Hi everyone! Phew, what a weekend! I not only attended the London Sewing Blogger Meet-Up on Saturday and met a few dozen lovely seamstresses, but now I’m also officially done with my master’s after handing in my last essay yesterday. (Yep I went fabric swapping instead of working on my last assignment ever and it was awesome! If you want to read about the Meet Up, lovely Claire who organised everything wrote about it on her blog!)
And by the way, I did not forget to choose some blogs for the Liebster Award nomination, I was just too busy being a student and a seamstress at the same time 🙂

I know, stop talking and get down to business!

I finished dress #12 of my 27 Dresses Challenge! A green halter dress which reminds me a lot of the Marilyn wiggle dresses and believe me, this dress is so tight – there’s a lot of wiggling!

I used the #122A pattern of the Burdastyle magazine July issue.

Besides all the wiggling, there’s some serious risk of wardrobe malfunction with this dress. I was stupid enough to ignore the Burda instructions (like always…) and chose a stretchy, but obviously not stretchy enough fabric for making this dress.

Now it’s not only super super tight, but I’m afraid I’ll never wear this dress outside our flat. Why? Look at this!

It doesn’t look too bad in the picture, but in reality my boobies look like stringed ham on Christmas.

There are also some other things that went wrong which you (lucky me) can’t see in these super blurry pictures (sorry, broken lightbulb and both me and Mr.Thisblogisnotforyou were too lazy to get a new one.)

The fabric of the bodice part of this dress is basically the wrong way up. Yes! Stupid! Why?

I decided to cut out the fabric while watching a movie (distraction) in the living room (broken lightbulb). On the first look the fabric looks the same from both sides. If you look closer (which I obviously didn’t) you see that the fabric on the right side is slightly shinier than on the left.

Where is Tim Gunn when you need him? A “This concerns me enormously” would have helped. Thanks, Tim.

I’ll better not tell you that I sewed on the skirt wrong side up the first time, ending up with the raw edges on the outside. No, I better won’t.

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Hello my lovely readers – hope you had a great week so far!

I finally had time to edit the pictures I took of #11 of my 27 Dresses Challenge! Wow, it’s 11 already and there are more lovelies lying around here waiting to be finished (I guess I have to start saving some money for the overlock sewing machine soon:) )!

This chiffon blouse  was made from a cute panda fabric I got for  £1.20/m! No, fabrics normally aren’t that cheap here in London (too bad!), but there are some really inexpensive fabric stores near Walthamstow Central Station which, I guess, is no secret to London sewists. The downside is that the fabrics are not the very best quality and although they have a huge selection, I often can’t find want I am looking for.

For this blouse I actually wanted to go with the original Burdastyle pattern, using a white batiste and lace trim. Finding a nice lightweight white fabric shouldn’t be that hard, eh? Wrong! Couldn’t find it after being in at least five different fabric stores in Walthamstow.

This is the original “lace trim blouse”. You can get the pattern at burdastyle.

No white fabric, no lace trim! But I came across this cute Panda chiffon I couldn’t resist.

I basically, used the pattern as it was, ignoring the lace trims and using baby seams as seam finish. I’ll explain how to make baby seams in my next post!

The only problem I had with the pattern (or rather the chiffon fabric) was that the fabric pieces of the sleeves did not quite fit together at the edge. Look at this mess (and the cute pandas)!

After nagging at this for a while, I just trimmed off the excess fabric, widening the neckline a bit.

I love how versatile this version of the Burda blouse is! I tried to style it in different ways – let the pictures speak for themselves!

The classic sheer look! With the high-cut neckline and the cuteness of the pandas this isn’t too bold.

Also looks great with a belt!

Or all tied up!

It’s super comfy and perfect for summer evenings!

I used 7mm elastic for the sleeves and at the waist in the front and back as well as 9 small buttons. I decided to use light pink thread instead of dark blue, to match the panda ears and to make the blouse look a bit more interesting.

For the button fasteing I made small loops out of the same fabric and sewed them on between the front edge and the facing strip/binding. Sewing on the buttons wasn’t too much fun when I want to finally get done! 🙂

I love how easy it was to tweak the original pattern just a bit to make it look so different! Sometimes using fabric which is totally different from the one suggested can bring about awesome results. Just make sure you choose a fabric that is of about the same weight.

But be careful! If the pattern says you should use stretch fabric like knits or jersey, you really should. The fit of the garment is different when using pattern made for stretch fabrics. You might end up sewing a garment that is way too tight. When using non-stretch fabrics you will most often have to add a zipper or some other fastening. Keep that it mind when choosing a fabric for your pattern!

 

 

#9 of my 27 Dresses Challenge is done and ready for a trip to the park.

I finally realised that I seem to always sew dresses that are pretty, but which I almost never wear.  Furthermore they tend to take several days to make (with all my unpicking…) and this often isn’t very motivating. That’s why I decided to sew something very casual, summery and which would be easy and quick to finish.

I rummaged through all my Burdastyle magazines and found this cute pattern of a summer wrap blouse. It’s in the Burda issue 4/2013, #120A (the black one). They also have the same blouse in white, but without the shirring on the sleeves (tie blouse #120B).

source: burdastyle.com

 After only taking small pains to style the last dress, this time I made an effort and styled the blouse in two different ways.

I think it looks best with a high waisted skirt, otherwise tummy shirts might look quite tacky.

The pattern was easy to work with and although the instructions aren’t the best, the pattern is sort of self-explanatory.

I used a slightly sheer black cotton. Not the best choice, since it crinkles the instant you touch it, but now I think it’s fine. a) I won’t need to press this blouse and b) it goes well with the casual cut I think.

I covered the button myself using the same black cotton fabric.