Layered Ensemble

It's a drizzly evening, and I'm curled up on the sofa with a big mug of hot cocoa.  I'm about to put the finishing touches on my Destroyed Cowl, and then hopefully sneak in some work on the two trouser muslins I cut out this weekend: a pair of high waisted pedal pushers and carrot pants from Burda 11/2009.  Before I launch into projecting, though, I wanted to take a moment and share photos of the layered cardigan I finished last week:

The bottom layer is a top I purchased some time ago that was a bit misshapen for my tastes.  Enter the jersey ties-- you can't tell from the pictures, but they are stitched on to the sides of the yellow top.  The top layer is a little dolman sleeved cardi that I cut out and stitched together before I realized that it was a tad bit too small.  Then one day I spied both pieces at the bottom of my sewing pile, and realized they belonged together.  

[ Back View. ]

[ Close Up. ] 

The chartreuse & teal color combination is so cheerful.  And the teal cardigan is made of bamboo knit that is both soft and resilient.  Such a happy accident that these two pieces ended up together!  I might just have to make more tops like this-- maybe even some Norma Kamali inspired ones.  And now back to my regularly scheduled scheming...

My Little Mod Sundress

I am just getting around to posting about my weekend sewing.  One of my goals, as i mentioned in my last post, is to work my way through my unfinished projects.  Last Sunday I completed the first of those projects, a little dress called Shari from Burdastyle:

(Please excuse the poor picture quality-- it is too cold to photograph outside!)

The floral print is from the $2.97 table at Gstreet Fabrics.  It's a pretty sheer batiste-like cotton, so I lined it with white cotton voile from fabric.com.  For the midriff section I used some electric lime linen that my Mom gave me awhile back.

I really liked sewing Shari, and I am happy with the results.  The under bust gathers are a nice detail for those of us with smaller busts ;)  

The skirt is cut on the bias, so the trickiest part was making sure not to stretch the pieces while stitching them together.  And hemming!  I always try to remember to hang up bias cut dresses for a day before setting in the hem.  

More pictures here.

Stash overflow and ambitious sewing

The wall behind my sewing machine is meant to display projects that I am presently working on.  Due to my lack of sewing ambition over the past few months, it looks more like a holding pattern.  Today I am determined to fix this.  The floral dress in the middle?  That's a half-finished Shari.  I wasn't sure how to finish the middle section of the dress, as I had originally wanted to add piping at the edges.  Over a year later, I think I'll be happy just to finish.

Hmm...and here you see the antique rocker adjacent to my sewing niche.  It is covered in fabric — fabric that should be in the fabric cabinet pictured below:

These pictures were taken after this morning's cleaning spree.  I either need to do a lot more sewing before my trip to LA, or start giving fabric away.  Hopefully the latter option won't be necessary.  

Time for a quick lunch break (Vegetarian chili with oven-broiled tomatoes with a side of skillet cornbread), a cup of tea and then... Shari time!

Burda Blouse 117 From 8-2009

Here is the result of my day off- I finished a wearable muslin of Burda 117 in metallic poly chiffon.  We will call it a wearable muslin because fabric came from the 75% off table at Hancock Fabrics about two years ago, and I only bought it for the colors.  Without the bits of ochre and rust in there, this might well have been the ugliest fabric I ever laid eyes upon!  The blouse was a dream to stitch up, even though my lack of a serger necessitated flat-felling to ensure that the seams don't unravel.  I am already planning a second blouse in silk chiffon.  Maybe even in a springy hue.  A couple fabrics I have my eye on for the project:  this lovely iridescent chiffon in seafoam, currently my favorite color, and also this bright yellow print- what a jaunty summer topper that would make!

And now, dear friends, I'm off to sleep.  Must get lots of rest, as there is another full day of projecting ahead of me!

Snowed In!

Pretty sure no one is going to park here.

Side street near Ft. Reno park- treacherous indeed!

By now I'm sure you've heard about DC's little snowmageddon. The inclement weather led to an early dismissal from work on Friday as well as a day off today. Despite the city's attempt to dig out, the driving situation is still not the best. While these conditions have left many DC residents with a case of cabin fever, I can't help but think that I have fared much better. After all, what could be better for a sewer/knitter than three whole days inside? Nestled in my little apartment-cave, I have been on a steady diet of coffee, tea, fabric and yarn.

Life has been stressful the last few months. While I nearly lost the will to sew, I did not stop buying fabric. So while home owners have spent the weekend digging out from under the snow, I have spent the weekend digging out from under my ever-expanding fabric stash. I am proud to say that I can almost see my ironing board again.

Aside from the fact that my sewing "room" takes up half of our living room, the other reason I am taking pains to clean up my stash is that I have plans to visit my Aunt in LA again this spring. Visiting LA means I will have to stop by the fashion district. Which means I will most certainly be coming home with more fabric and will need someplace to put it. Last year I purchased 1 yd of silk georgette, 2 1/2 yds of lime green voile, 1 1/2 yds of printed silk habotai, 1 1/2 yds of white cotton/seacell shirting and 3 yds of border print cotton voile (made into a tank dress, last seen here). My goal is to use each of these fabrics before heading back to LA. I will keep you updated on my progress- look for some finished pieces later today!

End of Summer Mini Wardrobe

August did its best, and all it took was a couple major stressful events to derail my best-laid sewing plans. Thankfully, I made it through, and even completed a mini wardrobe while I was at it!

I stayed up all night before a 6am flight to make these high-waist trousers from Burda 3/2009 in bright cherry red:

And I patterned this skirt after a much loved vintage wool plaid skirt (it needed a summer counterpart) The top is from Burda 2/2009, in rayon jersey:

Summer seems to be coming very quickly to an end this year. It is already getting chilly in the evenings, and I am already planning which cozy sweaters I want to knit, and which yummy yarns I need to buy to make them. I've been looking at Rowan's Swaddle for quite some time, but am not convinced that there is an affordable substitute for their Kid Silk Classic yarn. I have been eyeing some angora blends over at Colourmart for awhile--hopefully my favorite colors won't be gone by the time I make up my mind to purchase! In terms of autumn sewing, I am imagining slim sweater dresses, and elegant blouse and high-waist skirt combos. Especially inspiring was this feminine blouse in the September issue of Burda.

Thank you for stopping by to take a look! I hope to be posting more than just once a month from here on out, so please stay tuned. Happy sewing!

I'll admit, I just haven't been doing that much sewing lately. I have, however, been planning a lot of sewing projects. I finally signed up for Polyvore the other day. While playing around with some outfit ideas, I stumbled upon a new inspiration resource. Or is it a danger zone? All I know is that I like nearly every piece of clothing I see on yesstyle.com. Especially the offerings from Click. Scroll on for a tour of my favorites.

What a cute ruffled blouse.

I was struck by how similar it looks to this pattern in the 8/2009 Burda WOF

A cute, but not overly prim spin on the 2fer dress craze-

I also really dig the dirndl waist.

It's a basic linen shirt dress.

The pockets are what make it wearable.

Classic a-line skirt, in linen.

I love the twisted detail at the top of the pockets.

It's also great that so many of these styles have elastic-back waists-

who cares what the waistline looks like when you're just going to throw a belt on over it?

Cute flutter sleeve dress with elastic neckline.

Could there be an easier project than this?

Simple. Pockets. Ballet cardi.

Ruffled front tunic.

It looks nice on her, right?

And my favorite piece of all-

the tie-neck blouse.

I really like how the ends of the tie come to a point.

I also dig this because the turned back sleeves give it a bit of a retro feel.

More pictures here.

Pattern Organization

I've been working away at organizing all of my Burda patterns. Tracing patterns out of the magazine is time consuming enough that I knew I needed to organize them properly. It has only taken me five years to decide how to do this properly. Firstly, I saved the line drawings of all my patterns from the burdafashion.com archives. Next, I uploaded these images to flickr. Then I printed them out on brown paper from grocery bags. Once I had the images printed out, I tore them apart using a straight edge. Finally, I glued them onto envelopes that I found on sale at Papersource. They have some great porfolio envelopes that easily fit my larger patterns, like those I have printed out on letter paper from burdastyle. I also purchased some medium sized envelopes that work fine for smaller patterns like skirts and tops.

Here are photos of each of the steps are below:

Update: Burda

As I suspected, the vintage dress I was ogling in Burda's August edition preview does not come with the magazine. It is a premium download. I might buy it after all, except that seam allowances are not included in these "premium" patterns. Please explain to me why I would want to pay € 3,99 for a pattern, only to have to print it on my own paper, with my own ink, and then cut the pieces out, tape them together, and THEN retrace them, adding the requisite 5/8 inch to all the seams. That said, this is how I went about my spring jacket. I am that dedicated to the craft. Sometimes.

ETA: I just looked at Burda's download page again, and it seems that the pattern is free with subscription. In Germany. I subscribe in the U.S. It appears that this makes me ineligible for the extra pattern. I feel some letter writing coming on.

30s Blouse Progress

I've finally made some progress on my 30s inspired blouse! The good news: I have the initial muslin completed. The bad news: I think I should make another. Or at least modify this one substantially. You can see in the last photo that the back of the blouse dips lower than the front, and I'm not comfortable with that.

Quick notes: As you can see below, the fabric is a horrendous mother-of-the bride powder blue. Never fear! The muslin is, of course, just a test garment. Also, I added the center band mainly for the purpose of lengthening the bodice--it will not appear in the final blouse. I will work on tweaking this muslin over the next couple days, and then plunge into the final version. Hopefully the final blouse will look a bit more like this one that I shared in an earlier post.

Meanwhile, I have been tinkering with some other, more basic projects (read: ones that actually follow patterns), as well as a major sewing space organization project. More about that later, though. Here are the promised pictures:




Happy Sewing!