Spot the difference: Burda 3/2009 #113

When I bought those fabrics a few weeks back from Tessuti I justified it to myself on the basis that I would sew them soonish. I'm trying to sew some smart but casual summer clothes, what I'm jokingly referring to as my 'resort collection', and the striped jersey paired with a simple dress style was a perfect match:

I used Burda 3/2009 #113, which is a very simple straight dress that has no darts or excessive seams to distract from the stripes, but made into a better dress by the  waistband (which I made with an elastic casing instead of a drawstring):

I have used this pattern before, but I'll forgive you if you don't remember it because it was quite a while ago, and I looked quite different at the time. Very different, actually. Can you spot the differences?

That photo was from a post when I was about 6 months pregnant with Toby - I don't remember feeling so big at the time but now that I look at that photo I think whoa! No wonder he was such a big baby when he was born.

Anyway for the maternity version I raised that elasticised waistband to the empire line so that it would sit above the bump, and added extra width to the front of the dress to go around that ginormous bump. It was a fantastic maternity dress too, very comfortable to wear on warm summer days. For this normal version I made the waistband more or less at the waist - I placed it where those black stripes are so that the stitching would be more invisible:

It sits a bit low but instead it makes the top get a bit of a blousy look, especially at the back, which I don't mind at all.

The other changes I made were to raise the neckline from a V-neck to bateau neckline, mainly because I prefer that look better and also because I had problems getting the facing for the V-neck to sit properly last time. I cut it a little too wide and my bra straps were showing, so I added a narrow band instead of turning under the edges or making a facing. It seems my Achilles heel is sewing on neckbands in knits, because this one is also a little too wide because it sticks out a bit at the shoulders, but I overlocked it on so it's staying on!

I also added some bands to the sleeve edge with the stripes running in the opposite direction, purely for looks. The technical drawing for this pattern makes it look like this pattern is a sleeveless dress, but the sleeves actually extend quite far off the shoulder, and adding the bands makes this seem like a dress with sleeves. I managed to achieve a pretty good chevron effect at the shoulders:

And you'll have to excuse the smug look on my face in the photo below, but I'm heartily gloating internally about exactly matching the stripes along the side seams:

Unfortunately this pattern doesn't seem to be available for download from the Burdastyle website, but if you happen to have this magazine I can recommend this pattern - it was really quick to sew, very easy and is a nice casual and uncomplicated dress. The stripe jersey fabric (Jade Green Black boardwalk jersey) from Tessuti was also a dream to sew with, the edges didn't curl like some annoying knits do, it pressed beautifully and the seams didn't get wavy at all even though I had run out of fusible interfacing that I normally need to stabilise them. And the fabric wore really well - I took these photos in the afternoon after wearing the dress all day and there are hardly any wrinkles.

Overall I'm really happy with this dress, it's a perfect Christmas day dress I think - light and breezy enough for a day that's bound to be really hot, and an elasticised waistband to cater for too much food!

Burda of the month: 11/2013 #103 Back keyhole blouse (and Burda of the month replay!)

I finished my November Burda project yesterday, so despite Burda not sending me the magazine until the 20th of the November I still managed to get it done in the same month! Big pat on the back for me. Thanks to my husband taking the kids out to see a Hi-5 concert and shopping in Chatswood on a Saturday afternoon (those who know Hi-5 and Chatswood will know that it was more than suitable compensation for all the client dinners he had last week!) I managed to get not one, but two garments started and finished in the same day.

Of course it helped that I chose a rather simple top to sew this month. I must admit that I struggled to pick a project this month, because after reading some rave reviews of this issue when it arrived I was a bit blah about the patterns. Some were ok (narrow pants, raglan sleeved dress, panelled dress etc) but since I had made similar type garments in recent months I decided to go out on a limb and sew something quite different to my usual style. I made the pleated neck, voluminous sleeve and shapeless top, 11/2013 #103:

 

 

And actually I don't mind it even though it's not my usual overly fitted style. I made a few small changes to make this more summer friendly - the fabric I used is a thin cotton voile from the stash in a small navy blue and red floral, and I made the sleeves elbow length instead of full length. This way it's still light and breezy enough to wear during summer but has good coverage for keeping my fair skin out of the sun. I probably should have either made the sleeves slightly longer or slightly shorter, because the narrow cuffs tend to get pulled up into my elbow bend and the result is that super puffy sleeve you can see above!

The back has a keyhole opening and two pleats at the neckline too. A word of warning to anyone planning to make this - the neck opening is really tight and probably needs widening to make it easier to get on and off and for more comfortable wear. I ended up sewing on a long loop from hat elastic so that neck opening sits wider open at the back so that I don't spend the day feeling strangled:

And the other tip I have for anyone making this is to trace the sewing line of the shoulder dart properly otherwise you'll end up with really pointy shoulders. Because I added my usual 1.5cm seam allowance when I traced the pattern and just sewed according to the cut edge, my darts ended too abruptly and needed rounding off:

And when I checked the pattern I could see the fault was all mine - I should have traced the curved sewing line from the pattern rather than charging on in my usual style!

But overall I quite like this pattern, I can see it made up in a soft, draping fabric like washed silk with full length sleeves for winter. And the bonus is that it only took me about two hours from cutting out to finishing, although admittedly I had already traced the pattern during the week which is the most fiddly, boring part of sewing with Burda.

But wait, there's more! I was worried that I wouldn't have anything to wear this with so I decided to make a new pair of simple, black shorts to wear with it. It turns out that this top looks good with jeans and my denim skirt so I need not have worried but I needed a new pair of shorts anyway, so no harm done. I used Burda 10/2013 #127 which was my Burda of the month project from last month:

I sewed this pair from a stretch cotton drill that I bought on Saturday morning when I popped into Spotlight to get a zipper. In fact by the time I started sewing these shorts the fabric was still a little damp from prewashing - how's that for stash avoidance! It's been quite a while since I bought some fabric specifically for a project, but unbelievably I didn't have any stretch black cotton in my stash.

The last pair I made from this pattern was from a cotton linen blend that didn't have any stretch (although it did bag out) but was quite soft, and it's amazing how different the garment fits being made in a stiffer, stretch fabric. This version sits higher on the waist because the fabric doesn't slouch down, the pockets stick out a bit at the sides and I had to take in the centre back seam a lot more because it was gaping at the back. I got a decent fit at the back I think, if you can ignore the VPL (sorry, it's not a good look is it?) and the gaping side pocket.

The other changes I made to the pattern (besides cutting it off a knee length of course) was to sew two welt pockets at the back just to break up that expanse of fabric - I've read somewhere that well placed pockets can make your derriere look smaller and more shapely than not having any. The other change I also made was to cut out the pattern with a fly extension like this:

instead of sewing on a separate fly extension. It just cut out a few steps and simplified matters. I also ignored Burda's instructions completely this time for installing the zipper because I recall being thoroughly confused by them last month, and instead used Sandra Betzina's super simple and effective method, seen in this Threads video.

So happily I've got a 100% success rate when it comes to sewing from my Burda mags this year - but if Burda waits until a few days before Christmas to send me the December issue I doubt I'll be able to pull off another swift project like this one.

Burda 02/2013 #126 - the little tshirt that took ages

Happy thanksgiving to all my American readers! It's not something we celebrate here in Australia, but there are a few things I'd like to give thanks to - thanks to Toby for choosing not to sleep at night time anymore, it means we get to spend sooo much more time together! Their childhood is so fleeting why would you waste it on a silly thing like sleeping? Thanks also to Toby for passing on his annoying cough to me - it's a great way to work those abs without doing a single sit up. Thanks to Oscar for pulling through his near death experience last week on my birthday no less and is now practically back to normal. Thanks also to family for their wonderful birthday presents of a Japanese sewing book and some new camera lens, and especially to my husband for organising the kids to have a sleepover with their grandparents while we stayed in a fancy city hotel.

And I'm thankful that I've finally finished my latest project: a simple tshirt that turned out to take a long time to finish. Well actually sewing it up didn't take that long, but sewing on the neckband four times until I got it right certainly did!

I used Burda 02/2013 #126 which was made quite successfully by many bloggers when it was first released:

Isn't that model photo from Burda absolutely absurd styling? The whole point of the tshirt is the gathered sleeves, yet the model has a jacket and a scarf covering them up.....

I sewed mine from a mystery knit found deep within my stash, which is very soft and very stretchy. Like Sharon's version, my neckband was very droopy and too big which I also blame on the fabric, and I ended up taking in the neckband incrementally four times, until I ended up with it a smidgen too short (of course!) so there are a few puckers around the neck. Ah well, I can live with it because there was no way I was going to do it again!

Apart from the neckband issue it's a pretty straightforward project - the sleeves are gathered and then just sewn on raglan style so it can't be much easier. I made the smallest size knowing that the significant ease of the knit meant it would be fine size wise and hopefully take care of any fabric pooling at the back since I didn't do a swayback adjustment. Seems fine to me:

I quite like this top - it's as easy to wear as a standard tshirt but the gathered sleeves make it just that little bit different.  It's really long though, you can see in that photo above that the hem of the tshirt sits halfway down my skirt that I've tucked it into. If I were to make this again I would definitely shorten it a fair bit because it's too long to wear out but too bulky to tuck in.

Overall it's quite a good pattern, maybe I will make another one day when I've worked myself back up to working with knits. For now though it's back to sewing with well behaving woven fabrics, so much easier and more predictable!

Australian Sewing Guild featured member - me!

The Australian Sewing Guild has just launched its website with a much needed fresh new look and guess who just happens to be one of the first featured members? That's right - it is me! My husband thinks it's super hilarious, admittedly the photo is rather large and prominent on the website. Have a look for yourself here.

I was one of the lucky ducks who got to spend Saturday sewing at the Tessuti Surry Hill's store for the day and I made a lot of progress on my white blazer. It was so inspiring not only sewing with lovely ladies like Sharon, Maria, BeaJay and other non-blogging sewing ladies, but also to be surrounded all day be beautiful fabrics and creative people shopping there all day was also encouraging. The lovely Colette is so genuinely lovely and  friendly with all the customers, and it was a real pleasure to be there.

It was also lovely to be recognised by a blog reader, who was equally excited to see Sharon and they got talking about some project or other. And the funniest thing was when a mother dragged her daughter over to us wearing her school formal dress asking for our opinion as to how to make it more modest - it was a one shoulder strap dress that she wanted to somehow add lace sleeves to it.

Of course I couldn't escape without making a fabric purchase (or two!). I'm not restricting my fabric purchases although I am trying to sew from the stash as a first priority. But I already have plans for the two fabrics I purchased so they sort of don't really count as additions to the stash!

On the left is a Michael Kors rayon (which doesn't seem to be in the online store) that I'll make some sort of dress for work from, and on the right is a viscose jersey (Boardwalk Jersey) that I am planning to make a simple t-shirt style dress.

Hopefully I'll be back in a few days with a photo of my finished white blazer - I think that by putting it down here in writing I'll be forcing myself to come up with the goods!

Oh and can I finish with a whinge (yes Renata I'm going to whinge about Burda!) - my November issue still hasn't turned up and it's now more than half way through the month. How can I keep to my Burda challenge when they are keeping me hanging on like this?

Vogue 2783: another cotton sateen dress

Thanks everyone for your amazing comments on my skirt in the last post - it's funny how sometimes the simplest projects really hit the nail on the head!

I've had such a slow sewing week, in fact it's taken me since last Sunday to finally finish this post and publish it. Toby has been quite unsettled this week and of course it's only mum that he wants when he's crying his little eyes out! It's nice to be wanted, but for crying out loud why did I have to get two children lousy at sleeping?

But I did manage to finish this dress before our Pattern Review high tea last Saturday afternoon - nothing like a deadline to get me motivated. I started sewing it on Friday night and finished it on Saturday morning about an hour before I had to leave. Luckily the day turned out to be very hot and sunny because I made a very summery dress:

I used Vogue 2783, a DKNY A-line dress that I've had in the pattern stash for a long time just waiting for the right fabric to come along. I tempted fate by using another cotton sateen fabric in the stash bought last year I think, but this one is a floral print instead of a solid and it seems to have a bit more stretch content than the green sateen I sewed with recently. Either way it doesn't seem to wrinkle as much which is good!

I love the seam lines in this dress, it's what makes it a bit more special than your ordinary fit'n'flare dress. I made some piping from navy blue lining fabric since there seems to be a city wide shortage of ready made piping at the moment, which was fiddly and time consuming but very much worth it because it really shows off those lines:

The back has matching princess seam lines and shoulder panel too:

I didn't leave myself time to  make a muslin, which actually since I'm a bit lazy when it comes to muslins I probably wouldn't have made one anyway but I did check the reviews on Pattern Review. All of which said that the dress runs large and all the reviewers made at least a size smaller.  After checking the flat pattern measurements I made a size 6 at the bust grading out to a size 8 at the waist and hips, even though according to their body measurements I needed a size 12/14/16 sized pattern.

But this pattern still turned out absolutely huge! I ended up taking in another 5cm on each side down the side seams just to get it to fit across the bust and waist, and it's not skin tight. If I had more time I would have pulled it apart and distributed that evenly along all the seams but it seems to be ok just narrowing the side seam. I can't understand why Vogue would draft a princess seam dress, which needs to be fitted to have a nice shape, with 10cm of ease at the bustline and 15cm of ease at the waistline!

The skirt is rather full even with taking it in down the side seams:

although the fullness hangs rather awkwardly because the piped seam makes it kink out a bit and the hem looks rather crooked even though I think it's pretty straight:

The another annoying thing about this pattern is that it is unlined but there are no facings drafted - the pattern requires self fabric binding strips to be sewn around the neck and sleeve openings. Which given it has piping around the neckline it seemed to be unnecessary to me so I just overlocked the edge of the bias piping strip I made with the edge of the fabric, and stitched in the ditch to keep the binding from flipping it out. To make sure I did a few handstitches at each seam line to keep the binding on the inside which seemed to work pretty well:

I suppose you've noticed I left off the hem band too? Well it turns out this dress is really long as well as really big! I did a tissue pin fit and took out 6cm in length from the body of the dress but even that wasn't anywhere near enough because my finished dress has a 5cm hem even without sewing on that band. The pattern is described as mid knee length, and I know that I'm nowhere near model height, but this pattern as drafted would be more like mid calf length on me. Instead of hacking off a huge amount off the bottom of the dress to sew the band on I just chose to leave it off.

I also chose not to make the fabric belt as shown in the pattern because it doesn't look too flattering on those models - it's too loose and droopy I think. I think the dress looks fine without a belt though.

As for the high tea it was delightful. Thanks to the lovely Velosewer for organising it in a chocolate shop, we all got to eat yummy food and a wide variety of teas finished up with a smash cake filled with delicious chocolates. It was great to meet a few new faces in real life and spend a few hours chit chatting about sewing. Of course I forgot to even get my camera out, but Maria has some great shots on her blog of all of us in our self made outfits.

Vogue 7937: deja vu (a.k.a using up the bits left over)

I seem to have a bit of a scatter gun approach to my sewing at the moment, which is never good for productivity and outcomes. At my last ASG sewing day I started making a muslin for another blazer, greatly helped with fitting and advice from the lovely ladies there that day. I cut out a dress to make specifically to wear to the PR high tea organised by Maria for this Saturday, but I couldn't start sewing it because I needed a zipper and a bajillion metres of piping. So then I traced out a Burda top (ironically both Sharon over at Petite and Sewing and Andrea over at Fabric Epiphanies have just made this top as well) but I couldn't sew that either because I ran out of white overlocking thread of all things!

Instead I decided to make a skirt out of the largish piece of fabric leftover from my pants in the last post instead of putting it back on the fabric shelf. The leftover bit was a long, narrow L shape too big to throw out so I wasn't sure what I could squeeze out of it. I almost decided to make something for Anna, but I'm not a huge fan of matching mummy and me outfits, so gladly I managed to make this:

I used Vogue 7379 view B, which is one of their basic designs and I've had it for ages but is still available. It is very simple and almost fool proof in comparison to the similar Burda pattern I made recently in the red crepe that annoyed me so much. The pattern pieces are long and narrow because the front and back are in three pieces.

And by the luck of the sewing gods I even managed to get the pattern to line up across those seams so that you can barely see them:

Because I knew the blue floral, which is a cotton linen, would stretch and bag out I underlined the skirt with a thin polycotton poplin hoping that it would help it keep its shape as well as prevent any sheerness of the fabric. It seems to have worked, because at the end of the day the skirt had loosened a little bit but wasn't too saggy at all. It also made the inside look quite neat:

But just in case it did stretch out too much I wore it with this cute green belt I found in a op shop recently:



The only thing I found odd about the pattern is that the centre front and centre back panels are wider that the pattern line drawing suggests and the proportions seem a little strange to me. If I make this again I would narrow them a little and make the side panels a little wider instead:

Excuse those photobombing children in the background - they were a little excited about breaking up our usual morning routine of rushing about madly trying to get out the door on time and were running around like crazy. Who know what our neighbours and various people driving past were thinking!

And because I don't like wearing singlet tops to the office (far too revealing and casual) I wore this with a navy blue blazer over the top:

I did roll up the sleeves though for a slightly casual effect - I think this outfit would be a good casual Friday outfit (except that I don't work on Fridays so Wednesdays are the closest I get to a casual day!). Ironically it was really cold earlier this week so I ended up freezing going to work with bare legs and open toes, but I can see this skirt getting worn a lot this coming summer. Especially with the white blazer I'm planning to make if I can get it out of the muslin stage sometime soon!

Burda of the month: printed pants 10/2013#127A

I was reading Paola's blog recently where she was wondering whether she was too late to join the coloured pants trend with her lovely green pants (definitely not). But I was wondering the same thing because I had been thinking about making some floral pants for spring/summer, a trend that has been around for a while but after a bit of snoop shopping I figured they are still pretty much current. And besides the point of sewing for ourselves is to be able to make what we like, when we like without being dictated to by seasons or fashion designers!

This is quite out of my usual sewing zone - to be sewing pants first of all which I rarely ever do, and to be making a pair from a print fabric instead of a subdued solid colour. But the good thing about my Burda challenge is that everyone now and then I like to try something new and different to what I would usually sew and see what comes out.

So for my October Burda challenge (made during the actual month of October too!) I chose to make the slim fitting trousers 10/2013 #127A:

These are pretty simple pants, rather quick to make but as we all know it's the fitting that takes the most time and effort to get right. Being rather cavalier as usual, I chose not to make a muslin instead just doing some flat pattern measurements. Surprisingly it turned out pretty well (phew!). I wanted to make some slim fitting but slouchy summer pants so I didn't narrow the leg to match those worn by the model in the photograph. I cut out a size 38 to fit over my hips, and took in a little at the waist to stop the gaping that inevitably happens. The back view really shows off my pear shape in an unflattering way, but hey I'm all for truth in reporting around here!

There are some diagonal folds emanating from my saddle bag thighs downward to my knees, but apart from that the fit isn't too bad. What I really liked about this pattern is that it is sewn like men's pants - the centre back seam is done last after the waistband is attached to the pants in two pieces, which means you can take in the centre back seam to fit:

As you can see I did make the centre back seam a little deeper at the waist to get it to fit snugly. I also like that this pattern, like most Burda pants patterns uses an extended pocket piece that connects to zipper, which is a much neater way of doing things:

The fabric I used is a cotton/linen blend bought from Spotlight a few years ago. The fabric didn't wrinkle very much at all much to my surprise, but it did 'grow' a lot after wearing as I suspected it would. After a few hours it bagged out at the knees and the seat giving me the dreaded saggy butt look but I made the waistband facing from interfaced cotton poplin and put belt loops on the waistband so I could wear a belt and make sure they stayed at my waist. So since they didn't fall down I can live with a bit of sagginess - they are meant to be slouchy linen summer pants.

So overall, I'd say this pattern is pretty good (but I'm not all that experienced with pants pattern so I can't say definitively that it's any better than any other pants pattern). One thing I didn't like at all was their instructions for the fly zipper with shield. As much as I read and read those instructions, I just couldn't understand them at all so instead I used this very helpful tutorial with lots of pictures over at Grainline Studio. If I make these again though I would add fly extensions to the centre front of the pants when cutting out rather sewing on a fly extension - it's just a bit quicker and simpler to do it that way.

I took about 4cm off the length of the pants and still have a 5cm hem on these - clearly my legs aren't as long as the leggy models in the magazine that these patterns seem to be drafted for. I did hem them to wear with flats and not heels so they are a bit shorter:



I wanted to try wearing these pants with heels to see how they looked, but my mini-me decided to wear my heels around and copy my poses instead:

How scary that at 4 and half years of age she thinks that posing for photographs like this is normal!