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Inspiration, Magazine

Burda magazine December 2015

It seems Burda has been holding out on us – the last few issues were pretty good but WOW there is a lot to love in this last issue of 2015!

I’m a big fan of cropped jackets, as you know, and I like this one has a full closure as well as full-length sleeves (though if forced to choose, I think I prefer the longer, biker version). But what is with the tight trousers without a waistband? How on earth would they stay up?? They just sound like a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen to me.

Since this is the Christmas issue, we get patterns for the whole family as well as some smaller projects that could be gifted. The selection for boys is particularly strong this time around, with this great jacket/hoodie and a knitted woolly hat that I’d wear myself if it wasn’t too small!

The boys jacket here is just a variation on the one above, but I love the men’s bomber jacket (though James is less enthusiastic). Look at the shape of the raglan sleeve joined with the yoke on it!

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Steeplechase Leggings Times Two

Pop quiz – What’s better than an entire Saturday set aside for sewing?

Give up? It’s an entire Saturday set aside for sewing with a friend! Yes, a few weeks ago my friend Sanchia (whom you may recall as my Threshold Shorts pattern athlete model) was all “we need to set a sewing date and make some leggings!” so we found a Saturday we both had free, and she came round to the boat last weekend! Sanchia has sewn before, but hasn’t made leggings in a while, so she selected some fabric out of my (frankly, overflowing with fabulousness) lycra stash, and we used my Steeplechase Leggings pattern to sew her up a pair without any inner leg seaming.


Tablets are perfect partners for Pdf pattern instructions!

And since we were going to be sewing all afternoon, well, I might as well make a pair for myself, too! Since Sanchia chose my FunkiFabrics “Prism” lycra (I had the Flexcite base but it’s also available on their wicking Titan base fabric, I wanted to choose something dark so we wouldn’t need to change threads, so I used some fabulous cityscape lycra that had literally just arrived from Sewing Chest the day before (they have got some great sales on their sportswear fabric pieces right now, just sayin’!).

We had a good chat cutting out the fabric, and then pinning each step together and constructing them assembly-line style, plus a break for lunch, and then she got to play on my coverstitch machine for the hems and waistband finishing, too. By the time 4pm rolled around, we had two finished pairs of leggings!

We vowed to wear our new leggings to Run dem Crew on Tuesday, where we got another friend to snap some photos of us!

Inspiration, Magazine

Manequim magazine September 2015

This Manequim magazine arrived a few weeks ago but got a little buried under the others in my magazine pile, to be honest. There are a few interesting patterns in it, but nothing that particularly screams “Make me!”, though some of that may be just seeing lots of shorts when we’re thinking about winter in this part of the world.

I’m digging the Frida Kahlo-influenced cover though!

In the celebrity style section I was drawn to the surplice-back shirt – it’s a look I’ve seen a fair amount of in RTW this year, but not very many patterns have used this detail (apart from the other view in the Sew Simple pattern I sewed recently, of course)

There’s only one page of Plus patterns this month, but you get a shift dress, some basic shorts, and panelled skirt that is so similar to Muse Patterns Tahi Skirt pattern!

I’m not sure I quite understand the point of a “blazer cape” hybrid, but the double exposure photo is cool I guess?

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Grey wool trousers (with hidden biscuit pockets!)

I’ve been doing quite a lot of sewing recently (less so on the blogging!). Most of it is for an upcoming pattern, so I’m not able to really share details yet, but I’ve also been trying to take time out to fill a few holes in my own wardrobe. Specifically, I realised I was in desperate need of trousers – I pretty much only had jeans or leggings that still fit me, apart from the Navy twill trousers I made this summer of course. I have quite a few skirts and dresses that still fit, but I tend to only wear those once or twice a week to work and I definitely favour trousers in cooler, wet weather.

So taking inspiration from what I’d had that I wore the most, looked at the grey flannel trousers I made in 2012, which I absolutely wore to death over the past three years. They’re a bit too big now, aside from being bobbled, so I thought I’d look for a similar pattern and attempt to recreate them. I found this pattern from the October 2013 issue, though when I looked through my Burda archives there were a ton of slight variations on this general shape. Hooray for sewing from the archives!


(The top on this page was Tall sizes, but the trousers were the regular size range)

The fabric was from equally deep in my stash – I’d been given this soft, grey flannel by Neighbour Helen just before they moved off the moorings (4-5 years ago), and at the time I already had a similar grey flannel in my stash (which became the aforementioned trousers, a midi skirt, and a sheath dress amoungst other things) so I didn’t cut into this one until that had gone. For some reason I had noted in my records that it was a polyester, but when I did a burn test it turns out it was wool! I found hidden treasure in my deep stash, and there’s a good 2m of it left, too.


Seen here with my favourite green Kimono Sweat top, made with green fleck sweatshirting from Guthrie Ghani.

Inspiration, Magazine

Patrones magazine 354

My inlaws were visiting Spain last month, and I’ve got them so well trained that I don’t even need to ask anymore – they just keep an eye out for Patrones magazine and buy it for me if they see it! They weren’t even phased by the redesigned logo on this one (that’s literally the only change I can see, so that’s kinda odd), and I’m so pleased they grabbed it, because it’s this year’s Coats Special!

If I’m being honest, this Coats Special didn’t grab me quite as much as last year’s, but I did find a lot of interesting details in coats that didn’t otherwise excite me, like the coat from the magazine cover which has an interesting tie/slide closure.

I’m not sure how many parts of Spain warrant a full length, long coat like this, but I know many places in Northern Europe where a coat like this would make wearing dresses bearable in winter!

Out of the way, fur gilet! You’re covering up all the interesting seam lines in the shirt!

My favourite for this entire issue is definitely this asymmetric draped shirt (though the tech drawing is wrong at shoulders when you compare it to the pattern pieces). The hip pleating would require some really precise pattern marking, but I think this would be just stunning in a silk satin for a different Christmas party look…

Inspiration, Magazine

Burda magazine November 2015

I’m slowly working through my pile of magazines (another four more to go!) but I wanted to share my picks from the latest Burda magazine before it becomes outdated and off the newsstands. But the short version is that this is another pretty good issue, and a fantastic one if you’re in the Plus size range!

I really liked the choice of orange and camel in this feature, but for me the standout is this pullover, made in felted wool, which also has the colour illustrated instructions this month. It’s paired with an interesting skirt which was colourblocked in another example, really showing off the V panel. On the right we’ve got a cape, which is really similar to Seamwork’s Camden cape in the current November 2015 issue (except the length, obviously).

I’m not quite sure how I feel about the top on the left with its unsusual, gathered collar area, but the trousers look just a bit too 1970s to me. It’s easily overlooked, but the cardigan on the right has a really interesting construction that isn’t apparent from just the front tech drawing or the photos. Check out those pattern pieces!

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A Day of the Dead refashioned tee

I know I’m technically a day late for Dia de Los Muertos, but if Mexico City can hold their official celebrations today, then so can I!

This project actually started life in a market in Brittany two years ago, where I bought a pair of sugar skull print leggings off a market stall for a grand total €3. But they were “one size fits all” and “made in China”, which means that really, “one size fits most Chinese people”, so the fabric stretched over my thighs making the print pale and unattractive. I still liked the print, though, and the jersey itself was soft and surprisingly nice for the price, but I didn’t wear them much.

So when I came across these leggings when I was switching over to my winter wardrobe last weekend, I pulled them aside and thought they’d be a great candidate for refashioning, especially since we’d planned to attend the British Museum’s “Days of the Dead” festivities. So I cut them apart along the inseam and unpicked the coverstitching, and I was left with a sizeable amount of fabric:

I took my basic tee sloper and my long sleeve fit perfectly into the leggings piece with only a few inches spare at the bottom (added to my scraps pile). Then I sifted through my jersey stash, and after a brief, ill-chosen combination of burgundy, mustard, and black (way too “German flag”, and thrown in the bin!!), realised I had enough of some royal blue ponte to make the body and neckband.


Photos taken before work on a very foggy morning with my phone camera…

Inspiration, Magazine

Patrones magazine 342

While we were in Argentina in August, I kept my eyes peeled for Patrones issues whenever we passed a newsagent. It didn’t take long before I found this one on a newstand in Mar del Plata (and 343, which I already own), likely from last winter but who cares? Patrones do the best coat patterns, and this is a Coats Special!! I’ve made so many of theirs in in the past, most notably my winter coat (still my main winter coat several years later!), the silver tweed jacket I throw on in summers, and my duffle coat, which I wore until it was literally in tatters. I’ve got some wool coating burning a hole in my stash right now, so it’s likely I’ll look to Patrones for this coat, too.

I was mostly drawn to the top, but the Armani blazer is also worth a note for its razor-sharp lapels! On first glance, the top has a shape very similar to a lot of other patterns (like that Lekala top I made a few years back) but a closer look reveals it’s actually got two layers – a satin layer underneath and a gauze layer on top.

This menswear-inspired sheath dress would be a great alternative to the clichéd skirt suit for business meetings! Apart from the curved waist seaming, I love the waist-lapel – it feels more like a blazer than a peplum (which we’re all so over by now, right?). This also reminded me of Charity Shop Chic’s recent spectacular Dior-inspired refashion, too.

Ok, now on to the coats feature, and, ignoring the bubblegum pink colour, I just love this dolman sleeved cocoon coat! It fastens with a hidden zipper placket and only uses 2m of wool, which is conveniently the exact amount of my navy wool coating… This is now top of my list to muslin!

Inspiration, Magazine

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.

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A Slate blue Drapey Dress for Keeps

I have sewn so many Drapey Dresses that I could pretty much make them with my eyes closed. I made the first prototype version for the Great British Sewing Bee: Fashion in Fabric book last summer, and I even got to cheekily wear it out for a weekend before returning it for pattern development purposes. Then I sewed something like 6 more over the next year, including both the blue and stripey versions seen in the book, and the lovely pink one CL wore to promote the book during her February “Bee Mine” challenge.

But I still didn’t have one in my wardrobe to call my own! It’s definitely saying something about the greatness of this pattern and design that I still even wanted one – I mean, I’m usually sick of a pattern after making it 2 or 3 times!

Having seen this dress in all colours and prints imaginable, it made it all the harder to pin myself down to this “duck egg blue” ponte from Truro Fabrics. Theirs isn’t the cheapest ponte out there, but it’s really nice quality and doesn’t tend to bobble as quickly as others I’ve bought elsewhere. I made this Burda vintage wiggle dress using a Truro ponte three years ago and the dress still looks great, despite constant winter wear.