A nice collection

So, this is my collection of (mostly) sewing magazines, all on display.
Burda, La mia Boutique, Modellina, and a few others. :D

 

The oldest Burda is from 1969. I found it on a stand, along with other Burdas from the 70s. Including the number that is as old as I am! :)

 

How fun would it be to sew something from THAT Burda magazine? :D

Two muslins - blouses

Both blouses are from Burda. I will post the details as soon as I have something more concrete to show.

This is the third fitting for this one. The first muslin was a disaster, but I kept going. now it looks pretty good. The blouse is long sleeved with a scarf tied around the neck and I have a dark blue viscose with small white flowers to use. It probably will not show the front gathers well. We shall see.

The next one is, ahem , to be recut one size bigger. I'm surprised. It's a size 40 and not fitting? Hmmm... Perhaps I should only redraft the front. This is a great basic pattern and I want to make it perfect because there are two nice floral satins waiting to be sewn up.

More to come.
Stay tuned!

Good night!

Orange linen pants 3F Burda easy fashion F/S 2009

Those were the base of my perfect pants. But now I know many more things about adjustments and decided do it all over again to get another perfect pants pattern!

Voila the result!

Firstly, material notes: Linen from stash, old zipper, cotton scraps for facing and snaps for closure (since there were no matching buttons).

Secondly, what I did: Traced the pattern size 40 waist/42 hips of pants 3F Burda easy fashion F/S 2009. Made the alterations I wanted (swayback, scooped the crotch line and added the missing width to hips, "tall-ified" the pattern ,i.e. lengthened the body of pants and the part above the knee) without muslining. I just knew they would fit!

Oh, I also added back pockets.
The whole making process was quick and easy, except for topstitching. The machine simply didn't want to do it. I successfully topstitched only the pockets, after serial jamming I gave up.

Yay! Winner! Just have to scoop the back crotch line some more and make my fall pants!

Not that it's particularly visible, but should I have placed the back pocket lower?

Ciao!

Dress Burda 8/2011-125 - part 3

Finally the dress is done! With a couple more changes.

First, I wanted to lengthen the sleeves but the result was really ugly. Since I didn't like the above elbow length I shortened them. The pattern was supposed to have a side zipper, but I inserted it in the back. This change influenced the collar, which is now opened in the back. It looks nice, as well as the knotted front. :-)

I didn't line it because I planned to wear it with a slip.

Oh, I love this dress! I will make it again with longer sleeves.

Ciao! :-))

Dress Burda 8/2011-125 - part 2

Here are the top pattern pieces with the alterations traced in red. I pinched the darts on the paper and then retraced all the pattern pieces before cutting.

And here it is! The first stage of the dress construction. I'm quite happy with the fit!

No creases! Well, it is also a knit so it drapes even better around the body. I want to learn how to achieve this every time!

I have to admit that the more I learn about fitting techniques the more I'm fascinated by the science and art of it.

Dress Burda 8/2011-125 - part 1

It was love at first sight, what else can I say?
Ah, this dress..and it's a "tall" pattern...and I found the perfect fabric!

The fitting went through three stages. Here is the second. Some seams have already been taken in - the front seams, central back seam and the back seam for a swayback adjustment.

There was more to do with the upper part of the top.

This is the second muslin. The bottom was fine so I made only the top. As you can see I constructed the sleeves ( in a rather intuitive fashion), as I envisioned the dress to have 3/4 sleeves.

Quite a nice fit! Except for the pulling around the bra. More room had to be added there.

More in the next post.

Blouse Burda 7/2007-101

Another project from the UFO pile. Very old. From the time I used pattern as they were. Without adjustments. You may not see it, but I can feel the pattern needs adjustments!

Blose Burda 7/2007-101 I Like!

The fabric I used were remnants from a dress project for a friend. Including holes and discoloring. I had to implement the usual magic and chemistry to cut the pattern pieces out. But you know I love that!

So nice, both the pattern and fabric! Why did it stay on the ufo pile for such a long time you wonder?
Here's why - I scorched the back piece with the iron! I don't know what kind of fabric this is, but it behaves strangely. Like organza, I'd say.
I was soooo very close to throwing the whole thing away! :-(

Nice...meh...

Then I dug it out in my big UFO busting spree. With rather satisfying results! :-)

The hole got mended. I ironed a little piece of interfacing on the back and then applied this piece of lace on the right side.

Finished! Or maybe not. I should probably apply some lace to the front. For balance. As a design element. Yes, let's put it this way,hehe. Otherwise people might think I just used lace as a patch to conceal a flaw..! :-)

Good night everyone!

Dress Burda 5/2000-131 FO

Remember this dress? And the swayback issue?
I took the time to unpick the zipper and do the adjustment.



It's not perfect, but much better.



And I loooveee it!!!

Chiffon dress based on Burda 2/2008-119

Whipped this out incredibly fast!

I had no idea what to do with this fabric. Well, I bought it to sew a maxi skirt but I just had a lightbulb moment during the construction of the top from the previous post. A simple pattern like this is the perfect base for a gorgeous fabric, isn't it?

The dress has a slight 60's feel to it, and looks also great worn with a skinny belt(my mother's).

One less piece of fabric in the stash, one gorgeous dress inside the closed. And something to wear with the golden sandals... :-))
I wish it was warmer autside! Where is summer?? I still wear socks!

If you have some extra sun warmth around, pleeease, send it our way!

Hugs
Barbara

Still working on it

So, what do you think?

The sleeves were too flapflap wingy. This is better!

And as the dress was too plain I just had to embellish it. I used some of the crocheted circles from recycled embroidery yarn I have a full box of. In complementary colors. I made so many of those circles there will be many more garments embellished with them! :-)

The dress is not finished yet but I love it already! Even though it was not planned to be worn out. You know I love bright colors, but this dress looks so...I don't know...fairytail-ish historical, doesn't it?

And here I spot yet another issue to be addressed!

It looks like the slight swayback adjustment isn't enough. Now I'm wondering... What if I unpick the zip and take the surplus fabric in? One more horizontal seam would not ruin the dress, right? It would look like a back midriff, right? Any thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?

A Burda dress...muslin

Leafing through some of my sewing magazines I got totally inspired by a balloon dress. Then immediately dug up three patterns. One of them is this one from Burda. Another one, that totally thrills me, is from La mia Boutique. The third, also a Burda, is very cute but will wait a minute before I finish these two. :-) More details coming...

So..
The alterations made: lengthened top and slight swayback adjustment.
Fabric: two pieces of fabric from stash, gold and brown with some shine. Almost no remnants left. :-)

I cut a size 40 (hips 42) and it was too big, and somehow too high at the neck. Never encountered this problem before. And haate the sleeves!

After the first few alterations on the dress I still wasn't happy how it looked so I changed few more things: changed the sleeves for cape sleeves and inserted elastic in the hem where the pattern called for a string.

And the neckline will be round...

I'll show you the almost done dress in a minute! :-)