Happy New Year!

Hi all our lovely crafty readers!

This has been a wonderful year with so many new readers all over the world. We were a little nervous year ago, but our big challenge to start TWO new languages in one year has succeeded extremely well. Special thanks to all our French and Russian readers and our wonderful translators Eli, Anastasia and Alexandra to make this possible.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

We wish you all a very happy new year. While celebrating the new year, you can peek our new issue online: http://www.ottobredesign.com/lehdet_js/2014_1/index.html?en

Holiday Season is here!

We wish to thank all our readers for the year 2013 and all the lovely photos, emails and comments we have received. Snowy greetings from Arctic Circle, Santa Claus's land. 

Ottobre team

Ottobre goes Halloween

We do not have fancy, scary Halloween here in Finland. For us All Saint's Day is quiet and peaceful. We light up a candle and remember with love our relatives and friends who have died. We also meet family and friends, make good food and eat together. So no costume parties, no scary stories nor trick-or-treating. However we wanted to sew something bit scary, yet fashionable - a skeleton hoodie.

We used the Bubo-bubo raglan sleeve zip hoodie pattern from magazine 4/2011. You find the pattern in sizes 98-134 cm and the magazine is still available on our single issue shop. Instead of owl, we appliqued a scary neon green skeleton. The appliqué is made on both hood panels, both sleeves and on both front panels.  To draw your own skeleton you will find a lot of good illustrations on the internet or on anatomy books.

Trace pattern pieces for bones and scull on paper backing of double-sided fusible web (Vliesofix). Iron pieces of fusible web onto wrong side of pieces of neon green jersey and cut shapes out along their outlines. Remove paper backing from fusible web and iron shapes onto hood panels, sleeves and front pieces. Pin piece of tear-away backing (Stickvlies) to wrong side under appliqué motif. Stitch shapes in place with narrow, short zigzag or with straight stitch. Almost done!

Nice Halloween to everyone!

Ps. I almost forgot to thank our lovely and talented trainees Antje and Maria from Max-Eyth-Schule in Alsfeld, Germany. They made this hoodie. It is always so fun to have young and happy people here in office.

Pss. Ihan pakko lisätä vielä tää musalinkki, että pääsette oikeaan tunnelmaan!
Must add this link to our all time favourite singer-songwriters J. Karjalainen's "Luuranko rämisee" live music video. Luuranko rämisee means something like A skeleton rattles...

Tiny sneak peek to OTTOBRE design kids winter issue

Now when summer is just a memory and autumn won't last long,

it is perfect time to show you what we are up to.

Our winter issue OTTOBRE design kids 6/2013 

will be released in the end of October. Stay tuned....

Sneak peek at OTTOBRE woman 5/2013

Lovely Ladies!

It will be here soon - our beautiful autumn/winter collection 2013. Our official release date is September 2nd and we'll start shipping the magazines next week to more than 140 countries all over the world. 


OTTOBRE woman 5/2013 includes:

AUTUMN WEATHER FORECAST
Welcome winter! Sew a fishtail parka or a lovely wool coat. Much requested patterns for various basic items: outerwear pants, a T-shirt, a tunic, a striped raglan T-shirt and a wild animal-print blouse. Sizes 34-52

SO SIMPLE, ELEGANT AND LOVELY AT THE SAME TIME
Take the best style tips from men’s clothes or go for a more romantic look! A pantsuit, a knit jacket, several nice skirts and jersey dresses, three beautiful shirt blouses, a jacquard jersey dress and an A-line top. Sizes 34-52

Enjoy! 

Flower-shaped purse

Good news for those of you who have been looking for the flower-shaped purse pattern! 

You'll find the link for the pattern here. The instructions are written in four languages: Finnish, Swedish, English and German and the other two (Dutch and French) will follow soon.

Also we promise to make you a  tutorial with pictures in few days. 

Old-fashioned playtime with paperdolls

TYTTI and POJU paperdoll sheet is now available on our Etsy shop.

I guess many of us loved to play with paper dolls when we were little girls, so did I with my sisters. We cut them out along the edge and were always careful not to bend the paper dolls' necks. Mom gave us shoe boxes and we kept all the paper dolls in it, beneath our beds.

Many of us have also designed our first collections of clothes for paper dolls. Inspired by childhood memories, our illustrator Suvi Suitiala drew for us these lovely paper dolls, Tytti and Poju. You can print out clothes for the dolls from our website. While mom is sewing, kids can cut the scraps for paperdoll clothing and create their own collections. 
With a good imagination, your paper dolls would come to life. Visit our Etsy shop: to purchase the paperdolls.

You can print out the sheets for clothing from OTTOBRE autumn collection on our websites for free: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mvx1h3h42p89jft/ottobrepaperdolls_clothes.pdf

Paperdolls are printed on heavy paper and back side
of the sheet has lovely illustrations. 

You can color the clothing and design your own print patterns on them.

Retro versions of the romper

Retro versions of the baby romper

Our readers have for long requested a pattern for a classic footed romper, and here it is. These rompers are made of soft organic cotton jersey with lovely prints. You find all these fabrics on our Etsy shop. The colorful snap fasteners on the shoulders are from 3exter.se

Romper pattern from issue 4/2013

Sneak peek to OTTOBRE design ® Kids autumn issue 4/2013

Hi All out there somewhere!

Extremely warm and sunny days are tempting us out of office, but we try to stay inside. We are preparing a huge delivery job. Our AUTUMN issue arrived today and during the weekend we are going to pack and dispatch it all over the world to more than 130 countries. Our official release date is July 8, so soon you might need to set up a tent near to your postbox to monitor your postman. You can also peek (and like) us on our Facebook pages. We have uploaded a lot of autumn issue photos there! You'll find the link on the right side panel.

Our French readers: Also the French edition will be dispatched during weekend, so hopefully this time you'll also get it in time!

CONTENT

WELCOME TO THE CIRCUS
Comfortable everyday clothes from colorful cotton jerseys and sweatshirt knits: T-shirts, pants, a skirt, a dress and leggings. A practical autumn jacket and coat plus a girl's blazer. Sizes 92-140 cm

CUTE’N SWEET BABIES
The babies’ autumn collection combines lovely grey with warm olive-green. Hoodies, a jacket, T-shirts, jeans, a skirt and a footed romper. Sizes 56-92 cm

MOM’S SEWING ROOM
When mom's sewing, the children settle down to play with paper dolls. The collection includes casual classics with a touch of nostalgia. Pants, T-shirts, a hoodie, leggings, a skirt, a tunic and a jersey jacket. Sizes: 92-128 cm


BACK 2 SCHOOL
Back to school means that the children’s wardrobes are topped up with some nice new clothes: pants, T-shirts, a shirt, a blouse, hoodies, a tunic, a skirt, leggings and, last but not least, a snazzy fishtail parka. Sizes 120-170 cm

KOKESHI pinafore dress pattern and reprint of OTTOBRE design 1/2009

Hello Friends!

This sweet pattern is available in sizes 92-122 cm

We have published a Babushka pinafore dress pattern for babies in our spring issue 1/2009. This sweet pattern has been very popular and we have found it on sewing blogs all over the world. Also the whole magazine has been very popular, and sold out for few years already. Upon your request, we decided to make a reprint and it will be ready to ship in couple of weeks.

Babushka pattern in this magazine is published only for babies in sizes 62-92 cm. During these years we have got a lot of requests of similar pinnie pattern in sizes 98-122 cm. Now it is time to make your wishes come thru. We wanted to continue the same sweet theme "Around the world" and decided to decorate the pinnie with cutest little Kokeshi dolls applique. To make your sewing easier, we also included pieces of applique stabilizers in the package (Vlieseline® Vliesofix and Stickvlies).

Pattern is now available in our Etsy-shop.
OTTOBRE design®  magazine # 1/2009 you will find in our magazine shop.

So sweet Kokeshi dolls applique.

Reprint of Spring issue 1/2009 available now!

Sneak peek to summer issue 3/2013

Summer is coming soon!... and so is our freshly-baked OTTOBRE design summer issue 3/2013

This issue is released in Finland on April 22, 2013 and we start shipping the English, Dutch, Swedish, German and Finnish editions to subscribers early next week, so in Europe it should arrive April, 22.-27. and oversea countries 10-14 days later.  

Please notice! The release date for Russian and French edition is early May!

Fresh ideas, quick to make and fun to look at!

We wanted to make summer issue as easy as possible for you and put the entire summer wardrobe between the same covers. We wanted it to be a dream come true for home sewers: all you need to do is draw a few lines, stitch a few seams, et voilà! We decided to create lots of nice basic yet modifiable designs that are easy to make. They include several items requested by our readers and a whole bunch of fresh designs to be sewn from jersey. We were thrilled by the wonderful print patterns of the fabrics of this summer season and also dipped into our stash for bigger pieces of left-over fabric that could be recycled.

We included lots of stripes – from classic straight stripes to freehand-painted brush stripes. We allowed the stripes to go wild in our collection, as you probably notice on the jazzy front cover of the magazine. We threw in lots of color for both boys and girls. We ended up with so many ideas that we had to leave some of them out to be published later in our blog.

So discover our delightful summer issue sneak peeks and already enjoy the coming summer!

Requested jeans jacket pattern in sizes 92-122 cm

Challenging appliqués

Colorful left over pieces in jersey hoodie (from Lillestoff)

Sweet prints (fox and owls jersey from Znok and snaps from 3exter.se)

Cutest little babies (car print and blue stripes from Hilco)

Lovely babygirl (Elephant jersey from Lillestoff) 

Vintage clothing for special occasions

Velvet polka dots in voilee (from Hilco)

Jersey dresses and reminder

Just wanted to say hello and remind you to reply to our customer questionnaire by March 30, 2013 by clicking on one of the following links:

Questionnaire in English

Questionnaire in Finnish

Questionnaire in German

Have a nice weekend!

Second version of the black/beige jersey dress from OTTOBRE design 2/2013

Third version of the black/beige jersey dress from OTTOBRE design 2/2013 

Striped version of the Butterfly printed colorful
cover dress from OTTOBRE design 2/2013