Burda 08-2011-130 shorts repeat, flood report and stash confession

Thank you to the people who sent me emails and left comments about our possible dampness. We are just fine, having a house well above flood level and being quite used to floods in this area (The media are reporting "Highest flood" rubbish, leading to panic amongst relatives, but really, this is not the highest flood for our region even in the 14 and a bit years we have been living here! It was a bit of a surprise to have 76 hours of heavy rain after 3 months without a drop, but we are dry other than a little seepage directly from the heavy rain driving under the doors, have plenty of milk (so far) and my son is thrilled to be starting his school year, tomorrow, with a day off. I wish I could use that excuse too ;)

 Above is my daughter modelling her new shorts in front of the cross street at the bottom of our hill, where there is usually a tiny creek running under the road.
Our main river is 20m above its normal level, which cuts us off from all other towns in all directions, but most of the residents live on high ground.

These shorts are the same pattern as the ones I posted yesterday, Burda Style 08-2011-130, again in stretch cotton denim, this time the fabric is from Gardams, Indooropilly, purchased June 2012, specifically for a pleated skirt. ;)

I noticed when I was in Brisbane a week or so ago that Gardams has now closed at this location. I hope it has just  moved a bit, rather than shut up in this suburb.

 

The  shorts again have a waistband pocket and are lined and seam bound with quilting cotton.
Having a few oddly shaped pieces of fabric remaining, shorts taking less than a pleated skirt, I was very pleased when daughter the second expressed great admiration of this pair and whipped her up a pair too before she could consider whether or not she was too old to match her sister.







Her pair does not have a waistband pocket (that is the whipping up bit) and somehow the fastening has drifted to the opposite side, but it is important to have variety amongst the clothing of siblings for laundry sorting purposes. (Good excuse, hey!)
There are now no garment sized pieces remaining of this fabric.
This is just as well.
Yesterday afternoon my husband kindly put reinforcing strips at the front of the shelves in my sewing cupboard, as for some strange reason, completely unrelated to the contents, the shelves were bowing.

This woodworking repair involved removing everything from the cupboard, and in the return to the cupboard, which took most of today, I shifted nearly all (well there are only a few rolls  in the sewing room now) of the other fabric that had distributed itself around the house all into one place.
It was a little tricky to fit it all in.




This stashbusting sewalong may have started in the nick of time for me.

If you missed last post I am giving away some children's patterns and pattern magazines - (having only one boy child still to clothe) there is still time to add your name to the hat.

Burda Style 08-2011-130 shorts, and a giveaway

I have made these shorts twice before, and they were a great success with daughter the second, so were a natural choice for the start of my older daughter's Uni wardrobe, which I think may be my 2013 SWAP entry, should I get my act together.

Technical drawing from BurdaStyle magazine

This version is from a stretch cotton denim, stash age approximately 2008, from Kerryn's fabric world. As I have a bad history with stretch nether garments, I have used a woven cotton for the waistband facing and button plackets, and have reinforced the crotch and waist seams with woven selvage to minimize bagging.



This, and the bias bound seams, also helps to use up little bits of fabric for stashbusting purposes.
I added a waistband pocket, just the right size for a Go card (Brisbane public transport card) using this method.
My daughter is very pleased with them.





A win in several areas at once is good!

In the spirit of stashbusting, I have been sorting through my patterns.



Today I would like to give away these excess children's patterns and magazines. They are not current, but I find TopKids magazines very useful for the basic children's clothes that do not change much, such as shorts, t-shirts and little girls' frocks. These magazines are all duplicate copies, as I am keeping my set ;). The Chery Williams patterns for smocked dresses include good instructions for heirloom sewing techniques. I would rather give them to a reader than the Op Shop. If you would like these patterns and magazines (as a set) please say so in a comment on this post by Jan 31. If more than one person would like them I will draw names.

Another go at Burda Style 08-2011-130: Shorter shorts

Sometimes a pattern won't let go. I made stretchy woven shorts, and thought I had figured out a successful item from this pattern, but I still felt like making version with snaps. I also wanted to try these in a non stretch, my own ranting about the silliness of Burda having made me think about this fabric discrepency far too much, so did not put the pattern away.

A small piece of denim was lying around, thinking it might be an A- line Christmas present dress for a 4 year old niece, but when the shorts pattern happened to lie close enough to it on the floor (yes, I should tidy my sewing room), I somehow found myself cutting out a pair of mid thigh length denim shorts - non stretch denim. This was much more fun than tidying my sewing room. Truly I had entered the room with the sole intention of doing some housework in there, but the atmosphere is very persuasive.....
Here they are.







As expected, the fit is rather more snug that the stretch pair, and I did not do any of the dart or waist taking-in that the stretch pair had required. I also sewed the side seams with a skinny seam allowance. However, the fit difference was not as great as I had anticipated. The pattern pieces are the same as the stretch pair. This is a thin denim, and although there is no official stretch to the fabric, we all know how denim behaves. I expect these to loosen with wear.

The side snaps are my daughter's favourite feature in these shorts. I found them rather tricky to apply. I find any sewing project that involves hammers and a visit to the shed a stretch to my comfort zone. Unfortunately, one snap fell off, due to insufficient bashing, and had to be reapplied. My husband kindly applied superior force to the cap side of the snaps, but was not available for the eyelet side. I may need to recruit him again, should there be any more wardrobe malfunctions. I have suggested to my daughter that she wear these at home for a day before trying them in public ;).

I am pleased with the inside.

I used a cotton/hemp blend as interfacing for the waistband and button placket, and bound the waist facing with a bias strip of quilting weight cotton. Having some of this left, I then bound the crotch seam, for no reason in particular. I think cleaning procrastination had taken over.

My sewing room is still very messy. The procrastination was most effective.

Adventurous Burda Style 08-2011-130 shorts, Jalie top, sewing for camp

My younger daughter is firmly of the belief that she requires completely new clothes for any special occasion or trip away, so I should not have been terribly surprized when she announced on the weekend that she had no clothes to wear to school camp.
She fancied these "heavy jersey" trousers in our current Burda Style magazine, and whilst declaring that the corduroy shorts version were ugly, felt that "heavy jersey" shorts would look terrific.

I was a bit sceptical. I am unfamiliar with the "genoa corduroy" Burda advises for the shorts, but it seems to me that a pattern for a knit fabric should be different from the pattern for what I assume is a woven fabric, and the Burda patterns for the two different versions vary only in length. I also thought that the fastening of the knit with snaps over the hip would be prone to bagging.
I offered my daughter a red denim with about 3%lycra, or a mysterious probably poly, heavy and extremely stretchy black and white check that was given to me a few years ago. I was pretty sure she would choose the denim, but know from experience that it is best to offer this particular daughter a choice of fabrics.
I was quite wrong about her choice, she picked the mystery super stretchy woven. As this fabric had been selected from the dress-up pile, I had nothing to lose.



I made no pre-cutting alterations to the pattern (Burda size 36), but cut out the shorts in a single layer to allow matching of the checks - the fabric was a bit scanty for perfect matching at the waistbands, but I did my best.


I added woven selvage to the crotch seam to reduce bagging during wear, and applied clear elastic to the upper and lower waistband seam, stretched very slightly, to prevent excess stretch during wear without recovery.

I made the back darts a little wider during fitting, but the shorts needed no other changes, aside from a tiny extra overlap of the waistband at the fastening that was managed with button placement. This truly makes me appreciate the genetic advantages I have given my offspring by marrying a slim man with long legs ;).




I used the clean facing method I first saw at the Slapdash Sewist's blog for the side opening button plackets. The interfacing is one designed for knits, as I was not sure that the fabric would tolerate much heat from the iron, and the knit interfacing fused at the lower temperature.



I was anxious about the buttonholes, this fabric is really stretchy. I backed the placket with heavy calico (muslin if you are North American) to make the buttonholes more firm, then pinked most of it away.



Next I made a black Jalie sweetheart top. Apparently these shorts look awful when worn with the t-shirt tucked in, and I am under strict instructions to describe the previous photographs as purely for sewing only exhibition of the trousers and to show you how the outfit will be worn properly.



My daughter is very pleased with her outfit.

It even stands up nicely to vigorous activity.