Burda Style June 2013 Blouse 118

 I got to wear the finished blouse today when my sons and I took my mom to lunch to celebrate her 82nd birthday. I am so blessed to have her, besides the arthritis, in good health.

 I did not do buttonholes on the very narrow sleeve band. I added a snap and sew the button on =)

I'm pretty happy with how the buttonholes turned out.

here you can see my modified facings

The fabric is a cotton batiste from Metro Textiles which I bought on my trip to NYC during PR weekend a couple of years ago and it was a very easy fabric to work with. I made french seams because of the sheerness of the material, it is such a nice finish.

The skirt is Vogue 1247 which I made last summer and gets a lot of love from me.

The pictures are showing a bit of wrinkling in the sleeve head but there are truly none, I don't know why it showed that way.

This a great basic, I can also see wearing it layered over a tank top. I am now working in the shirt dress which uses this same pattern but adds vertical darts to the front and back, with short sleeves.

Burda 6-2013 Top 118, Modifying facings

I was surprised to find shaped facings in this pattern since the blouse I made not that long ago had the self facing used by RTW. Since my fabric is lightweight/sheer I did not want a big old facing on the front  so I referred to Claire Shaeffer's High Fashion Sewing Secrets from the World's Best Designers,

which explains how to add a self facing. In my case I already had a huge floppy facing =) so I cut it down according to her guidelines. Basically you need to figure out the width of your button band and add enough fabric twice to be able to fold it twice on itself. This is a wonderful book one that I refer to often.

Here is the pattern and how my blouse facing now looks after chopping off the facing.

Hope this is useful!

June Burda Fashion

I finally got to look at the newest issue and I have been trying to trace 3 patterns. One is for two patterns a blouse and a dress and the other is for a jacket.

 I'm tracing Blouse 118, Dress 120 and jacket 123

What I want to know how if I'm done teaching (still doing some interpreting) it seems I have less time than before? I have been trying to finish tracing, which with the new format is pretty horrendous, for about a week. I have fabrics picked out for every design so I'm very excited to start sewing!

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend and celebrating with the dads in your life!

Burda 7866

 Here is the top I showed you a preview of in my last post after I took it in in the lower band. This pattern has more ease than I'm used to in Burda patterns; of course better to have too much than the opposite =O . I like how it looks with the lower bodice piece hugging the body. In the pictures below I don't know if you can see the looser initial fit, but I can feel a difference when I wear it.

In this last picture I wanted to show you the pretty bell sleeves.

This pattern was a gift from Andrea two years ago, I finally made it Andrea! I love the boat neck because it does not show underwear straps. I will not be able to wear it in the hot summer, the knit I used is a poly. I can only wear sleeveless garments made out of polyester in the summer. I do love this print which I purchased at Kashi's during PR weekend in NYC. I have enough left to make a simple summer dress.

Vogue 2011 skirt

Here is the skirt from Vogue 2011. I used a poly crepe from my stash. I would not use this color near my face, while I look good with more intense yellows this one just washes me out as most pastels do.

This was a very simple to sew skirt. the most difficult part if you can call it that was the narrow hem but really you just need to take your time to not stretch the edges on the bias.

I added a lining since my fabric was sheer. The pattern for the lining was included, how nice.

My version is not as drapey as the envelope picture so my skirt has a definite A-line shape. I will like to try it with a drapier fabric and I will also like to make the wrap maxi included in the pattern.

 

If you want to try this uneven hemline trend I recommend this pattern. It had excellent instructions and great fit.

Here is a peek of the next pattern (Burda) I will review. I made it to wear with this skirt but then I wasn't sure if I like them together. I think what I need to fix is the ease of the lower piece on the top, for some reason it came out with too much ease and made the top look wonky. The top I did wear in these pictures is from Target =)

There's sewing going on!

 I have had this pattern for a very long time. I couldn't find a date on it but it is so old that pictures on PR do not show and I think most of them were for the top. I am making the skirt view D in a very springy color; a poly crepe that came from my mom's stash from a store in NJ we loved but has disappeared. So old pattern, even older fabric =)

I love all pieces in this pattern and since the high low trend is going on now I decided to go for it and make view D.

I hope to finish it today and photograph it tomorrow. Of course I also have a cellar full of laundry...but hey I'll make it work!

A dress for me!

Today I got to wear a new dress! A super simple to make, can you say the serger is a wonderful quick and efficient friend =)

I have always loved the simplicity (no pun intended!) of this Simplicity 2054 a Cinthia Rowley pattern. It is a t-shirt lengthened to an A line dress. I could have lots of these in my closet...easy to wear, easy to accesorize specially during those mornings when there isn't a lot of time to think about what to wear.

I wore it with a cardigan today and no belt,  I think I like it even more with the belt. I also like the sleeve length since we don't all have Mrs Obamas's shapely arms.

I'm so excited to sew! What next! I'll let you know when I decide. If you have suggestions for any must have garment/pattern let me know! I have been out of the loop of the greatest and most popular.

I'll be back soon!

A quick hello

Have I told you how much I miss blogging? Well, I do! Life has become busier for me lately, I won't bore you with details but soon, meaning end of spring term, I will have more time.

I have a knit dress cut waiting to be sewn

I used a knit from my PR New York trip, which I saw Karen getting at Kashi's and I had to have it also =). I would like to get it done to wear to work on Tues, we will see if I can manage it.

Happy spring to all! Keep on sewing and I will too!

What has kept me busy up to now!

Hello everyone! I am so excited to be back to blogging and soon back to sewing for me!

The show was a tremendous success! We had 6 shows, one only open to elementary schools in the area and 5 to the public, out of the public shows 3 were sold out. At the last show people bought tickets knowing they would have to stand to see the the show!

I will show you pictures taken during one of the dress rehearsals taken by the photographer who did a fantastic job capturing it all.

I hope you enjoy!

Dorothy's costume was made using Simplicity 4136. Of course all the bias binding I did was my addition and I loved how it turned out. The dress fitted perfectly with no fittings issues the first time I tried it on!

All fabrics came from Joann and the trim was in my stash.

I was originally going to make the Cowardly lion's costume but the basic costume from the company we rent from was okay so we kept it and enhanced it. The wig was purchased by the school, I made new mittens and then added strips of the mitten fur to the shoulder fur piece and the shoe covering, as well as enhancing the tail to incorporate the new fur pattern all over the costume.

Here is what we got from the rental company for the Tin Man, poor guy looked like a spaceman...

 

 This is how I transformed him.

I took pieces from different patterns that featured gladiators and knights and I added the vest, boots a new funnel (which my husband sprayed painted for me!), we gave him silver gloves and I made him a bow tie to keep with the traditional look of the movie. The mom who was helping me added the silver electrical tape for additional texture.

 

Scarecrow looked fine we added raffia cuffs  and a burlap sash.

I made the burlap cape for when Cowardly lion gets crowned

I used Burda 7686 to make the jacket. The beautiful actress sparkled on stage!

Here you can see the rosettes I added to Glinda's dress to cover the buckles that strapped her for security purpose when she was flying in her  bubble. One of the talented actors made them for me! Her dress was too tight on her so I spent a good chunk of time adding in a v shaped pieced at center back because there were no seam allowances to speak of at the sides. The dress a friend of the director's had donated it to the production.

Using Butterick 6411 view A I made 18 capelets out of white ponte roma knit from Joann's for the poppies when Glinda covers them with snow. They moved beautifully on stage and the dancers loved them.

Along with the other mom we came up with the design for the crows and trees. We made feather accessories for the neck, wrists and ankles and the hats were decorated with feathers and sunflowers for the crows.

 The trees got hats with branches and apples and gloves with detachable apples that they could throw at the Scarecrow and Dorothy in one of the scenes. We wanted chic costumes and I think we got them!

I modified all costumes used for those actors that would be flying Glinda, the bad witch, the monkeys. I replaced zippers, hemmed and accessorized. Last minute I made a quick cover/quilt for Dorothy's bed, for the twister scene, that tied the yellow brick road to her bedroom (it had a yellow wide stripe in the center)

Here are a few more pictures of the show

Cool special effects

Scary flying monkeys

Huge production team

We had it all and I am so glad I got to be part of it!

Wish me luck!

Today is the costume parade which is when the director and I review all the actors in costume and approve, note changes to be made, etc. There are close to a 100, yeap. This weekend I also found out that this time around the harnesses for flying come out at each hip instead of out the back, so on Glinda's dress thankfully that spot fell at the end of the bodice so I was able to open up seams at each side and secure for the clips to come out. Now I have to deal with the witch's costume and the monkeys.

The capes got done this weekend!I brought them in to school just needing hooks and eyes sewn on and the actress who plays Dorothy who is a sweetheart sat with me and together we finished 13 sets (I had already finished 5).

I also have to grade the exams I gave my students last week and prepare for classes this week. This weekend both my kids were preparing for math exams so after the craziness of theater I had to put my thinking cap and do math to help them.

Did I tell you the show opens a week from Thurs? I have to tell you that I am a little overwhelmed, but I won't admit it to my family. In two weeks the show will be over and I can go back to my usual normal.

So anyways, wish me luck this afternoon!

Burda 7686 Glinda's bolero

Hello everyone!!! I hope everyone has been well and sewing up a storm so that when I'm done at the end of the month I'll have tons of posts to read!

Tomorrow Glinda's bolero is going to go to the theater room and to its garment bag so I took a couple of pictures to show you.

 Burda patterns rock, even in a simple little jacket they add details that make such a different, in this case darts in the back to bring in the hem close to the body, darts in the sleeves for comfort and better fit. You can see that there's an opening in the back of the jacket, it is there because the flight harness needs to come out.

The fabric is a poly-organza from Joann's (there is a lot of glitter in the special occasion isle!) In the picture below you can see better the silver dots all over the fabric and the sparkly clear and pink gems I added on the edges (finished with self made bias binding ,poly satin from Joann). Yeap, I thought they were self sticking ones, but they weren't so I glued them individually and I alternated between the colors. I know I'm insane but doesn't it look pretty? All I kept thinking was how pretty it will look under the lights.

I have made 5 capelets, will start on the rest tonight since I received the fabric from Joann's yesterday (white ponte).

Happy March to all (in case I don't make it back here soon!)