also, isn’t this dress + those socks the best combination ever? They’re actually Yayoi Kusama socks, but her face is hidden inside my shoe.

In the morning we went to the Medical Museum, which was fascinating and quite disgusting at times.

Then in the afternoon we hit up some of Copenhagen’s famously good yarn shops! First we visited Sommerfuglen, which had a good range of both well-known brands and some more unusual indie ones. I bought three skeins there; Isager Aran Tweed, Madelinetosh Merino Light, and BC Garns Baby Alpaca.

We also went to Knitting for Olive, which was much smaller but very friendly and still worth the trip. I bought a skein of their Heavy Merino, and Soft Silk Mohair as well. I’m planning on holding the two yarns together to knit a beret.

I love my yarn babies…

Day Four

(Smiling through the pain of wearing of wearing my Docs two days in a row)

This skirt is the other thing I made for the trip; it’s the Jutta skirt from the latest issue of Fibre Mood magazine, made using polyester peachskin from Fabric Godmother. Again, I’m going to do a proper pattern review for this, so I’ll put more details about it there. I think it goes perfectly with my Sade blouse!

Day Five

On day five I wore my Morning Glory Top wrap hack (there’s a tutorial here) and my Marigold trousers again. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with these trousers. They’re one of my most-worn makes, yet I don’t actually like them that much. I end up wearing them so much because they’re the only garment I have that’s high-waisted enough to wear with certain tops, for example this one. Hopefully once I make a couple more high-waisted skirts/trousers, I’ll start to like this pair a bit more.

On this day we went to the Glyptotek, a sculpture and painting museum. It has a magical indoor garden, with a glass roof and fountains, where I spent a couple of hours reading.

We also went to the fabric shop Stoff and Stil, which was like fabric heaven! Their range of jerseys in particular was fantastic, and I bought some of this unusual burgundy one:

I also got some rusty viscose twill- a fabric I’ve literally been searching for for months! This is set to become a pair of Rae pants (from Breaking the Pattern).

Day Six

The last day, and the only RTW item I wore all week! There was no time to go anywhere before we were due at the airport, but we ate some delicious pastries at the cafe across the street from where we were staying.

This trip has made me notice a couple of gaps in my wardrobe: mainly, I need to make more high-waisted skirts/trousers, preferably with elastic waists. I have the fabric for a pair of Rae pants, and I’m also thinking of making an Estuary skirt. Secondly, I’m severely lacking in casual, stretchy garments. This is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I want to make a couple of basic T shirt dresses (or something similar) that I can throw on in the morning with no effort, and immediately have an outfit. Hopefully the jersey I bought at Stoff and Stil can become the first of many T shirt dresses!