Hoo boy. Last month’s Burda roundup sure divided opinion! Thankfully, October’s edition sees us deep into Fall fashion, with hardly a dirnd- oh wait… 😒
Burda magazine October 2016
Lots of little happenings
I’ve got a bunch of things happening all at once (on top of crazy good opportunities coming out of my ears that I can’t talk about yet!) that weren’t quite big enough for a full post on their own so I thought I’d round them all up into a fun bit of Friday inspiration for you all! I’ve also got, ohhh, four finished garments to properly photoshoot so hopefully next week you’ll get to see more of those, too.
A bacon splint cover
This may be the strangest thing I’ve ever sewn but a colleague was in a hit & run which broke her wrist, requiring metal plates and several surgeries. She’s doing much better now but hates the depressing beige brace she has to wear, so I offered to sew her a fun cover for it.
Beating the Odds – an interview with Seamwork Radio
Wow, what a great surprise! I’d almost forgotten about the conversation I had with Sarai for Seamwork Radio […]
How to add side pockets to your Steeplechase Leggings
I’ve got a little something different for you all today, compliments of fellow reader and runner Elaine Klein, who emailed me to show off a fantastic modification she did to add side pockets to her Steeplechase shorts.
The Steeplechase Leggings pattern includes a hidden back waistband pockets, but, if like Elaine, you too prefer to keep your keys or lip balm on your leg instead, then read on and see how she added these. Thanks so much, Elaine! -melissa
When my running buddy suggested that we celebrate our favorite trail run by wearing watermelon patterned shorts, your patterns helped us realize that kinda silly dream. Our matching melony shorts were quite a hit! Thank you.
More remarkably, as I dialed in the steeplechase pattern to suit me perfectly (having learned from your blogs and community that this is possible and preferable to wearing ill fitting running shorts) I grew confident enough to tinker a little, so I added pockets to my shorts. I tried the pouch pocket, but I prefer side pockets – I usually tuck an ID or gel or tissue or lip balm in these, but they are large enough to hold my smartphone (though not secure enough to do so comfortably for a long run). They’re also a fun decorative accent.
Burda magazine September 2016
It’s September and that can mean only one thing – Oktoberfest and an issue crammed full of ugly dirndls, yay. Luckily for us, the rest of the patterns in this issue are continuing on Burda’s 2016-long winning streak so let’s take a look inside…
The Sewing Weekender
It’s taken the better part of a week for me to calm down and recover after the stimulation overload that was the first-ever Sewing Weekender, held this past weekend up in Cambridge. It was organised by the ladies behind The Fold Line along with English Girl at Home after being really jealous of all the great sewing getaways and camps run over in America, and it seems they were right to want to replicate over here. Tickets went on sale (for a very reasonable £45) and sold out in literally under an hour. I credit my being able to buy a ticket mostly down to following these ladies on social media and jumping as soon as they became available (Pro-tip if you want to attend the next one when it’s announced!).
The event itself was held in one of the Cambridge colleges, with the option to stay overnight in one of the residence halls (dorm rooms), which I took advantage of after seeing it was cheaper than other hotels in town and less hassle than another set of late night and early morning trains between Cambridge and London!
Burda magazine August 2016
The August issue traditionally signals the start of Fall fashions in Burda’s world, and I’m pleased to report that this is yet another great issue! You can probably tell this by the sheer amount of designs I’ve pulled out to show you, ha.
Even in my first flip through the magazine after it arrived, I was so struck by the beautiful and unusual tab closure on this jacket! It’s such a great idea that I feel it must surely be a vintage-inspired detail, but the shape of the 3-piece(!) rounded sleeves really gives it a good balance of modern design, too.
Adjusting the Duathlon Shorts pockets for bigger phones
My Duathlon Shorts pattern has been one of my best selling designs, and for good reasons – it’s easy to sew, has a bunch of length options, and suits a wide variety of activities. It’s also got two pockets integrated into the side panels, great for stashing your stuff. But when I made this pattern back in 2014, the iPhone 4 and 5 were the standard size phone, and phones have gotten so much bigger over the past few years! I’ve had a few requests asking how to enlarge the pockets to suit an iPhone 6, and it’s really easy to do!
I’ve drawn out the changes into the below diagram, but essentially you need to add both width and depth to the pocket for bigger phones.
Burda magazine June 2016
Apologies for the delay in reviewing this issue, but as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been spending pretty much all of my sewing-related time and effort into getting the new site ready (and running a little race in Transylvania as well!). Handily, this issue is still on newsstands for a few more days so if you see something you like, you should still be able to get a hold of this issue – or you could always buy the pattern pdfs from the BurdaStyle site if you’d rather.
Moving and redecorating
After 10 years, I’ve finally done something that I’ve been putting off for a long time – I moved this entire site onto a new backend. This may not sound like much, but I knew it was going to be a really painful process so I put off doing it for as long as possible.
When I started writing FehrTrade.com back in 2006, I set it all up on a great open source blogging platform called TextPattern, and for a few years it suited my needs well. But the web has evolved massively in the past ten years, and unfortunately, the contributors to TextPattern have not, and even doing seemingly simple things like tagging required a bunch of coding knowledge and a lot of crossing of fingers. Don’t even think about social network integrations – they barely existed when the site was created! I kept coming up against limitations in what I could actually do with the site, and eventually I realised I’d have to move everything over to a different backend in order to keep the site going at all (let’s not even talk about the security holes!).