Flutter By in Yellow

Sometimes you just find the perfect fabric.  Then you realise it's not gong to be that easy to work with. What's a seamstress to do?

Well this fabric find was from my local and l loved it so much that, after buying it in yellow, I went back for more and bought a length in fuschia.  It even got its own feature in Issue 18 of Love Sewing magazine.

So, nuts and bolts - the pattern I used.......

After some not insignificant amount of time spent thumbing through my vast pile of Burdas and Patrones I settled on Burda January 2014 pattern 108. 

The light to medium weight of this manmade fabric, coupled with the drapeyness, called for something that would show off its qualities. 

The most interesting aspect of this pattern is the shape of the pieces whereby the back folded around towards the front to form a batwing sleeve. I'd never worked with this pattern shape before and it was fine whilst I could play around with the fabric on the floor - the challenge was when I picked it up to sew the folds together.  Think draped origami and you get the picture.

After a not inconsiderable amount of folding, unfolding and re-folding I managed to get the pieces in alignment.  I actually did this inside out, i.e. right side to right side, as the fabric has a "high frayage" factor so I wanted to french seam them - indeed, I love a sewing challenge.

The main body of the top complete, it was time to attach the hem band and, joy of joys, no hemming of this seriously slippery fabric as the band is folded in half - more origami - and then slip stitched to the main body.

All in all, not an over long make, and and I felt well worth it to have something a little more unusual in my wardrobe.  It also turned out to be a useful travel wardrobe addition - not only because of the non crease fabric but also because it's so light and airy to wear typically in a hot climate, as evidenced below during a fabric shopping spree in Italy. 

Now to find a further suitable pattern for the pink variation of this cloth that I bought.

I love to style this garment in an oriental fashion, hence  the hair chopsticks, and it's also versatile enough to dress up or down, feeling equally at  home with a pencil skirt or jeans.

You can also read a write up of this pattern in issue 19 of Love Sewing Magazine as it was one of my Pattern Picks.

If you fancy something a little different, give it a go.  The pattern is available for download from the Burda website.

Difficulty rating - you need some sewing experience and patience to figure the folding. 

1 metre of 150cm width fabric, the drapier the better.

Happy sewing.

Linda x

An Asymmetric Skirt

Well, back to earth after the heady excitement of  Me Made May 14 and I thought I'd post about my Day 24 skirt as it really didn't come out well in the post and I do think it's worthy of a better photo than that of the me made day.

I do love mixing fabrics and after seeing a picture in a magazine recently of an asymmetrical skirt, I thought I would have a go at making it and also combine two of the fabrics in my stash.                   

The pattern is one from my collection of Burda and is a fairly simple wrapover pattern.  It wasn't originally asymmetric, so I amended the pattern pieces so that the front of the skirt has differing lengths.  I used a lovely grey linen that I got from Leicester Market as a one-off end of roll.  I then cut an extra piece for the right skirt front from black daisy fabric, purchased earlier this year as a remnant from Ditto Fabrics in Brighton.  Being a bit sheer I use the daisy fabric on top of the regular linen right front piece.

I graduated the rear pattern piece of the skirt to meet with both the skirt front, not too heavily as it would have looked odd, more from the front than the back!  I think the deep waistband really suits the style and adds a block of colour to the right front for balance.

This view shows shows the underside of the front.  I turned the daisy fabric to the inside and just stitched it to the linen.  If making one like this you could always secure the front overlap with a discreet tie, but I prefer just to wear with leggings.  I think I'll be getting a fair few wears from this over the summer.

Now for a brain teaser........

I'm just amazed at the form partially sewn fabric takes.  Can anyone guess at what my current project might be?  Answers (not on a postcard) please in the comments.  

Happy sewing.

Linda xx

Burda Gold Top - January 2001/118

As an interlude between blogging about partaking in the wonderful Me Made May 2014, as organised by Zoe of So Zo... What Do You Know? and an overview of my first week, I thought I would share a recent make in the form of a gold knit top - Me Made May Day 2 (Flickr - MeMadeMay14)

This was a fairly easy make with a front/back/sleeves and a scarf - oh and a little pocket and flap. I do love a 3/4 sleeve.

The body and sleeves were a basic put together and pocket made use of my practice of creating a curve as used on my Frills-Definitely A Learning Curve post. 

This was how the scarf looked once I had sewn one edge to the body and sewn and turned the ends.  It was a light fabric to work with so I just pressed and pinned the inside edge and machine stitched it very carefully along the edge of the turn through the neck. Worked a treat and no hand sewing - woo hoo!

A small working pocket on one side with a flat and sweet gold button gave the top a further bit of interest.  The photo makes the fabric look a little stretched but that's just the light, not the fabric!

Here's a nice view of the scarf and dart. 

I did originally think that the fabric might be a bit "Christmassy" being gold and all, and it got consigned to the loft, but after signing up for Me Made May 14 and having a rummage upstairs I thought, hey, why not.  It's not too festive and actually dresses up a dark separate and looks flattering against most skin tones.

Ease factor:  Easy - even the scarf piece and the fabric behaved itself so was easy to sew.
Cost:  Can't remember as this fabric was purchased ages ago, probably around 1.5 metres

Happy sewing.

Linda x

Hello Flower - Are You A Catwalk Inspiration?



Trying to broaden my sewing challenges slightly I decided that one of my sewing projects should be a mix of various fabrics and wondered what it would be like to integrate not two, but three fabric types into my next make.  I'm happy to say it worked........

Inspiration struck whilst perusing Pinterest (like I need it with the gazillion patterns I already own by Burda and Patrones) and I thought this little number had something about it Christopher Kane SS14 Flower Dress.  I think it was the writing that struck me originally but the flowers look good too....

So, after a quick jog round the net I found this lovely foxglove fabric from Fancy Moon Fabrics , a tad over my usual spend limit at £13.00 per metre plus postage but I loved the colours and I do have a largish piece left for a future make so it's not so expensive really.  Next came some black cotton satin and black mesh from good old Ebay. 

The pattern used was a trusty Burda -  November 2013 no 128.  There's only 3 pieces to it so it was easy to cut the top half of the bodice and shorten the sleeves.

The headscratching part was when I had to source the letters for the writing.  Another web search turned up nothing easy in terms of free downloadable letter templates so in the end I just used Word and made the letters to the size and font I wanted them, then blocked them and traced them right off the screen.  Not even the necessity to set up the printer!!

Once I had the greaseproof  paper letters I cut out them out  in fabric - FIDDLY - and then pinned and stitched them using the smallest zig zag stitch.

Coo, sunny in the garden

There were some minor amends to the pattern, including a bit of shaping where front darts would normally be,  cutting the front neckline wider to make a more flattering boat neck and adding some small darts to the top of the shoulders as there's no seams on these set in sleeves.  Minded by my Mad Men Make I added some piping at the join on the bodice.

To finish the neckline I made bias binding from the mesh fabric - also fiddly as it's just sooo soft.  To make it neater I sewed the bias on the inside first before pinning and sewing it from the right side to finish.

One minor amend I still need to make is on the mesh on the bodice where there's small gather due to the mesh being rather stretchy but this is an easy fix. Thought I'd leave that in as we all make the odd mistake here and there!!

I added a beaded zipper pull as the zip is in a position that's not so easy to reach and I like the way the crystal and pearl beads add a little of the colour on the dress front.

Ease factor:  pretty straightforward with a few pattern tweaks.
Cost:  £15.00 for foxglove fabric (inc postage) plus 1 metre cotton satin and 1 metre mesh at about £6.00 each so total £27 but in terms of fabric usage, roughly £14.00 plus some beads from my stash. 

I'd love to know if you've created something that has been inspired by a catwalk collection.  Maybe you could leave a link in the comments so I can eyeball it!

Happy sewing

Linda x

My Version of the Lampshade Dress - Burda January 2003

It's probably not quite what you're thinking, although I have to say, this is rather lovely and may inspire a future make.

Lampshade Dress

 As you can see, my creation is nothing like that!!!

That's it - a dress with a lampshade pattern in the fabric!!
.
I just loved this fabric from one of my favourite fabric boutiques Ditto Fabrics in Brighton's North Laines.

Here's the full picture - stretch jersey is so comfortable to wear and it sewed up beautifully into this slash-neck, gathered round the middle dress.

There's even a sofa in there too!!!



The pattern is an oldie from Burda January 2003 - with tea stains on the cover as testament to much usage (I'm not usually so messy, but can't work without a good cup of tea!)

The Burda pattern shows the sides as being gathered with rouleau ties but I omitted the splits and gathered the sides with half inch wide elastic.

Happy sewing

Linda x