Burda Style 10-2010-119 blouse again, the clinical wardrobe

I finished making an 11 piece, 2 capsule wardrobe for the SWAP (sewing with a plan) challenge at Stitchers Guild a few weeks ago. Fortunately for my distance sewing, there was an extended deadline for the phototaking. My daughter is home this weekend and has spent most of her time in front of the camera. I hope this is offset by the pleasantness of sleeping in her own bed and eating home cooked food ;)



 Here is the last SWAP piece, a blouse for my daughter to wear to work or clinical sessions at University. I have used Burda Style 10-2010-119 for a second time in the SWAP - this is the fourth version between 2 daughters. It is an excellent  blouse, being very quick to sew, but crisp and professional in appearance.



As I did last time, I have finished the front opening with a placket, instead of a flippy facing, and extended the neck line bias binding to make a button loop. The bias scarf collar is hand hemmed (train trip entertainment,1 hour and 45 minutes of hand hemming) and hand sewn to the back neckline, which are the only lengthy procedures in the blouse construction. Burda has a raw edged scarf collar in their boucle top version, but I prefer this clean finish.



I have made a square shoulder adjustment, but in this version of the blouse, the sleeve head looks a smidgeon high. I am blaming this on the crispness of the shirting cotton, as in the softer cotton version, cut out with exactly the same adjusted pattern, the sleeve head looks spot on.



I am looking forward to seeing all the SWAP wardrobes. 

Stashbusting  1.5m of shirting cotton, 2011 Michaels Fabrics

Burda 02-2009-108 t shirts, Burda sew-a-long

I like sew-a-longs, it is highly enjoyable to see what other people are making with a common goal.

At the moment, the famous Me-Made-May has started, and although I signed up, I have decided I can't take photographs every day just at the moment, and as I already wear 99% hand made clothing, the photographs and making the outfit is the real challenge for me, so I am a real piker.
Instead I am hoping to join the Wellington Burda sew-a-long. I particularly appreciate the inclusiveness of this plan - any Burda pattern, just in May. I can do this! In fact there are a lot of sticky notes calling out to me from my big pile of magazines.
Despite this, I have a strange urge to hunt down a tie front blouse pattern from 09-2007 - a magazine I do not own. This is Treena's fault - see her nice blouse? I take no responsibility for my own pattern acquisitiveness ;)

Here is a pair of t shirts I made last weekend (April, so not eligible).



This is  one of the things I love about Burda magazines. I had this beautiful print on a super stretchy, thin and slippery viscose knit (Cleggs, February 2013), that was a real indulgence for me, and after some deliberation, I decided that I needed a t shirt pattern without a neck binding, as I predicted major problems in applying it neatly. I didn't have enough fabric for a cowl neck or a tie neck (it was $$$$ fabric), so I went looking through my Burda stash for a bateau neck t shirt. I was sure I'd find one (or 3)
Burda 02-2009-108 sounded perfect, and on Pattern Review, nearly everyone was happy (I also love pattern review for problem pattern identification)
I made the practice version from a nice sturdy cotton lycra knit.
The neckline sat reasonably well, but I felt the viscose needed some recovery help, so I added lingerie elastic to the folded over neck.



This is not as heavy as clear elastic that I often use in necklines, and I am glad I used a more delicate elastic, as even with this, the neckline tends to ripple a little. Fortunately, this is not an issue once the t shirt is worn.
I used a 60 stretch needle, and a walking foot for the construction - with a narrow 3 step zig-zag stitch, and the coverstitch for the neck and hem.





I was able to squeeze long sleeves out of my 80cm of fabric by cutting them on the cross grain (4 way knit), a tiny bit of underarm piecing, and a cuff from the straight grain scraps.

This is a very bold print for me, but I love it.



Now I will look through my Burdas for something else to make for the sew-a-long.

Stashbusting statistics - practice t shirt eligible, about 1m of cotton lycra 2012, viscose knit not eligible

Colette Beignet 1005 skirt. Winner! (+ Vogue 8634 top)

I won Paola's give away. She is so generous.  I am so lucky. I had been fancying this Beignet skirt for a little while, but was trying to talk myself out of it due to having an extremely large pattern collection. (You have plenty of skirt patterns Kbenco,you could just adapt something, etc etc). But fortunately for me, as I would never get around to adapting something else, here is the real deal.

I am very happy with this skirt.
It was a dream to sew. The drafting is perfect, which is such a relief after sewing all those Big4 patterns. I had a little moment of intense satisfaction every time a seam line matched perfectly. This oddity is possibly why sewing makes me so happy.
I admired Colette's instructions, particularly the tip to reinforce the waistline with twill tape ( I used a bit of selvage). 

In fitting, I ended up decreasing a size, having gone up to the next size per Colette instructions as my hips are between sizes, but finding this too big in the toile (non-stretch).
I took in at the waist in both my toile and in the final fabric, which is a stretch denim, circa 2008 from Kerryn's Fabric World.  The skirt was also cut a little shorter than Colette designed, due to fabric constraints. There is a tiny bit of piecing in the front facing for the same reason.

I did not line the skirt. I have some stretch silk lining, but decided an everyday denim skirt was not  a good candidate for this fabric, nor for a non-stretch lining, so I bound all the seams and the facing in a bit of left over shirting cotton cut on the bias.

The fabric is quite thick, so I did not bother making a matching petticoat.

I finished the hem with bias binding, using a catch stitch so that the hem will stretch with the skirt and not pop my stitching during wear.

I find that front buttoning skirts have a short life due to buttonhole wear. In an attempt to extend the life of this skirt, only the top 5 buttonholes are functional. All the other buttonholes are uncut, with the skirt machine sewn with zigzag to the underplacket, and the button attached by hand over the top of the buttonhole.

I do not often wear a belt with a skirt, but wanted to leave myself the option to do so. I made the buttonkeepers with buttonhole stitch over 6 strands of embroidery cotton, instead of applying fabric tabs. These are quite unobtrusive when the skirt is worn without a belt, which is just how I wanted them.

I topstitched the front and back princess seams, but not the side seams, so that I could adjust the skirt for fitting should I need to. Of course, having allowed for fitting, the final skirt try on was just right, and I did not have to do a single bit of unpicking. This may be a first for me in an item worn below the waist.

Feeling rather smug about my new skirt, I hung it up in my wardrobe, where it looked just like an orphan, so I made a few tops to wear with it.

I am wearing the first of these tops, Vogue 8634, which I made several of  last winter.

 This one is made from a cotton jersey, The Remnant Warehouse 2012, (this is the fabric that ran in its welcoming wash, but did so in a rather attractive manner - see that nice blotchy pink within the print?) and I squeezed it out of a 1.2 metre  generous cut by having 3/4 length sleeves and a slightly less generous depth of cowl.

Stashbusting statistics,2.3 m denim 2008, 1.2 metre cotton jersey 2012

Burda Style 02-2013-126 t shirts x2

When there is a sewing virus going around, it is usually a very good pattern. This one is the the t shirt/dress from the February 2013 Burda, version 126 (t shirt), with actual sleeves, for our early autumn weather.

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

This pattern is so versatile and easy to sew and wear, that I traced it out in 3 sizes, and in 3 variations, short sleeved, long sleeved and dress version, and made it up twice in one day (only one variation though) for 2 different people.

I used the same fabric ;).

Can you tell I did not have a lot of sewing time this week?

My younger daughter is modelling this with a skirt she made herself. Yipee, yahoo!

Her fabric is a cotton canvas from Ikea, no pattern used, just pleating and draping. She even bought the fabric herself !!!! I did help her just a tad with the zip.........

 

Stashbusting statistics 1.7 m of cotton lycra knit, 2010, from which I also squeezed a pair of unmentionables, Ottobre 02-2010-20