Camo shorts and loud pyjamas Burda 07-2009-113

During the weekend, I was discussing with daughter-the-first her upcoming 2 week trip to New South Wales, and her Autumn/Winter wardrobe needs. She claimed that she has plenty of Winter clothes, but is sorely lacking in Summer garments.
I think it is more likely that she is finding her Summer clothes boring, as she has been wearing most of them since about September.
Being a pushover slightly indulgent parent at times, I made her some shorts, but did not work too hard.

These are the fourth pair of Burda 07-2009-113 shorts I have made for her, so they were not only already traced out, but pre adjusted, which makes them very quick to sew. They were still lying on my sewing table (but back in the bag) from when I made them in January in blue and white seersucker. I am not terribly virtuous when it comes to putting away my patterns.

I used a remnant of camo printed heavy cotton twill, given to me by a friend of my mother, and used scraps of my quilting cotton dressing gown fabric for the pocket bags, waistband binding and zipper guard.

This, according to my sewing accounting system, makes them free shorts, if I ignore the thread and zipper, a practice that comes easily to me when I am gloating about my thriftiness.

There is a bit of decorative machine stitching on the front pockets, fly and hems, and I added a back patch pocket with a bit more decorative stitching.

The pattern calls for the shorts to be turned up in a cuff, but the original pair of shorts, made with cuff, suffers from lack of ironing, (as I do not iron clothes for persons over the age of 12 unless suitably bribed rewarded),and subsequent cuff wrinkliness, so after discussion with the recipient, I left the hems at the slightly longer length than Burda intended.

At this point I had not completely expunged my attack of thriftiness. I cut out a pair of pyjama shorts, using the same pattern without darts, side seam shaping or fly, and the larger remants of the dressing gown fabric, which had been lifted from the floor, but not removed from the sewing table. I attached 2 ties to elastic and enclosed these in the waistband with buttonholes at the front.

Nearly instant, free pyjama shorts.
+Slightly grateful daughter
+ Slightly less messy sewing table
= Free pass to sew frivolous, unnecessary silk dress, not on any wardrobe plan or sewing list until I saw Cidell's post this morning.
Does that sound reasonable to you?

Travel clothes 3. South Island New Zealand

Hooker Lake Walk, Mt Cook National Park
The rest of the family needed some additions to their travel wardrobes too.

Leggings BurdaStyle 01-2011-130, made from a rayon/lycra knit from Gorgeous Fabrics. This was sold as suitable for jeggings (which I think are psuedo super stretchy leggings with jeans type embroidery, being an interesting denim look fabric, but unfortunately was far too thin for this use. It worked nicely as leggings for travel, drying quickly, but the fabric was a bit too fragile for New Zealand scrub, and became rather full of snags and pulls after a week of hiking. I squeezed 3 pairs from 3 yards, so was rather pleased with the economy of the cutting out.

2 poly wicking t shirts adapted from BWOF 09-2008-143( I have to use up that polywicking stuff in the stash somehow) and polar fleece trousers adapted from BWOF1-2009-143 pyjama trousers. I used wicking poly knit for the trouser waistband and cuffs, which dried very quickly, particularly important for the cuffs which were subject to puddle abuse and creek crossings.
I did not think my son would really need polar fleece trousers, but my husband convinced me, and he was right. It snowed, quite unseasonably, in Milford Sound whilst we were there,which was very exciting, as my son had never seen snow before.
(yes, I know, hardly any snow at all, but we live in the subtropics)

I also made a poly wicking turtlenecks from BurdaStyle 09-2010-121 for my daughter.

This pattern had looked so hideous on me that I threw out the tracings, but my older daughter traced it out again for herself, and it suited her very nicely, and was very quick to sew. My younger daughter, who has a more similar figure to mine, found the turtleneck equally unflattering, and wore a previously made one from a Kwik Sew pattern. I have no photographs of the turtlenecks as they were worn under coats and jackets.
Lucky last, in fact, so last that I sewed the button on in the car on the way to the airport were a pair of seersucker cotton shorts for my older daughter.

BWOF 07-2009-113

I suspect that these are more suitable to the subtropics than New Zealand, but again they dried quickly, and were worn with the leggings for the warmer days.

BWOF 7-2009-113 Shorts

I have been participating in the fabric stash challenge at pattern review, albeit not very seriously, because most of my fabric is over 6 months of age, and it is good to use up the older fabric every so often and to add up the fabric I use. I find this a nice reason to buy more. I don't tend to sew things just to use up fabric though, all my fabric has a planned use - or several competing plans.
It was not until I used up the seersucker for my beach dress that I realized that some of my fabric is currently burdensome to me. I felt very good about using up that particular fabric, so I hunted out a few more pieces that were annoying me.



These shorts for my older daughter are squeezed out from the remnants of a cotton-linen blend I used to make my Christmas dress, 2 Christmases ago. There was not quite enough left for a straight skirt for me :(. I decided that I was unlikely to shrink in the near future. I have far too many remnants that are almost big enough to make something.



The pattern is BWOF 7-2009-113, which I noticed purely because I had the magazine open. They are quite smart shorts, and much longer than I thought they would be. I have made these exactly to the pattern length, and my daughter has long legs (lucky girl!). Unfortunately they did not fit terribly well. The waist is far too big for my daughter. This is my fault, because I did not make a toile, or remeasure her waist before starting the garment, and I have not made her anything fitted for a few months.


I unpicked the waistband at the front and added a pleat. A completely new contoured waistband would have been a better fix, but I had no more fabric. I also stitched a large satin stitch cross across the centre back and centre front of each cuff. This will hopefully prevent the rather soft fabric from unfolding itself in the middle with wear.
These are free shorts. I am considering them a trial version.
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I hope that my poking fun at Burda for having so many beach themed clothing issues was not offensive. I found it quite amusing, and was trying to be tongue in cheek about people in a temperate to cold climate needing so many hot weather clothes. Personally it is very useful for me that they publish patterns for summer clothes right though the year.
The German visitors at Noosa look perfectly appropriate in their black bikinis at the beach. However they do often look rather sunburnt at the restaurants in the evening (as do the 18 year old Australians who should know better). The sun is very strong here, which is why a beach cover up is a good idea. Australia reputedly has the highest rate of skin cancer in the world. There is a drawback to having so many gorgeous beaches I suppose ;).

BWOF 7-2009- 105 A beach dress

The internet sewing community saves me from some serious sewing mistakes.
I was just about to cut out a different shapeless cream caftan, when Katherine h,commented that wovens are cooler than knits, and that bright colours are good for the beach, and not only pointed me in the right direction on my beach cover-up quest, but allowed me to use up some "what was I thinking" fabric. Thanks Katherine.

I got out some very bright red cotton woven with lycra seersucker sort of fabric that I bought at Sckafs fabrics at Indooropilly last January. I originally bought this to make a work shirt (no ironing!) but every time I get it out for this purpose I have been putting it back in the fabric cupboard. I quite like this colour, but quiet and subdued it is not. This makes it perfect for a Queensland beach dress, and also make it completely clear to everyone on the beach that I was almost a local, not a southern import (those ladies were all mostly wearing cream or white cover ups)

I looked through my Burda magazines for a pattern using about the right amount of fabric. Those German girls certainly go to the beach a lot. There seem to be 3 or more issues per year with a beach theme. The German girls in the magazine also seem to like bright colours for the beach - honorary Queenslanders no doubt :). In real life, the German visitors at Noosa seem to favour very small black bikinis, or skin, although no doubt I am generalizing here. I certainly hope that Australian backpackers overseas are not taken as representative of the general population. Most of us are not 18 years old after all. (Did I mention that Noosa is a tourist town?)

I was quite taken with 7-2009-105, which is presented as a beach cover up, until I saw 7-2009-104, (same dress with A line skirt, waist shirring and a collar) which I remembered seeing on Mary Nanna

, and being instantly inspired to copy her, which happens fairly often when I look at Mary Nanna's blog. However my inspiration never seems to catch up with my actual sewing, so I am a bit late with my copying, and can pretend that making this dress was an original idea. Mary Nanna is in no way responsible for the beachyness or excessive brightness of my dress, hers is much more elegant daywear.



I really like this dress, although there were a few scary moments in the early stages. Whilst I was sewing it, I thought it seemed very familiar, and eventually recalled the beach cover up of my great aunt Marg. When I was in primary school, our extended family would stay at Lake Macquarie for a week after Christmas, and Auntie Marg (then in her 60's) would swim a mile every morning. (A very fit lady, who is now in her 90's and still nearly as fit).She wore a seersucker A line robe down to the water,folding it up carefully and leaving it under a convenient rock, then carefully donning her swimming cap, which was covered in artificial daisies, and a source of considerable fascination to me, before starting her swim. I have a great admiration for my darling Auntie Marg, but as she is more than 50 years older than I, this dress was feeling a bit aging, (I am too old for Granny chick) until I added the shirring. There was an instant miraculous transformation at this point. It is amazing how adding a waistline to a garment can improve the figure!

I used the C foot and bridging stitch (no 10) on my Husqvana Lily for the shirring. I like this much better than either the zig zag method or the elastic-in-the-bobbin method as it is adjustable after the construction, and having 2 strands of elastic for each line of shirring provides insurance against shirring failure if one strand should have elastic fatigue at any point. Copying Mary Nanna, I did not carry out the shirring until the rest of the construction was complete, so that I could place it appropriately. My shirring is 8cm higher than Burda's - I am short waisted.





My other changes to the pattern were to swap out the 104 collar for the 105 collar, and to use a contrast fabric for the button bands and inner collar.



I only put in one welt pocket at this point -( following Kenneth King's zippered welt pocket technique from Cool Couture), as I only had one red zipper on hand. I think it is useful to have a zippered pocket for beach clothes. If I am feeling very virtuous at a later date, I may revisit this dress for the next pocket in the interests of symmetry. Don't hold your breath.



I did not use flat felled seams for the sleeves as instructed. The fabric is very textured, and I did not think this technique would be effective. Instead I bound the seams with the contrast print, then topstitched.



I am now considering a more sophisticated fabric for an Autumn dress using this pattern. It is very easy to sew.