A Paule Ka design Burda 02-2013-153

What is this? Two blog posts in one week?! Yeah, I know... blogging does not come naturally to me, and the biggest stumbling block (though by no means the only one) is finding the time (and proper lighting!) to take photos. But this week I'm enjoying a "staycation" so I've tried to catch up a bit on photo-taking. Let's see how far I come...

This is a dress that I finished 3 weeks ago, just in time to wear for the summer that I am still waiting for... It is a Burda Style designer pattern from a few years back: 02-2013-153. The designer is Paule Ka and I pinned quite a few of his dresses earlier this year before I remembered that I had this pattern. The Burda pattern is the rightmost in this grouping. I wish there were patterns available for the other Paule Ka designs too, don't you?

From the tech drawing you might think that the dress is relatively simple, but don't be fooled. Burda gives it a three-and-a-half-ball rating, which is just half a ball under their most difficult level. It was indeed a bit tricky to get the draped front to fold just right and the cryptic instructions were no real help I must admit. It finally clicked in my head when I realized that the first few steps of the instructions are about attaching the front of the dress to a couple of lining pieces that are not really meant to be lining. Instead they are meant to be a sort of underlining that helps the front to keep the draped shape. Later on you have to sew the real lining that will go on top of everything else so that from the inside you don't see any draping or folds at all.

Burda recommends using a wool crepe or a satin, and definitely with a bit of stretch. A couple of months ago I found an entire roll of this striped gros-grain ribbon on sale for $15, and I thought it would be perfect for this dress. But would you believe that none of the crepe-y or satin-y brown fabrics in my stash matched the shade on the ribbon? Ugh. The only brown that worked with the ribbon was this stretch cotton twill. I know! That is definitely not drape-y nor satin-y! and with my track record of picking the wrong fabrics for a pattern I was truly asking for trouble. But, but... I forged on and I think it turned out okay.

The fabric does stand more than a crepe would have, but I still like the finished dress.

From the back it is just a normal sheath dress, all the action is on the front.

Oh, one more thing. You might think, as I did, that the ribbon just sits on top of the waist seam. In fact, Paule Ka is more clever and careful than that. At the waist there is a sort of belt piece, both at front and back. These pieces are perfectly rectangular and they have you cut them both in the fashion fabric and in the lining fabric. I was very tempted to just remove them and lengthen the torso and skirt pieces to meet at a single seam. Only later, when attaching the ribbon, did I realize their true purpose: to allow the ribbon to sit perfectly flat and straight against the dress. I had done my usual blending from size 40 at the top to size 42 at the bottom by diagonally blending at the waist. Bad idea! When I went to attach the ribbon, I had to take a small "dart" on the ribbon at each side seam to accommodate these diagonals. Next time, I'll keep the top and entire waist at size 40 and blend from the bottom of the ribbon to the hips for size 42.

The last thing I want to show you is the lining. I used a stretch poly from the stash in a brown and white print. Isn't that a cute print? I almost wish that the dress was reversible!

I wrote a review of Burda 02-2013-153 at Pattern Review.

White peplum blouse Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein

I still remember my promise to show you my first finished garment for the SG 2014 SWAP I'm just being my usual forget-to-blog self... But finally, without further ado:

The pattern is an oldie but goodie: Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein. As you can see in the technical drawing, the blouse is shaped with a triangular piece at the sides. The bottom third then flares out forming a peplum.

This is my second version of this blouse. My first version of this blouse fitted just fine but was ruined by a very, VERY poor choice of interfacing. Armed with this painful experience, I chose an embroidered cotton for this new version. The all-over embroidery gives the fabric quite a lot of body, so I skipped all interfacings this time. Avoiding the problem is also a way of resolving it, no?

The pattern calls for self lining, but that would just be silly with this fabric. Much too stiff and probably scratchy against the skin. Instead, my thrifty self immediately thought to re-use the lining of the first version. I looooved that soft cotton voile, so I'm very glad that I could rescue at least half of it to use it in this new version.

I have to tell you that at first I was worried that this re-use would break the rules of the SG 2014 SWAP. After all, the lining was already constructed some 10 years ago (eep!). But freeing the lining from the old blouse took soooo much time, removing all that topstitching and stitching and then carefully keeping all the clipped edges from fraying. Ugh! Let's just say more than once I thought to just forget it and make the lining from scratch. But I persevered and now I am very glad that I did. The soft voile is so silky against the body; My skin has no clue there is all that embroidery going on.

Just as with the first version, I shortened the peplum by a good 8cm to a length that I find more flattering on my pear body. Independent of how long you make the peplum however, this is definitely a blouse to wear with a high-waisted bottom since the peplum is shaped to open up beyond the lowest button. Yup, that's my belly button peeking through, sorry about that!

If I want to be really picky then I have to mention a mistake I made: because the blouse is not self-lined, at the neckline you can see the cotton voile just under the collar, when the revers open up a bit. I didn't think about this at all until the blouse was fully constructed. Sigh... so now it is just a feature. No-one else will notice, right?

My review of Vogue 1915 by Anne Klein is here at Pattern Review.

The punching bag dress

This past week at work has been absolutely horrible. Record-breaking awful. Ug. Actually the whole month had already been pretty bad. But this week, with my husband away at a conference, I just oscillated between being absolutely furious and totally depressed. Now, some people head to the gym and take it out on a punching bag, yes? I instead headed for the sewing machine.

So, this is my punching bag dress. The rest of the world knows it as McCall's 6278. And let me tell you, the poor thing has had to withstand some seriously furious sewing, I'm afraid.

Yes, I know, it is still missing a sleeve. In fact, I will also have to remove the one that is already attached so that I can take the dress in quite a bit at the shoulders. I must have traced the seam line for the sleeveless version, because it comes about 2cm lower on my arm than it should... And, that is not the only problem, you know...

My "furious sewing" has not been without consequences. Those sharp points at the hips are unforgiving, even if I had been in total command of my mental faculties. And because I was not, I also forgot to redraw the sleeve cap to match the 1cm I took in at the horizontal seam over the bust. And then I somehow thought that an inverted pleat at the top of the sleeve would fix it all. Not quite!

Despite all that, the dress looks quite nice on me. Plus I've kinda grown fond of it. I guess I'm thankful for its help.

So, I've set it aside for a little while. It deserves a rest. I will come back to it to fix those few things, certainly in time to wear it this summer.

In the meantime, and because I know that my woes at work will continue for a while longer (we are "re-organizing" you see...) I've now set my eyes on re-organizing the sewing room...

Wish me luck!

Cute plaid top with back tie detail

Hi, I am Lucia. I am a fabricholic.
I still buy and buy but a sewn wardrobe is beginning to materialize, yay! Here is to keeping that up.

I have been a good girl lately and have been making good progress on all those UFO's you saw in my New Year's resolutions post. Two of the dresses are already finished. Hooray! By contrast, I have made very little progress on blogging the considerable backlog of garments from last year. Ug! My bottleneck is definitely the photo-making. The indoor photos are just appallingly bad and I don't get home early enough from work to still catch the daylight outside. Which leaves only the weekends. At least until the days get longer. Maybe I'll just have to do multiple garments in each photo session...

Anyway, today I want to show you a simple top in a pretty plaid print that I made last summer.

The pattern is Burda 08-2012-122. It is a very simple top, it doesn't even have darts! The only thing that makes it special is that scarf on the neckline that ties at back.

I made mine with french seams and bias binding at the armholes and it still went together very quickly. It does take a lot of fabric because of the scarf on the bias. I pieced the scarf differently from the pattern, with a diagonal seam to save fabric. I still made the scarf as long as I could. I always do this, as I love looooong scarves. But in this case I think it was a mistake because the scarf is heavy and it pulls the facing out. I had to take a few stitches to hold the facing in.

The fabric is a polyester georgette with a satin stripe and it does not wrinkle no matter what I do to it. Perfect for work! I do love the top, and I feel all chic walking around with that scarf at my back. But I have to tell you it is only for summer. That knot at the back is somewhat uncomfortable under a jacket and even a little when leaning back on a chair. But, come summer I'll wear it as much as I can.

My review of Burda 08-2012-122 is at Pattern Review.

The archives: happy blob jacket

The archives. The stuff I made back when I was still living at home in Mexico. With my mom's trusty old Singer machine, and her critical eye over my shoulder... I only wished I had listened more! She had learned at the knee of my great aunt Angeles, who had actually gone to dressmakers school. In my defense I was a teenager, deafness comes with the territory!

I made this jacket ca. 1987 and you can tell because it is rather shapeless. Huge 80's silhouette with dropped shoulders. I loved this fabric! Such a happy print over a cotton damask. Nice hand, but the red flowers have bled a bit in some places. Still, there is enough fabric here that I might try refashioning it into a summer top.

Plumbago long summer dress

My name is Lucia. I am a fabricholic. I buy and buy fabrics and never finish anything. Here is to changing that!

I have a great long summer dress by Evan Picone. It is so comfy and yet can still look stylish even in 40C weather. But I bought it sometime in 1997-98 and its age is beginning to show. I shouldn't complain, I throw it in the washer... delicate cycle, but still. Anyway, I bought a nice border print in plumbago blue around the same time (yes, I know, shame on me) and it is time to make a replacement for my dear old Evan Picone.

I copied the original using cotton muslin, corrected the trace of the curves a bit and voila! There are front and back darts at the waist, and only three seams: sides and back. Not much to it. The dress is lined and there are neck and armhole facings.

The blue border print is more fluid than the original fabric, but it still hangs nicely on me (a pear who cannot wear anything clingy around the hips!). I love it! If only the summer could get here faster... Come to think of it, I have another border print (black scribbles on gray, with a Japanese vibe) that I might want to use for another copy of the trusty old Evan Picone...