The current Sewing Queue

I’ve found myself at the end of yet another extraordinarily busy week, one where we’ve been out pretty much every single night, and we’ve had a friend over from the States, too. However, I have managed to make progress, albeit slow, on my swirl sheath dress in a series of 10 minute segments snatched here and there.

Since I bought my silver stretch lining fabric on Goldhawk Road last Saturday, I’ve managed to sew and press all the darts (the lining uses the original base pattern so no swirls inside), attach it to the facings, sew the side seam, and attach it to the invisible zipper.

Here’s the back of the dress hanging flat in my sewing cave:

I did the lining hem by machine, but the coral fabric hem needs doing by hand, possibly in the car this weekend. The right side strap also needs a little bra keeper snap strap to keep it in place as it’s a pinch too long. Otherwise it’s done!

It doesn’t quite fit as well as the muslin did when I made it last summer though, but that’s down to me rather than the pattern – I’ve got a big track race next weekend in Sheffield for the British Transplant Games and my trainer has put me on a training diet to shed as much excess weight as possible before the race, as this translate directly into seconds on the track.

She and I were both taken aback by how successful this has been – I’ve lost 4cm (1.5 inches) off my waist and hips and 4.5kg (10lb) in four weeks! If it wasn’t for the hours of running up hills I’d suggest she sell it as a diet plan (the running would reduce its popularity somewhat!). And really, don’t be concerned, as I’ve been stuffing my face with fruit and veggies and lean meats pretty much continuously all month, so I’m not on some idiotic juice cleanse starvation diet or something.

The downside of this is that all my trousers and skirts are hanging off me (my poor Beignet skirt has a cinched paper bag waist now!) and I’m in desperate need of new bottoms. I was planning on sewing up a few pieces for our upcoming Mexico trip next month(!!) but now it’s clear I need to sew as many bottoms as possibly and just pack tops I’ve got already.

I’m still mentally putting together a nice travel wardrobe plan (which I shall reveal in good time), but my immediate sewing plans are thus:

Burda Classics magazine FW 2012 (& MyImage sale!)

We’ve been away in France last week and I’ve picked up a few souvenirs, including a stonking awful cold, which is unfortunately delaying my resumption of normal life and blog activity. So just rest assured there will be much to talk about as soon as my brain is functioning again. Until then, please accept my apologies for anything that doesn’t make sense here!

So, what is this “Burda Classics”, I hear you ask? Well, it’s part of a new series of Burda pattern magazines, set to run alongside the existing monthly issues. It’s available in English & French only, and produced by Burda France as a test run. Apparently there’s going to be 8 “special” issues per year, two of them Classics, two Plus, and the other four are anyone’s guess!

I bought my Classics mag last weekend at Eurotunnel Calais on our drive back – the one and only copy, bwahaha!

Two of these patterns are definitely reprints of earlier patterns (see below), but some may be new, I’m not sure. As you’ll see, there are lots of jackets, which aren’t exactly staples in my own wardrobe!. Sizes range from 32-50 but the bulk of the patterns are 34-44 or 46. The instructions and patterns sheets appear to be similar to those in the regular magazines, though as I have the French version, I can’t vouch for whether the English instructions make any more sense than the usual “Burda WTF” coming from Burda Germany’s head office!

Here’s my favourite pattern of this issue, a great little sheath dress for wovens or stable jerseys, in three hem lengths and three sleeve lengths:

A “Chanel” suit (albeit with a 2 piece sleeve). I intended to place a little rant here about how any chanel-type suit has the magical properties of making its wearer look at least twenty years older, but seeing as how this model looks to be about 60, that actually doubles my earlier estimate. Want to look old and frumpy? Wear a boxy boucle jacket and matching matronly skirt!


(Ok, this is probably a cranky side effect of my cold, as it’s not this pattern’s fault, it’s the “style” I take offense with!)

Omg, it’s the knit wrap dress I made back in 2007! This is a great pattern, appearing first in the May 2006 issue of Burda magazine, and then appearing again as envelope pattern Burda 7953.

Burda magazine October 2012

The last two issues of Burda have been so spectacular that it was always going to be a hard act for poor October to follow, and it’s gotten a bit of a kicking online for so many lazy, square, and shapeless designs. Indeed, I couldn’t find anything to like in two entire features (the Pastels one and the Hippie-Outdoorsy Crappe one), but there was enough in the “New Sophistication” feature alone (photographed with the dressmakers dummies, see below) to justify this issue’s existence to me!

So let’s skip right to the afore-mentioned “New Sophistication” feature, shall we?

I’m not entirely sure why, as it’s wholly impractical, but I really like this long, wool waistcoat (which reminds me of the Sept 2010 jacket that was way too big and boxy). There’s another version in this magazine that’s longer and has integrated long, ponte knit sleeves, too. I know my arms get chilly before the rest of me, so a body warmer really isn’t very practical for me, but the addition of sleeves, well, that changes everything!

This surplice top is nice but nothing new (I’ve seen this design at least 3-4 times in Burdas over the years), and I even quite like the quirky “hip wrap”, which is somewhere between a kimono-belt and a waist pack. It’s definitely a good use for those odd-sized scraps of coatings and leather I’ve got lying around!

I like this cowl top but I hate how Burda flattens these to one side though, ugh! let the cowl free! These high-waisted, slim legged trousers would also be a great wardrobe staple.

KnipMode March & April 2012

The past few months of KnipMode have been so lacklustre that I’ve decided they no longer deserve their own post each month. Yeah, take that, Knip! So I’ve joined the last two months together here in an attempt to find a few diamonds amongst the turds…

March 2012

I really like the seaming on this suede jacket. It’s a different take on the general “waterfall cardigan” design that’s been ubiquitous in the past few years.

Oh dear. Those are some serious “Mom jeans” and they’re not helped by the awful styling and piercing blue denim shade…

The MyImage Purple coat

This coat originally appeared on my Fall 2011 sewing plans, so it feels good to finally finish it just as the weather’s starting to defrost (I hope anyway!). I’ve been wearing my muted turquoise coat for most of the winter, but I’m hoping to wear this to transition into Spring!

I’ve used “coat” in the title, but is it really a coat? Is it a jacket? Where’s the line drawn, anyway? It’s short like a jacket, but wool and warm like a coat, so I’m not quite sure what to call this.

This pattern appeared in the Winter 2011 MyImage magazine (along with that awesome cowl top!) and it’s still available to buy if you fancy it (and holy crap, it’s on sale right now for €1.95/US$2.63, too)!.

You can see some in-progress photos of this coat here and here. The nice thing about working on a project for a while is that you get to see a lot of the “guts” as I work! The downside, of course, is that I have the attention span of a gnat and I get bored when projects stretch over the fortnight mark…

The first thing you notice about this coat is that Big! Collar!! It’s a “whole lotta look”, but I totally dig it. Your mileage may vary! I’ve worn it out twice over the weekend already and the collar is great – it’s substational enough and close enough to the neck that I don’t need a scarf!

Paris fabric shopping

Ahhhhh, Paris! We had a simply wonderful time in the City of Lights this weekend, cramming an entire holiday into a few short hours. We’ve both already been to Paris a few times, so we didn’t feel the need to do the touristy stuff all over again. This left us with an entire weekend to devote to eating and shopping, and socialising with our friends Sat and Sarah (who I’d not met before this weekend, but I now feel like we’ve been friends for years!). As is my habit when I go away, I went fabric shopping so I can now share those shops with you…

As Isabelle says in her guide to Paris fabric shops, the bulk of the fabric and notions shops are in Montmatre, so if you’re pressed for time, head directly to the Abbesses metro and head east (which, conveniently passes right by a branch of my favourite-ever perfume shop, too!). There are a few other fabric shops in the same area that I didn’t pop into, plus a giant notions shop with more buttons than you could possibly imagine, so Montmartre really is your one-stop-shop for fabric, lining, interfacing, zippers, trim – the lot! Everything in Paris shuts down on Sundays, but happily, nearly all of the fabric shops are open on Saturdays which is convenient if you’re only in town for a weekend like us!

La Mia Boutique Dec & Feb

It’s been a while since I’ve bought or sewn from a La Mia Boutique magazine. It wasn’t any sort of conscious decision, but it’s a bit difficult for me to get ahold of since the newsagent that used to stock it is no longer a newsagent, and RD Franks sells out of it within hours of getting any instore… The styles were also usually a bit too “out there” for me, in the way that Italian fashion can sometimes be – always vibrant and interesting, but not necessarily something I’d want to wear myself.

In any case, I’d been hearing reports and seeing scans from others that La Mia Boutique was getting a lot more wearable these days, so I jumped on two recent issues when they came up for sale from a UK ebay seller (afer having a previous order with a UK magazine shop mysteriously cancelled weeks later with no explanation).

December 2009

I absolutely knew I wanted to grab this issue since littlejazzbird gave a pretty comprehensive rundown of the best patterns in it (seriously, go see the scans on her site! She’s sewn up a lot of LMB patterns recently, too), but there were a few more I wanted to highlight…

Bamboozled!

After weeks of patient but persistent requests, I continued my serger high this weekend and finally made my fiance BurdaStyle’s Pete teeshirt in gorgeously soft bamboo knit from Wazoodle we bought back in August (I sewed the brown bamboo into a wrap dress and leg-of-mutton top already).

Since we were over at our friends’ place for a barbecue anyway, I let James have his photoshoot with his two favourite things – cats and beer! Whatta guy…