Liberty shir,t Burda Style 03-2013-147

 Somehow, when my son was selecting fabric for his next shirt, he honed in on a piece of Liberty lawn, that I had bought specifically for myself whilst shopping with Sharon of Petite and Sewing when she very kindly took me to Tessuti in Surrey Hills.

Despite some reluctance to part with this fabric, I felt that such natural good taste should be encouraged. Considering that a lawn shirt is one of the very few items of cool-to-wear-in-hot -weather clothing socially acceptable for a young man, and that Liberty prints have so many colours in them that they co-ordinate with almost everything, I gave in to the inevitable and made him this luxurious garment.

The pattern, Burda Style 03-2013-147, which I have made previously in a smaller size, is modified slightly by making a short sleeved version for high summer temperatures, and discarding all the contrast bits. I also changed the placket.

 technical drawing from http://www.burdafashion.com

Instead of commercial interfacing, I used a medium weight cotton twill both inside the collar,  and as the outer collar stand. This is cooler to wear than the polyester used in most interfacing. There is some hand topstitching around the collar stand for my own amusement, and to pick up the lovely blue shade from the print.

The blue just happens to be exactly the same shade as his hand knit cable pullover from last winter, which due to some forethought in making long cuffs, still fits. One has to take advantage of these serendiptious happenings.

My son selected glowing orange buttons, rather than the neutral ones I was expecting. By using a triple fold placket, as per David Page Coffin's Shirtmaking instructions, instead of Burda's, I was able to follow Claudine's detailed instructions for sewing on the buttons with a waste knot, hiding the thread in between the layers of the placket. I hope this will hold up to the vigours of boy wash and wear.
Despite the  expression, this is a favoured garment, and I will undoubtedly be making more, probably in the next size up, for increased tracing opportunities.

Loud Kiwiana shirt Burda Style 03-2013-147

I am so pleased that my son has a penchant for loud shirts, as unfortunately I find sewing for males generally tends to the unbearably boring, or impossible interestingly challenging to both the seamstress and her precious sewing machine (kayak skirt anyone?), but a cheery fabric vastly improves this state of affairs. Who could be bored with busy Kiwis?

This shirt is the result of some souvenir fabric shopping by my boy (well, he has to do something whilst his mother hangs about in these shops), barely moments (in fabric terms) after we got home from a rather nice family holiday to our next door neighbours in New Zealand.
This particular fabric was purchased because we did not manage to see a real ornothological Kiwi this trip, and he was a tad disappointed. This is entirely our fault for managing to see one on our previous trip, which was very lucky indeed.

The shirt, you may be surprised to hear, is from an entirely new-to-me pattern, as Burda kindly printed a larger size bog standard boy shirt pattern just in time to compensate for the pernacious effects of a growth spurt on my previously well used pattern from many years ago. The pattern, Burda Style 03-2013-147 has a collar with stand, contrast yoke, which I did not use, and long sleeves, which I also did not use, and a cut on button placket, which again I did not use. It is a nice slim cut, unlike Big 4 children and youth patterns, which is a good style to fit my nice extra-slim son. Your mileage may vary.

technical drawing from http://www.burdafashion.com/fr/Magazines/burda_Style

The only real difference from the previous bog standard smaller boy shirt pattern is the nifty buttoning pocket flap, which conveniently contains his public transport card in the otherwise uselessly small chest pocket which still seems to be taking up rather a lot of the actual chest (see above about slimness of boy).

Burda has the pocket in a contrasting fabric in their version, with the flap in the main fabric, which I reversed, but I am inclined in retrospect to think I should have made the whole thing in one fabric - the Kiwis don't really need any complementing here, being sufficiently visually stimulating without any other distractions, but what is a loud shirt without some questionable pattern matching?.
Talking about pattern matching, I made no attempt to do this across any seams what-so-ever, which was strangely liberating, and I don't think it detracts too much from the appearance of the garment.
There is no doubt that I will be using this pattern again, Burda prints some great basics. I am wondering what interesting print I will be using for the next one.

Lucky 7th, Burda Style 03-2013-107 cardigan

I love reversible fabric. I bought this interesting double layer mystery knit in November 2012 from the Nerang branch of Fabric Frenzy on the Gold Coast. It was my only purchase, after I searched very hard amongst the otherwise disappointing selection, so I have my doubts about its quality, but it was really fun to sew, and co-ordinates beautifully with the 6 pieces already made for the winter extension of the University wardrobe.

technical drawing from http://www.burdafashion.com

Fortunately for me, the March Burda turned up with the perfect pattern for this fabric, 03-2013-107, a smart little cardigan for knit fabrics, with front ruching, but how to make it reversible?

I started with hand sewing bias binding to the wrong sides of the seams, treating one side as the right side, then the other, but as my fabric is not terribly stretchy, (and despite making one size larger than usual after reading reviews of the pattern) the cardigan was very close fitting, I abandoned the bias binding trim after the shoulder and armscye seams due to worries about the lack of stretch in the seams making the cardigan unwearable.

I had used the coverstitch to topstitch the "right" sides of the earlier seams, and decided that the wrong side of the coverstitch could be considered a sporty embellishment for the dark side of the fabric, where it was less noticeable.

For the neck and front binding, I used left over polartech powderdry, which made a surprisingly stable edge (previously used for Jalie yoga pants). I hand sewed one folded side down as invisibly as possible.

 For the hems, I used the rolled edge binding (credit to Sham's tutorial) previously used on the necklines of two of the wardrobe tops (my daughter is wearing one of these underneath the cardigan), with the neat edge on the light, more tidy seam side, and the rolled edge on the dark, more roughly finished side.

Fastening was the next issue.

 I had considered snaps, but in keeping with the other outer garment in the wardrobe, ended up using double buttons fastened with elastic loops. (AKA hair elastics!), again this was my daughter's input and she sewed on the buttons whilst I started on my next project ;).

I am very pleased with this sewing experiment, and my daughter loves the cardigan.

Burda Style 03-2013-151 t shirt variations. How to annoy your son.

Just after I wrote a whingy post about how few patterns exist for boys outside the very small stages (come to think of it, there is a dearth of patterns for tween girls too..), Burda included 3 patterns for boys sizes 134-158 in their March 2013 issue. Naturally, having got out the overlocker and coverstitch for my own t shirt, it was my clear duty to use these machines for something else, so as not to waste all that threading time. See, I do plan my sewing.....



Burda's t shirt is a nice raglan shape with a curved hem , and contrast sleeves.



 To maximize fabric use and cutting out efficiency, it was second nature to make 2 t shirts with the opposing colours. However, this is where efficiency left me.

I am taking the Alabama Chanin class on Craftsy. This has no dull old t shirts in it, but there is reverse applique leaving curly raw edges. Can I claim this as inspiration for the stripe effect here?



Unfortunately, although I think this t shirt looks great, and the teenage fashion panel agrees, the verdict from the recipient is that the reverse side of the coverstitch is ITCHY.



It is clearly boy torture to force someone to wear this t shirt. However, I am ruthless and told the boy he should wear a singlet.

The next t shirt was pure whimsy, and involved very little effort, as I embraced the deliberately messy style I see in most RTW for boys (no doubt because it is very easy to sew!). I am very pleased with how it turned out.





I don't think the cyclist is working quite hard enough going up that hill, but otherwise this turned out quite well.
It has a slightly lower boy torture rating from the recipient, in fact, he said it is quite nice.

The next t shirt is seamstress torment. My son asked for another t shirt, not so fancy thanks Mum. I suggested contrast binding? contrast stitching? A tiny bit of decorative coverstitch?
No, plain.



Now he is happy.

Stashbusting statistics, about 2.5 m of cotton lycra jersey 2012

Burda Style 03-2013-137 retro blouse

I have a weakness for heirloom sewing. Lace, pintucks, fussiness, all appeal to me greatly, so when Burda reproduced a 1950's fancy blouse pattern in the March 2013 issue, I could not resist.

Source :http://www.burdafashion.com/fr/Magazines/burda_Style/137_Chemisier_Schema_du_modele 

However, I am aware that both retro and heirloom look more appealing on a young woman, so rather than make this as a dowdy old  unfashionable middle aged lady blouse for myself, I chose to make this retro blouse for my older daughter, who thankfully shares my weakness for lace and fol-de-lols.

The blouse gave me a few hiccups.

When I cut out the blouse, I was a little concerned about the grain direction of the upper yoke .In the heirloom sewing with which I am familiar, pintucks and pleats are carefully aligned with the grain of the fabric. Burda, however, places 3 pintucks on about a 30 degree angle off the straight grain in the upper bodice.

Unsurprisingly, these pintucks disorted the fine batiste fabric considerably. Presumably, my inability to stick with 3 stingy pintucks exacerbated this distortion. 5 is my magic number for pintucks- unless I use 7 ;)

Here is the unaltered blouse with pintuck distortion running rife.

 

Here is the altered blouse with removal of 1cm from each upper bodice piece from the neck, tapering to the shoulders
 
. There is still considerable excess pouf, but I am happier with this iteration. I wonder if the fashion for 1950's sloped shoulders added to my fitting issues - I usually make a square shoulder alteration for my daughter, and thought I had done this when cutting out the pattern, but had to make a further square shoulder alteration as retrofitting.


This is a very pretty blouse. I did not have 5.5 cm wide lace with a scallop border, but it is just as pretty with slightly skinnier lace with and endreteux border in my opinion, particularly as I had this particular cotton lace lurking in my stash..
If I make it again, I would alter the grain of the upper bodice pieces so that the pintucks are either on the straight or cross grain.
Although this is a 2.5 dot pattern, the amount of handsewing required for this pattern makes it rather time consuming and more tricky than most 2.5 dot patterns in Burda.



I added to the time consumption by using french seams throughout, and handsewing all of the lace to the blouse. In my opinion this level of attention to seam finishing is necessary for a translucent garment.
I also used a skirt type placket for the back neck, rather than simply turning under the edges of the fabric - batiste needs a few layers before applying buttons in my opinion.




I found it rather amusing, that without viewing the magazine photo, my daughter styled this blouse with a cuff bracelet and skinny jeans for the mandatory hand-it-over photo shoot.

I think she is on trend.

Burda model photograph

Stashbusting: 1 m of cotton batiste 2009, 2.7 m of cotton lace, 2000.