Glastonbury meets IKEA

Back when I got the pillowcases for the famous IKEA skirt, I also bought a Tanja shower curtain that caught my eye from across the store and was conveniently marked down to a fiver.

It’s stayed in my fabric stash ever since, just waiting for the perfect project, which presented itself in the form of this Burda WOF 60s dress from the May 2007 issue. It turned out to be the perfect fabric for this dress, considering that Glastonbury is coming up in a few weeks and I’ve been wanting something special to wear (and let’s face it, if the famous downpours happen again this year, this dress is ready for them!!), and because the pink piping matches my hot pink wellies perfectly.

Refashioned Ikea Patrones skirt and bag

I’m no stranger to repurposing Ikea – so far I’ve turned two pillowcases into four placemats, a shower curtain into a dress, and a pillowcase into a skirt. I picked up some blue, pre-hemmed table runner fabric back at the same time I bought the shower curtain, but it’s just so narrow that I couldn’t really think what to do with it and it’s languished in my stash ever since.

But I’ve been in the sewing doldrums lately, waiting for the weather to warm up, so I had another look at the table runner and saw the potential for a cute, flirty skirt using this Patrones skirt pattern from the October 2007 issue (#261, pattern no. 22). Big, big thanks to my generous Patrones benefactor, Zoe, for letting me borrow her past few issues so I don’t go broke on German eBay!

Because the Ikea table runner fabric was so narrow, I had to get out my seam ripper and unpick one entire hem in order to make the skirt as long as possible. I kept the other side hem intact to use as the bottom of the skirt to save myself a construction step!

Ikea pillowcase placemats

Way back in August, James and I picked out this green naughty kitties fabric to use as pillowcases for our eventual lounge. We’ve since been on the lookout for the cheapest pillows we can find so I can make up new kitten covers for them, but you’d be surprised how overpriced even the ugliest pillows are today!

But then on a post-Christmas Ikea trip, we found these “ISIG” pillows on sale for £2 each. I think they must’ve been considered holiday items because of the snowflakes, but frankly, these were too good to just throw away. They’re cotton/linen blend, with the red snowflake (or star) design on one side, and stripes and a zipper closure on the other.

I normally hate IKEA, but…

…it was just before closing time and there was some cute fabric I wanted to grab (and the boy wanted some pear cider from the Swedish shop) so I allowed myself to be dragged into the 9th circle of hell, just this once. Across the warehouse-wasteland expanse of the store, a bold red print called out to me. But on further inspection, the print belonged to just some pillowcases. How disappointing!

Or, what if I could somehow turn those pillowcases into something wonderful? It took an evening, but out of two pillowcases and a bit of bias binding, this skirt emerged (and because the pillowcases each had a zipper, I’ve got an extra now!):

Draped jacket – no ordinary lining

There’s been only slow and steady progress on my draped suit (Burda September 2011 #126 and 127) this week as there’s been little time to sew, but I did get a few hours of “me time” in on Sunday evening after my insulation work was done for the day.

Those few hours were enough for me to finish the entire shell of the jacket and skirt, but I needed a clear surface to cut out the lining fabric, so that was delayed until last evening (since my running group was cancelled). Since the wool suiting has stretch, I didn’t want to negate the benefits of that with a non-stretch lining, so I pulled out one of the few stretch wovens in my stash – a blisteringly hot pink stretch satin I’d bought from Fabric.com last year (and came across in my mom’s suitcase before the wedding). Despite it being polyester, it actually feels wonderful and it was worth the price to be such a high quality lining.

Reprinted Burda patterns

I’m a huge fan of Burda World of Fashion magazine (BWOF) (elsewhere in the world known as Burdamode), but because the patterns are only available for one month only, sometimes it’s frustrating to miss a really good pattern when you seen it sewn up months later. I’m guilty of that myself, but Burda thankfully choose a few patterns each year from all the hundreds (if not thousands?) published in the magazine to reprint and repackage as Burda envelope patterns.

Burda envelope patterns have the same drafted patterns as appeared in the magazine, but they include seam allowances and have much better sewing instructions, with helpful diagrams and tips. The good thing is, these stick around for much, much longer than just one month, and are sometimes easier for people to buy in stores than the magazines.

So in the interests of friendly copycats inspiration I thought I’d fill you in on some of the garments myself and others have made from BWOF that are now more widely available in case you missed that magazine issue…


My tweed kick skirt is now Burda 7895


My tuxedo inspired suit is now Burda 7762

La Mia Boutique

I had an optician’s appointment which brought me into the center of town last evening, so I took the opportunity to see if Borders or Oxford News had the April issue of Burda World Of Fashion magazine yet. It turned out I was a bit too early, but Oxford News did have one copy of the Italian pattern magazine La Mia Boutique left, and since it’s one of the few pattern magazines I haven’t tried yet, I couldn’t say no!

I’ve already compared Burda WOF vs KnipMode vs Patrones magazines so I thought I’d give you a peek of La Mia Boutique, since there’s not much information online about it, and I can’t even find an official site anywhere!

OrnaMENTAL!

This is the first year my boyfriend and I will be in our own place for Christmas, so we’re starting from scratch as far as ornaments and decorations go. We bought a string of lights and two packs of shiny baubles from the store, but apart from a few candy canes, the tree was bare.

I started with some festive bunting, by cutting triangles of fabric from an off-white curtain sample (donated by my boyfriend’s mother) and sewing them all together in a long strip of dark green bias binding.