My BurdaStyle Book contributor experience

This is a mirrored post to my spotlight on the BurdaStyle blog. I wrote about my experience back in September before the book came out!

When I heard there was a BurdaStyle book planned, I just knew I wanted to be a part of it! I had been a beta tester for BurdaStyle before the site ever even launched, and I’ve always felt that it was such a great resource for encouraging more people to sew and be creative and share ideas.

So last year I expressed my interest to be a contributor, and I was invited to submit some ideas for pattern alterations on two patterns for the book. I sat down with the details for the dress and coat patterns and just brainstormed for a week, drawing up loads and loads of ways I could take those basic patterns and morph them into something totally new. Some ideas were simple like, What if I lost the coat sleeves, shortened it at the waist and made it in fur? Or, What if I added sleeves to the dress, lengthened the centre front and made it a wrap dress? Eventually I paired down my sketches to about eight and submitted them for consideration.

I wasn’t really expecting any of my submissions to be picked for the book (my drawing skills have gone way downhill since high school art classes!), so I was ecstatic to learn that not only was I picked to be a contributor, but my dress variation was picked to be one of only two dress pattern variations in the entire book! Then it dawned on me that the tight deadlines would coincide with the few months I needed to sew my wedding gown! So I did some hardcore time management and set aside the better part of a month last summer to document my pattern alteration, write the new sewing instructions and sew up the sample for the book, PLUS get it sent off and done before the deadline!

The Burda trench jacket

I’m so pleased to finally show you the first piece from my Fall 2011 sewing aspirations – the trench jacket!

As you recall, I was restricted in my pattern choice since I bought the last 2.5 yards of this waterproof gabardine from Mood when we were in NYC last Fall, but in the end I settled on Burda 02-2009-112. The gabardine feels great – it’s not coated with anything and it doesn’t feel plasticky – it’s just that the weave is so tight that water beads on it! Perfect for London!

This is a Burda Petite pattern, but the only change I needed to make to the muslin was to lengthen the sleeves! I’ve been busy sewing this in tiny increments over the past few weeks because I’ve been so busy, and you can see that we had to squeeze in this photoshoot after work, too!

I really love the overall shape of this totally curvy jacket, but I especially love the pleated back vent, which was surprisingly very easy to sew! I cut the same pieces in the lining, and I cleverly waited to sew the diagonal topstitching to keep the folds in place until after the lining was in so the two layers stay together nicely.

The Madame Grès exhibition

One of my highlights of our weekend in Paris was seeing the superlative Madame Grès exhibition at the Musée Bourdelle. For me, this was higher on my Must-Do list than even visiting the Montmartre fabric shops, and I was so glad that this museum is open on the weekends, and even located very close to our friends’ flat, too.

Madame Grès originally wanted to be a sculptor, so it makes perfect sense that the dresses were shown in a sculpture museum, and intermingled amongst the various sculptures on display.

I went on a Saturday afternoon, and the museum was filled to the brim with middle aged women and young men, all taking a multitude of photos on their cameras and phones. Had I known it was allowed, I would’ve brought our DSLR, but as it is, you’ll have to settle for the limited detail from my iPhone…

The Winter Coat – construction

About a year ago I bought some gorgeous, ex-Burberry wool coating fabric from Ditto with plans to eventually make another winter coat. The muted turquoise wool has a patterned herringbone weave on one side but it’s also very thick and un-drapey but has the advantage of not fraying at all (almost like a boiled wool or Melton).

The fabric is so thick that I knew had to choose my pattern wisely, leaving out coats with lots of pleats or gathers that would’ve meant lots of bulk here.

As soon as I saw the Armani knockoff coat in the September Burda issue, I thought I’d found the match for my fabric, but as you recall, that pattern was just downright awful. So I started looking through my coat patterns again for something suitable, and Claire (Seemane) suggested I combine Patrones 285 #29 with some elements of the other coats in that issue, which is more or less what I ended up doing (though I need to change my tech drawing here to show the applied welt pockets I finally decided on rather than buttoned welts).

Our DIY wedding – the dresses, makeup, and final photos

Either groan or rejoice, but this is the last of the wedding posts!

The bridesmaids dresses

If you cast your mind back, you’ll remember the selection process, how I fitted and then hand-pleated, the lined, silk jersey dresses for my two bridesmaids, but even after I finished them, there wasn’t a chance to see either P or G wearing their dresses, let alone together!

It was really nice on the wedding day to be able to see both of my great friends looking so happy and nice, and comfortable, too, in the bridesmaids dresses I made for them.

Their colour choices really suited them both, too, and even though I offered to shorten them after the wedding, I know P (in purple) is definitely keeping hers as a wonderfully posh maxidress. (S was my Man of Honour, but no, I didn’t make his suit!)

My dress

You’ve seen it in pieces and finally, in comparison with my grandmother’s original gown, but here’s some more photos where you can see the seamlines particularly well:

Our DIY wedding – the flowers

To carry on with the rest of our DIY wedding (oh no, it didn’t end with the wedding dress!), the flowers were something we’d both thought about, but hadn’t really wanted to go overboard with, preferring instead for subtle and personal accents. My bridal bouquet of white roses, plus two bridesmaids’ bouquets, and a ton of rose buttonholes for the gents, were all made by James’s Auntie Anne, who is a keen amateur florist. She even sent me a self-addressed envelope to get fabric swatches of the bridesmaids dresses so she could best match their bouquets to their dresses!

How gorgeous is this centrepiece, too? I told her since we wern’t having “wedding colours” (ugh ugh ugh!) that she should either go for all colours, or just white. So she incorporated the bridesmaids’ dress colours into it and I just love it. I think it’s just stunning, and I’m glad we got to enjoy it during the ceremony and then again during dinner at the top table.