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La Maison Victor magazine – Sept/Oct 2017

While we were relaxing in the Loire Valley in France a few weeks ago, I took the opportunity to hit up some of the big hypermarchés’ magazine sections and flip through all the sewing magazines! I saw the usual suspects like Burda, Elena Couture, and Fait Main but also a fair amount of new(ish) ones, too. I was unimpressed by the several magazines which simply reprint Big Four patterns (I understand the economics, but I’m not tempted in the slightest), but excited to see Fashion Style (the French language version of KnipMode, which I’ll share in a future post), and also Couture Actuelle, the French language version of Patrones, and of course, La Maison Victor!

La Maison Victor magazine – Winter 14

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of pattern magazines, and I’d heard whispers recently that there’s a new Belgian pattern magazine on the market, so I kept my eyes peeled while we were in Brussels for the weekend in December… and couldn’t find it. But then, just as we were apart to take the Eurotunnel back to the UK, I found a copy of La Maison Victor in the WH Smiths in the Calais terminal! Hurrah!

So I can share details of the newest pattern magazine to you, and it’s good. Like, really, really good! It’s a quarterly magazine printed in Dutch, French, and German, and contains patterns for both sewing and knitting for both sexes through from babies to adults!

First up, I know you want to see the patterns that are included in this issue, and La Maison Victor make it easy – the pattern sheets are included in a special booklet in the centre of the magazine with the tech drawings printed on either side. You can tell they really did their research on this, as a lot of sewists prefer to keep their pattern sheets separate from the fashion magazines.

This magazine has got fantastic art direction and styling. It really feels like a boutique fashion magazine, and the garments are shown in a variety of poses and detail shots, and some, like this, are just to lay out what’s coming up in a feature.

One of the included patterns is for a basic wrap dress, but again, styled and presented very nicely, and with the tech drawing, layout, and instructions appearing immediately after it in the magazine. This is great as it means you don’t have to keep flipping to the instruction section while holding your place in the regular magazine (like I do with Burda, Manequim, KnipMode, La Mia Boutique, Patrones, etc etc).

Post-coat winter sewing plans

Now that I’ve got my big winter coat sewing out of the way, I can turn my attentions to filling in a few gaps in my winter wardrobe. Sewing these things now means I can get another good 3-4 months of wear out of them before moving on to short sleeves and lighter jackets (no really, for the past few years we’ve had flurries and hard frosts in April or May).

So I’ve gathered together the patterns I’d most like to sew along with fabrics I’ve got in my stash that would help fill my wardrobe voids…

Starting at the top of this collage, we’ve got:

Look magazine – August 2015

I briefly mentioned the Argentinian pattern magazine, Look, when I told you all about buying magazines in Argentina last month, but it’s time to take a deeper look into what’s inside!

I totally love sewing pattern magazines – you get so many fashion-forward styles for such a low price, and it’s fun to see what fashions are like in different parts of the world. So far I’ve bought pattern magazines from Germany (Burda!), The Netherlands (KnipMode and My Image), Belgium (La Maison Victor), France (Fait Main), Spain (Patrones), Italy (La Mia Boutique), Brazil (Manequim, Moda Moldes, and Molde & Cia), and now Argentina, how exciting! It doesn’t matter if I can’t speak the language the magazine is written in – as long as I can translate enough to pick the right size and fabric, and identify the pattern pieces, I can sew together most garments without instructions (though usually you can just look at another similar pattern’s English instructions and follow along with those instead). The Google Translate app can translate most text on-the-fly if you point your phone’s camera at the magazine text, too, which saves you from having to type in all the text yourself.

But back to Look! This was the current issue when we were in Argentina in August, along with a “mother and baby” issue from the previous month which I didn’t bother to buy (having several kids pattern magazines already and nieces and nephews into adult sizes now). This particular issue just captured my heart, as it features a huge amount of SS15 runway designs! Remember back in the 1990s and early 2000s when Burda used to do International Collections magazines knocking off all the runway looks? Well that’s precisely what this issue of Look is all about!

I’d say a good half of the patterns in this issue are straight off the runways. Look is a bit different from the other pattern magazines in that the instructions are in a separate booklet from the glossy magazine and the pattern sheets. This means you kinda have to have both open at the same time to see tech drawings next to the runway photo, but is a bit easier than flipping back and forth in the same magazine. If you buy Look on a newsstand, make sure you get all three pieces! Even though the instructions are in their own booklet, these are the briefest I have ever seen in any pattern magazine, so clearly they’re not intended for beginners…

Another observation – like Manequim magazine, most of the Look patterns are only offered in one or two sizes, and the sizes are tiny!! Like, Japanese tiny. Which is strange because even in Buenos Aires the people on the streets seemed to be fairly normal European-sized… Seriously, I’m a size 48 in this magazine, which means I could only fit into one or two of the patterns in this entire issue. (By comparison, I’m a 42 in Burda, La Mia Boutique, La Maison Victor, and KnipMode, and 44 in Patrones and Manequim). Usually with Manequim, most patterns I like are either in my size or a size up or down, which makes it easy to just fudge into fitting, but grading up a bunch of sizes is just too tedious to me.

An orange O'Keeffe skirt

As I switched over to my summer wardrobe this year, I noticed an unwanted side effect from all my recent marathon training – way too many of my cute summer clothes were now baggy, droopy, and sad, including my aqua pleated La Mia Boutique skirt. Big sadface! I’d worn it in heavy rotation most summers since I’d made it, but off to the charity shop it went, creating a “bright summer skirt”-shaped hole in my wardrobe since.

Enter the Sinbad & Sailor O’Keefe skirt pattern, which I’d bought right after it came out last year, and never quite got around to making. Pair it with some fabulous bright orange textured fabric I’d been lovingly gifted, and the hole was well and truly filled!


(Remember the lace tee from last summer? Yup, I wear that all the time, too!)

I made size 14, which seems pretty true to RTW sizes (though the first time around I cut out the pattern pieces in size 10, my US size, as it wasn’t clear which sizing the pattern was using – good thing I caught it before I cut out my fabric!). The skirt fits nicely around my waist and hips, but still provides enough ease to sit and walk with my mega-long stride comfortably, and the length is perfect for me, too.

Happy 2012!

As is traditional, I like to take the opportunity at the start of a new year to look back on what I’ve sewn in the previous calendar year.

Somehow I keep getting more and more prolific each year… and it’s a bonus that you get to watch my hair grow as you skim downwards, ha!


(Click the above to en-biggen, or right-click here to open it in a new tab to get a better look

You’ll notice a few at the bottom that I haven’t shown you yet (seriously I only just finished the maternity maxidress with mere hours to go!), but all the rest can be seen by clicking the Gallery link on the top left of the site, then clicking through to the full article.

To make a few statistical analyses of my own, by my count:

  • I’ve sewn 7 dresses, 18 tops, 8 trousers, 6 skirts, 6 jackets/coats, 2 bras, a ton of panties, and other miscellanea (cat toys, boat stuff, mixer covers, shopping bags, etc!)

  • The number of times I’ve sewn with pattern companies: 15 Burda magazine, 9 KnipMode, 2 Mannequim, 3 Colette Patterns, 3 Jalie, 3 Lekala, 2 La Mia Boutique, 2 Patrones, 2 My Image magazine, 2 vintage, and 1 each from Paco Peralta, Hot Patterns, Vogue, and Christine Jonson (so that’s only one Big Four pattern the entire year! I’m oddly proud of that!)

  • I taught 2 sewing lessons to help 3 friends learn to sew!

  • I’ve sewn gifts for 8(!!) other people (and 3 cats!)

  • I was published this year, with my dress variation instructions in the BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook! OMG!

My aqua pleated skirt

I’ve been talking about making this skirt for months now – I really liked it when it first appeared in the September 2010 issue of La Mia Boutique (#26), and then I thought I’d make it this winter, but my chosen fabric seemed too summery… But finally, its day has come and I’ve made it a reality!

It’s hard to see in the magazine photo, but there are pockets integrated into two of those pleats, too, which I really like!

And then someone on Pattern Review was asking for a pattern suggestion to knockoff this Karen Millen skirt, and I realised that my LMB pattern was really very fashionable indeed!

My pattern has more pleats, plus the added pockets, so I think it’s a better design, but I still appreciate seeing similar clothes in high end RTW, especially if I already liked the design anyway!

Idées Couture magazine May 2011

While we were in Toulouse during our French road trip, not only did the lovely Marie-Christine put us up for the night and cook us a wonderful dinner, but she had a gift for me, too – the latest edition of Idées Couture magazine!

If you’re not familiar with Idées Couture, it’s a monthly magazine that usually has a mix of knitting, crochet, and other crafts, and then one issue per year is a full translation of La Mia Boutique magazine. So even though this issue is the May 2011 Idées Couture, the designs and photos are all from the March 2010 La Mia Boutique magazine. Handily, this was just before my LMB subscription started, so these are all new designs to me!

To complicate matters, last year it was looking as though there was going to be a monthly French LMB translation, titled Ma Boutique, but now it appears that was just a one-off issue and they’re back to doing the yearly Idées Couture magazine instead. Confusing, I know!

The first feature was full of nautical styles that I can never really feel I can wear (for, err, obvious reasons). But I love this short, sailor-style jacket with the contrast topstitching. Clearly I wasn’t the only one, either, as I found out this was the cover image for the equivalent La Mia Boutique issue…

Silver silk jersey tunic

Cast your mind back a year ago, when I totally raved over a certain Plus-sized La Mia Boutique tunic pattern (La Mia Boutique 12-2009 #19)…

This pattern was SO in the style of my sister-in-law, Aileen, that I proposed it to her right away, and even made the muslin for her almost exactly a year ago! Thankfully I made all the changes to the pattern as soon as I got home from the fitting session, and I even bought the silver silk jersey she wanted from Classic Textiles on Goldhawk Road… But then I totally lost momentum and the altered pattern pieces have been hanging on my pattern rack making me feel guilty ever since!

So about 3 weeks ago, I finally sucked it up and made this for her (rather belated) birthday gift. All in all, it only took an afternoon from fabric cutting to completion – why didn’t I just do this months ago! We finally visited Aileen yesterday to give this to her, so I can now post about it. I didn’t get to see her in it since she had her hands full with her 6 year old’s birthday party, but she texted later last night to say it fits well and she loves it, so hopefully I’ll get to see it at some later family gathering!

Until then, you’ll have to make do with Susan modelling:

March Mini Wardrobe

I’ve finished my post-coat winter sewing plans apart from the La Mia Boutique draped skirt which I’m feeling now is better suited for spring or summer, so I thought I’d dip my toes into the Pattern Review Mini Wardrobe contest that’s running throughout the month of March.

This is a pared-down version of their usual, sprawling wardrobe/SWAP contest, so this time around you need to create a five piece wardrobe in four weeks, using one item you already own (sewn or RTW) and be able to create at least six different outfits from this. I’m actually going one better and aiming to sew five pieces rather than four, but that may fall by the wayside depending on how the month goes.

Here’s what I’ve got in mind: