A mostly Burda outfit

Here is my completed outfit! I'm glad that it looks how I envisioned, isn't great when it works out that way?

Vogue 1020 Knit coordinates

I bought this pattern for the dress but I decided that I liked all the pieces so they will all get made at one point. I started with the cardigan which I made using a very nice rayon blend knit I've had for quite a few years. It was perfect for this pattern since it has a wonderful drape. The ties were supposed to be sewn wrong side in and turned but I couldn't manage it with my fabric so instead I cut 2 in wide strips and used my bias binding maker to make them. They look just fine.



Besides the ties the cardigan closes with a button and thread loop. I followed Susan Khalje's tutorial in the Threads magazine site and it worked great.





Burda Style magazine top 11-2006- 111

There isn't much to say about this top, couldn't have been easier to sew. The neckline and armholes are turned in and topstitched with a double needle. I loved the neckline!


Burda Style magazine 7-2010- 108 Twist bubble skirt

Following the advise of another reviewer I subtracted 1.5 in from the length of the lining to prevent it from showing. Even with that I can sometimes see the lining. Twisting the skirt as instructed by Burda does not give you a perfectly laying hem. Other reviewers have not twisted their skirt as much and their hems lie more uniformly. I liked the look of the skirt in the magazine so I didn't modify the instructions.

Burda 5-2008 Dress 121

I was all ready to pick which jacket I wanted to work on (or maybe a parka?) but remembered that I have had this dress traced and paired with a beautiful red knit for I guess 2 years. I still love this dress and I will wear it into fall with boots and a long sleeve tee.

The plan is to pre-treat the fabric and while that is going on I will recheck measurements on the pattern, since my body has been changing...sigh

I have my three piece outfit to review and show you, soon I hope.

It is a beautiful day today in my part of the world and I will probably go for a nice walk in the neighborhood. I need to get inspiration to repair my front steps, it helps to know what you want when talking to contractors.

Weekend images

The many faces of the National Arboretum...

Stella McCartney coat and the Burda version

Nordstrom ad for Stella McCartney coat in Sept Vogue issue

So I finally got to look at my Sept Vogue and came across this ad and of course the first thing I thought of was Burda's version in the September issue; they described it as a turned-up notch collar. If you like the style aren't you glad you sew?



I like Burda's version better, funkier and distinctive!

Here is a link to the coat with its nice price tag.

My present project

My plan is to make an outfit that will work well together to take me into fall, there will be three new pieces to coordinate with existing pieces in my closet.



The fashion fabric is a light weight knit from Emma One Sock (it was called onionskin back when I bought a few years ago). To line it I used a poly blend knit from Fabric.com from their Lavender label Vera Wang collection that was almost given away. The lining fabric has a nice weight that makes for a nice drape at the hem.



As you can see the skirt is done but I'm waiting for the other pieces to show you the whole look.

In my desire for giving myself enough ease at the waist and hip I made the skirt a little too big for me. I corrected some by easing some of the extra at the waist. I think the technique is called stay-stitch plus? Basically you put your finger behind the presser foot while you sew to gather in extra fullness. I learned watching Sandra Betzina doing it in her old Home and Garden tv show. I added stay tape also for stability.



I will also make a tank top from Burda magazine, it is basic but has a pretty neckline. I will give you the issue later. I will be using leftover fabric from this dress

Lastly I want to make the cardigan from this Vogue pattern, I hope I have enough fabric, I bought it a long time ago when I was a little skimpy with yardage, will let you know!

Burda Style Fatina dress

This dress while it is very basic in construction was difficult to fit. The pattern has the bust darts and some shaping in the side seams but because I'm a pear I needed to fiddle with the side seams to give me a good fit. I need to remember that while I can wear sheath dresses they need to have princess seams or fisheye darts so that I can get a better fit. Nonetheless I planned on this dress being casual and comfortable and it is. The fabric is a cotton stretch and I noticed that in both these pictures the neckline is not laying flat; it must have stretched a little when sewing but it didn't always look that out of shape when I wore it. I'm going to look up some techniques in how to handle better open necklines like this. Am I thrilled with the fit? No but it is the best I could do.


Did you put your sunglasses on? Pretty bright fabric!


I could have paid more attention to fabric placement in the back, but I don't think is that bothersome, besides I can't see it ;-)

I'm glad I tried a Burda Style downloadable pattern. They are really not hard to tape together (although I had help!) I read the instructions and they were good and of course using the bias binding in the neckline and armhole is a great technique that can be used to eliminate facings.

And the winners are...

The Butterick pattern winner is

Janice (tryitagainjan) who just got back into sewing!!

The Simplicity winner is

Connie!!

Thank you so much for taking part of the fun. I have emailed you both so that you can send me your address.


Mom picks the winners

Free to a good home

Yesterday I went through most of my patterns planning my next projects and I found these two patterns twice, well I guess I'm consistent with my likes I just wish I had better memory =)
Anyways, if anyone out there is interested let me know which one you would like, if I get more than one request I'll pull names, let's say by Thursday and they will get mailed at the end of the week (I'll mail anywhere, on Earth that is).

Here is the info

Butterick 5243 8-10-12-14

Simplicity 2816 6-8-10-12-14

Let me know!

New project - Burda Style Fatina

My nails coordinate with this fabric!

So after initial difficulties caused by my brain being on holiday, I got this pattern traced, cut and as you can see above I stopped short of binding the neckline because well, other duties took precedence.

Karen was very kind and sent me this downloadable pattern from the Burda Style site after I fell in love with the (3?) versions she had created. I thought it wise to first make it up as designed to determine the bones of this very simple pattern.

Parting shot...

DS2 who loves puzzles saw me starting to piece together the pattern and ask if he could do it, well of course!!

Rethinking the Patrones blouse

Since I started working on this blouse with this particular tight weave poly woven, I have had to force myself to work on it. I don't like the feel of the fabric and I was concerned about the wear since I don't like wearing poly silky wovens (cold in the winter, hot in the summer). Yesterday I noticed that one of the center front pieces had a defect, about 5 lines of color variation. I still forced myself to continue since I figures if I hadn't noticed it until now I could probably get away with it. I started finishing the armholes with the bias strips and then I noticed that no matter how careful I was so that my hand stitches didn't show on the right side (it wasn't an option to topstitch the bindings down) they were showing; the fabric has such a tight weave that is impossible to grab just a strand.

So I say "Basta!", my time is too precious to waste on an activity I'm not enjoying to produce a less than stellar garment. I'm moving on!!! I will however reuse the Patrones pattern I really like the fit and it will be pretty with a different fabric.

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Since I don't like pictureless posts, the above was the only thing sewing related that I found in my Yellowstone vacation. It was a picture hanging along with the many guns on display at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming.

Progress on Patrones blouse

I got to work a little bit on my blue blouse this week. When I attached the ruffle which is cut as a rectangle, and sewn according to Patrones scant instructions I didn't like the way it ended. It is inserted in the princess seams and it ends about bust level. As you can see the end was just squared off and it didn't fall nicely.

I decided to round off the ends and now it looks much better.

Creature encounters in Yellowstone

Besides the beautiful landscape Yellowstone offers wildlife viewing to its visitors. For sure you will see the American bison, but we also got to see brown and black bears (for very short periods of time or from very far), elk, coyotes, squirrels, chipmunks, prong horn antelope, etc. I have no good pictures of the wildlife but I do have a good story. So here is my guest blogger, my husband, relating a "little" incident we experienced. Hope you enjoy it!

So, we were vacationing in Yellowstone NP last week. It is simply an amazing place. There aren't many places left in the world where you can stand on a mountain top and view a spectacular landscape as far as the eye can see in every direction that hasn't changed in ten thousand years. If you are into the outdoors at all, its a place you should try to visit.

Anyway, we're staying in a cabin outside the NE gate, hiking everyday and crashing in blissful exhaustion every night. Half way through the week, I wake up at 3:00 AM to noises outside the cabin. There is an animal outside the window next to the head of my bed. A BIG animal. Grunting and growling. No problem, it is outside and we are in here. Nothing to worry about. Except now in addition to the grunting and growling I hear sniffing and scraping at the window. I try to sneak a peak through the window but all I can see is a BIG shadow lurking next to the window. Ok, let's assess the situation. It's the middle of the night and a large animal is sniffing at the window. It's most likely a bear. Based on the size of the shadow, its probably a grizzly bear. And it is separated from us and a cabin full of left over dinners and snacks (we haven't exactly been following "clean-camp" rules in the cabin) by a mosquito screen and sheet of double pane glass. We have no phone in the cabin, cell phone coverage is non-existant, I have no bear repellant spray, and the cabin offices are a 100 yards down the road. Ok, I'm feeling a bit anxious now. If the bear come through the window should we bolt out the door? or out the other window? or lock ourselves in the bathroom? Hmm, how stong does that bathroom door look? Not very. Do we run for the car or the cabin offices? How fast can I get my family awake and out the door? Knowing my kids, probably not fast enough. Might lose one. Or two. That wouldn't be good, the wife wouldn't take it well. Hey, I can heat up some water in the microwave to throw at it, or maybe I should just throw the whole microwave. This is the way my brain works at 3:00 AM when I'm hyperventilating.

At this point the wife wakes up wondering what the hell is going on. I share with her my assessment of the situation and she supportingly decides to share my sense of panic. This goes on for a while, until my wife hears a second animal outside. A second bear? that doesn't make any sense. We then see a bison come walking out of the shadows toward the cabin while at the same time the beast who was in the shadows next to the window steps out into the moon light. It's a huge bull bison. If you have never heard the noises a bison make up close, let me tell you they sound an awful lot like the ones you would expect a bear to make. But then what the hell do I know about bear and bison sounds, I grew up in New Jersey. The second bison was soon followed by an entire herd, and soon our cabin was completely surrounded by bison grazing in the moonlight. I have no idea what the hell they were doing in our cabin grounds, ten miles outside the park, in the middle of the night. I read a lot about Yellowstone wildlife preparation for this trip, but I don't recall any mention of bison being nocturnal.

What's the moral of the story? Noises in the night aren't always what you think they are. And, always keep a microwave nearby. Just in case you need to throw it.


Next post about sewing...promise!

Yellowstone National Park

The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone

So how can I describe the natural beauty that surrounded me this past week? Words fail me...and remember I speak two languages. All I can say if that you enjoy the outdoors this area is a must see.


view from our cabin/cabin

We stayed outside a little town in Montana, Cooke City about 5 minutes outside the Northeast entrance to the park. If you could drive at 60 mi/hr through town it would past you in a minute. We had no cell phone coverage and at our cabin we had intermittent wifi. It was wonderful to be disconnected, really.


First breakfast in Cooke City, temp 50s in the morning and night, high of 70s during the day, zero humidity

We did a lot of driving, and we covered most of the park except for the southeast corner. We saw thermal pools, geysers, we did wonderful hikes (at least one a day) and we visited Cody, Wyoming for a change of pace. Hope you enjoy the pictures!


View on the road, at least once a day


Chromatic Thermal Pool, the color comes from living organisms!


I hiked up a mountain!(Specimen Trail)


Enlarge this picture to see DH and DS2 on top of the mountain at the Petrified Wood forest!


Two spots of the Beaver Ponds Trail, the wildflowers were amazing!


Enlarge to see bison in the background


Beautiful Canyon hike


At the Roosevelt Gate

Next post will be by a guest blogger who will relate a funny encounter (although not at the time) Stay tuned!

Gone hiking

So I have been teased endlessly by my family (yes all males) about my "stylish" hiking boots. But seriously if you were presented with two pairs, priced the same, both comfortable and both perfectly suited for the job, wouldn't you pick the pretty pair? These have been worn and they are very comfortable, I feel confident my feet won't be bothering during our hikes in Yellowstone this week. How excited are we you ask? Very!!!!



With all the trip preparations going on these past week I lost my sewing mojo and the Patrones top is still not completely cut out. But as you can see I caught the Granny Square bug so I have been crocheting instead. My knitting needles will go in my luggage so that I can work on the sleeves of the Louisa Harding dress, when we are relaxing indoors.

Hope you all have a wonderful week, I'll be enjoying the cooler temperatures of Montana!

PS: I just found out we will have WIFI in our cabins so I will probably post at least once from there.

It's here!

Today I received the knitting book I won in Andrea's giveaway. Thank you again! It will be going on my road trip tomorrow when I go visit family up north.

And since my intention was never to tease (Karen) here are pictures of the magazine and the top I'm working on. I decided to cut it in the blue fabric I showed before to go with my Simplicity skirt, if later I don't like them together I can still use the top with something else.


Patrones no. 290


Have a good weekend everyone!

A little bit of crocheting

This crochet rug has been finished for quite a while, at least a year, and it waited in a bag to be sewn together. It is made with Lion Brand Kitchen cotton and I think I also used Peaches and Creme cotton. The pattern is free now, I paid for it many years ago. I made it using colors in my kitchen so it would give my knees some help while I do dishes. My husband says it won't last clean and he is probably right but I'm willing to give it a try.



I decided the rug needed to be finish because I fell in love with the Flowers in the Snow blanket. This blanket with the flower-like Granny squares in its white background makes me so happy! I know is another item whose practicality comes into question, but so far making this flowers has been a joy and an addiction. I am waiting for some more yarn with brighter shades of the colors I already have, this flowers are not happy enough for me yet! If you are on Ravelry the designer has more pictures of the blanket. Finding cotton blend DK/Sport weight yarn has been hard, so far I have used three sources to find a variety of colors. The great thing about this pattern is that you make your flower centers and then crochet them together while you work the final round in your choice of color background (in my case it will be white like the original)
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In sewing news, I traced a Patrones top that needs the seam allowances added and then I can cut it out.