Burda 02-2009-123, Self Shawl Collar Wrap Blouse

Thank you all for the fitting suggestions on the Vogue 7876 blouse. I am glad I'm not the only one who suffers from this issue! And I received several helpful suggestions for altering such patterns to fit. I really appreciate the help.

I really don't know how to characterize my shoulders. They are narrower than average and yet muscular, I guess (in addition to sloping)? It just seems impossible to have both overly wide shoulders *and* tight shoulders in the same pattern. But it clearly is not, and I am not the only person experiencing this mysterious phenomenon.

And Terri A asks where I buy all my glasses online. I loooove having a wardrobe of glasses and it has become one of my signatures to coordinate with my outfit. I have tried several online places but the best, in my opinion, is zennioptical.com. They have a great selection at insane prices--as low as $8.00 for the frame, lenses included unless you need ultralights, $4.95 for anti-glare, $4.95 for shipping (last I checked)--and they always get my prescription perfect. The only downside of ordering online is that you don't go in for a fitting and get the arms bent to sit perfectly on your ears. I am sure I could try a local optical shop for that, but so far (knock on wood) none of my glasses have been uncomfortable. How cute are these purple plaids for $8???? Standard disclaimer: I have no connection with Zenni except as a satisfied customer.

There is a *ton* of info on ordering glasses online at Glassy Eyes, including website reviews and discount codes, but here are some basics: You can figure out what size will suit your face by measuring your current glasses; all the sites give measurements for their glasses. To order online you'll need to know your prescription and your pupillary distance (PD), which you can ask to have measured at the optical shop or do it yourself or ask a friend to hold up a ruler and measure between your pupils. I've had friends do it themselves successfully, though luckily I got measured at the optical shop.

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When we were at Jomar in Philadelphia in October I got two silks for $6/yd to make Fall/Winter tops. This navy stretch charmeuse is the fabric I had planned to use for Vogue 7876, but we saw how that turned out so I sought solace in Burda. I have been liking Burda 11-2007-104 since it came out, which is a couple of years now, but it wasn't the look I envisioned for this drapey silk (and there's no way I would have had enough fabric). Then I ran across the line drawing for 02-2009-123 and was like, "Why haven't I made this before?"

Looking back into the magazine (I have taken photos of all the line drawing pages and have them on my computer to reduce wear and tear of leafing through every issue when I am looking for a pattern) I found the editorial spread and realized why. Burda has this as an airy overblouse and I am not an overblouse kind of gal. Although I admire the look on other people and you'd think if anyone could find a way to wear (by which I mean show off) more clothes at once it would be me, I don't know how to layer and I don't particularly want to layer and I sure as hell don't want to have to make two pieces in order to get dressed in only one outfit!

However, the reviews on Pattern Review show a regular wrap blouse, not an overblouse. In fact, most reviewers said they weren't sure how Burda managed to make this look like an overblouse in the photo spread. Huh. I really had my heart set on a wrap blouse with a shawl collar for this silk, so I figured I'd just take the plunge. The pattern comes in 36-44, so I scaled it to a 34 at the shoulders and bust. I normally make a small bust adjustment in a wrap by shortening the diagonal line between waist and shoulder, but I wasn't sure how it would affect the collar so I really went out on a limb and cut it as is.

Burda, how I love thee. This is a simply fabulous pattern and incredibly easy.

The collar is cut on so the wrong side of the fabric will show, but that is what makes it so easy. It's also meant to be finished with a close zigzag. I used just the right needle on my serger and it looks good; in the closeup pictures you can tell that the thread isn't a perfect match for the fabric but that disappears at further than 6 inches or so. Normally I would have given the rolled hem foot a shot, but working in lightweight stretch silk on a curve would have been futile so I saved myself the heartache. I also finished the hem using the serger; it is not perfectly straight in the back but seeing the photo in which it is impossible to tell I won't stress.



Because I was sewing with silk, I finished the insides with French seams. Since the tie end has to go through an opening in the right side seam, I used the close single needle serger stitch to finish the opening edges and left the opening unsewn in both passes of the French seam. It worked well and I think it looks nice on the inside.





Burda wants you to finish the back neckline with bias tape, then stitch to the front at shoulders, leaving the collar to extend. Then you are to fold the collar over to sandwich this seam and hand stitch the collar in place to create a clean finish on the inside (I think that's what they were saying). Because I was doing French seams that wouldn't work. I finished the back neckline with bias tape before assembly as instructed; I topstitched the bias tape to keep it in place. I folded the collar against the front at the foldline and put in the French shoulder seams, catching in the collar. Then I rolled the finished shoulder seams over the back neckline (with its bias tape) and tacked them in place. Not the most elegant solution, but it works.

Although I didn't do an SBA on this pattern, the bust looks good and the crossover doesn't gape. Such luck!

The sleeves are meant to be elasticized with a bias-finished slit and little faux ties. I didn't have enough fabric to cut the sleeves full length, nor make enough bias tape to finish a slit. I might have been able to make little faux ties, but I had to piece one of the waist ties. For now I like them that 7/8 length; I just finished with a single needle serger stitch as for the collar and hem edges. I think the sleeve would need a little more width to look right with the elastic edge.

Really, everyone must immediately make this pattern if you have this issue. Just make sure the wrong side of your fabric is acceptable and go. I am already trying to decide what fabric to make it in for Spring with flutter sleeves.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Vogue 7876: Am I Malformed or is the Pattern?

This is Vogue 7876, a very cute design with a cool flounce collar variation. This is my pajama muslin, made of the Vera Wang silk/rayon blend from fabric.com (you can see it is utterly ruined by the washing machine). It looks innocuous, right?

Ugh. This is the second most uncomfortable thing I have ever made, the first being McCall 5466, the cute plaid dress with the exact same problem. I attempted to wear McCall 5466 last week for the first time this winter. I lasted about 10 minutes wearing it while getting ready for work and then took it off and put it in the giveaway pile. I would like not to do this again, so I am begging for your fitting help!




The issue in both pieces:
-pulls very tight across the upper back when I move my arms
-very tight across the sleeve in the shoulder/upper arm (above the bicep) when I move my arms in any direction

Unlike the McCall, the armscye here is not unbearably tight around the arm, but it is definitely snug to the point of a little bit of discomfort.




I know that the shoulders are too wide as you can see in the relaxed back; I always forget to fix that in Big 4. I need to make it a standard alteration to shorten the front shoulder about 1/2 inch and then take a dart in the back shoulder. However, merely having the armscye in the wrong place does not explain this fit, I don't think, because when I try to hike the armscye closer to my actual shoulder point (granted, this is difficult because it is tight) I don't get any more mobility, and of course the sleeve is still tight across my shoulder/upper arm.

To get any mobility at all I have to hike the sleevecap up over my shoulder, and even then I don't have much movement going on.


So, what is going on here? It feels like I need more room across the upper back, but where do you add that? I tried in the past adding some extra room to the upper back at the Center Back on Butterick 4985 but the collar stands back from my neck and you can see the pouchiness of extra fabric and it didn't really solve the mobility problem anyway.

And then the sleeves--do I need a taller sleevecap? Do I need to slash and spread along the center all the way up to the top and add more fabric there?

It seems so simple: if something is too small you make it bigger. But it is not so simple when it comes to armscye/sleeves.

And then on top of all that, there is a weird bulge of fabric at the crossover. Although the illustration makes it appear that the front wrap is supposed to cross all the way over to the opposite side seam, the line drawing and the pattern markings indicate that is not the case. Mine appears to wrap at approximately the right place, but then it's all bulgey there. I can't tighten the wrap any more, so I really don't know what that extra fabric is about.

And even though I shortened the wrap section two inches along the diagonal, there is still a little bit of gaping and the crossover is very low.

I had intended to make this out of some navy silk I bought at Jomar in October. It is a lighter weight than the VW silk/rayon and is mixed with some lycra, but there was still no way I was wasting it on this pattern. Luckily, I found a perfect Burda pattern in a back issue and don't have to mess with this pattern ever again.

But I am wanting to make Vogue 8413. I haven't yet gotten it out and compared the armscye and sleeve but I assume they are a similar draft and it would be useless to attempt V8413 without addressing this fit issue!

All the photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Snowmageddon 2010

Well, you might have heard about our little snowstorm in the DC area. In December I was bummed that I missed the big Snowpocalpyse, as I was already in Texas for the holiday. I had great stories from the President's Day Storm of 2003 (we have much better names these days) and seriously disappointed not to be able to update them. So Mother Nature decided to make it up for me with Snowmageddon 2010.

Alas, my stories from this one aren't that exciting. The night of President's Day Storm of 2003 I stayed with my best friend (now we are next door neighbors) because I was going out dancing in DC and her apartment was much easier to get to the District than mine way out in Huntington. I ended up snowed in there for three days. She undertook ridiculously arduous journeys to work as she was in private practice. I was clerking and the court was closed so during the days I foraged for food. We still talk about how much fun it was. So I don't think I could top that one. (There is also a story involving a houseboat but I won't go into that.)

For this storm I was at home safe and sound. I had spent an hour in line at the Safeway to buy provisions and ended up leaving my library book behind accidentally, about which I feel TERRIBLE. I spent a cumulative total of a couple of hours waiting for metro trains to visit Virginia. I made pizza for dinner last night and butternut squash tart tonight.

I was supposed to have jury duty tomorrow but deferred it because I really don't want to slog down to the court (amazingly it is open!). I am fanatical about shoveling--the ONLY way in which I am tidy, lol--and most of our neighbors are too so our street is passable. But trying to walk along some unshoveled sidewalks I realized it would be a total nightmare to walk all the way downtown. And metro is a joke right now! Work is canceled so with jury duty deferred I have the day off. I was really bitter about Snowpocalypse because I took vacation on a day that ended up being a snow day. So I feel compensated.

I have been doing some sewing, but what with the riding of the rails I haven't been *insanely* productive. I need y'all's help with a fitting issue. And now I have all day tomorrow to write about it!

You can see all my Snowmageddon photos here.

BWOF 09-2008-108, Lace Tulip Skirt

I rarely buy fashion magazines because they're too expensive, and then at the end I have a big lump of paper to add to a landfill. But when I am traveling, I do occasionally indulge and on the way back from Spain I bought the September 2009 issue InStyle magazine.

I enjoyed reading it, but wasn't inspired by much of anything I saw in it except for a spread on lace, one of those "at any age" features. Apparently, I am a slave to my generation because the item that most struck me on the page was a lace skirt for the 30s and 40s crowd. I immediately fell in love with it. When I got home I looked for it on the web so that I could study the details more carefully, but the brand has no web presence that I could find and of the few of their products being sold on retail websites none of them were the skirt. So all I had to go on was a small photos on the magazine page.

I already had the lace from Jomar in November 2008 (how time flies! it seems like that trip was just a few months ago); I paid either $1 or $2/yd for it. You might recognize it from my lace dress--and there is still so much left! The wool fabric for the underlay and the lining are both from The Carol Collection, so this was a very economical project. The only expensive part was the zipper, which was something like $2.50, and the magazine subscription. I learned my lesson with the lace this time and just sewed the lace and underlay fabric as one (and btw, I did go back and fix the horrible zipper on the lace dress--I unpicked the hand-stitching on the lace, trimmed off the seam allowances, and hand-stitched the lace back down; it now looks seamless).

Although looking at the closeup I can see that there are little vertical ruffles tucked into the pleats; I'm not sure I noticed that at the time. Even if I had seen the ruffles, I don't think I would have gone for them anyway. So I looked through old issues of Burda knowing that there plenty of variations on the tulip skirt in the magazine and found 09-2008-108. Not only was it nearly the exact shape I was looking for but I really liked the large center front belt carrier and the side-set belt, an unusual but interesting look. Although it has taken me months to post about it, I actually made it within days of seeing it in the magazine, I was so excited about it.

To get a look closer to the magazine, I moved the front pleats closer to the sides. I also added side seam pockets as pockets are so trendy in skirts and dresses. The combination of these two changes is a little unfortunate, as they cause the skirt to poof out over the hips a little. I hand-stitched the pockets closed for a couple of inches at the top, which helps.

I also moved the zip from the side to center back, adding a center back seam so that I could shape it instead of having a straight back for my non-straight booty. Because of this I split the back belt carrier into two.

I also decided to go all trendy and *finally* do an exposed zip. As with most trends, the first year exposed zips were out I hated them, the second year I got used to them, the third year I decided I wanted one, and the fourth year--as the trend is nearly passe--I finally made one. I like to think I have style, but I don't think I can claim to be fashionable!









I bought a navy blue metal jeans zip and then got it home. Ugh. The lace is very dark and looks black if it's not next to anything black, and the navy zipper looked ridiculously bright against it. However, you can see that a black zipper reveals that the lace is actually navy, and didn't look right either. I was frustrated; I didn't want to give up my dream of finally doing an exposed zip, but I didn't want a garish non-matching one either. After a few days it finally hit me, such a simple solution: I put the navy zipper into a black dyebath for about 10 minutes. Perfect! I cannot tell you how proud I was to figure it out. I always have a bottle of the Rit liquid black dye so I can easily do small batches; it is most convenient.



To install the zipper, I assembled the skirt and the lining separately; for the waistband facing I used the wool underlay fabric and stitched this to the lining.

Then I stitched the CB seam of the fashion fabric to the bottom of the zip, and basted the seam where the zip would be. Next I pressed it open and stitched the zip down from the top, having the top zipper stop just below the stitching line of the waistband/facing.

Finally, I stitched the waistband facing/lining to the waistband, catching in the upper edges of the zipper for a clean finish, and turned down the lining, turned in the seam allowances, and hand-stitched it to the zip opening. So basically, it was just like a normal non-invisible zipper, except the zipper was on the outside.

I was a little worried when making the skirt because my neutral is black, not navy. I was afraid I didn't have anything to wear with it. In fact, it has turned out to be a totally versatile skirt and I wear it all the time and LOVE it. When I was in law school and private practice and didn't have time to sew I pretty much only made skirts because they are so quick and easy. So I have had an unofficial moratorium on skirts for a while. I mean, ok, last year I still made 9 skirts but out of 60 garments, and considering how often I wear them and how many I *could*, it's not so many. But this project has sort of opened the floodgates of skirts! I want to entirely redo my skirt wardrobe. I really need to do a Great Closet Cleanout. If I get rid of some old skirts, can I make new ones?

All photos are here, including closeups of front/side/back, and the pattern review is here.

Mailbox Goodness from Marji and Musings on Border Prints

Marji is about to embark on her high seas adventure! To prepare, she is cleaning out the sewing room and found some goodies she wanted to share. When I saw that one of them was a knit print, I could not help but sign up. And, amazingly, I won! Thank you Marji!



Gorgeous, right? It's from Gorgeous Things, 60" wide, 3 1/2 yards so I can do a lot with this. It's a double border print with the border on both selvages. The stretch is crosswise, so there is not a whole lot of stretch along the length, parallel with the border, so the final result can't be *too* form fitting.

So of course, this got me thinking about border prints! In addition to this fabric from Marji, I also have a wool challis border print from The Carol Collection. Because the hem has to be straight, there are basically three choices for border print dresses: a straight tunic, a gathered/dirndl skirt, or a pleated skirt.


I like the Hale Bob twist on the tunic on the left, because it has a little more fullness in front and just a little more shape overall. I also like the tunic on the right with the contrast upper bodice yoke. I particularly like the way the upper yoke obviates the need to do a complicated facing for the front opening! But I think that would only work in a woven with a fair amount of body.
















The wide kimono sleeves on the left are awesome, and using the border for the sleeves rather than the hem would allow me to cut with the crosswise stretch going around the body. However, I think this pattern would be better suited for the wool challis than the knit, because the colors of the knit make me want it for Spring/Summer. The dress on the right also uses the border print vertically, though you do end up with a seam at center front and center back.











I like the way the dress at left uses the border print at the hem and the sleeves, particularly since the border is so bright compared with the rest of the print. The one on the right uses the border print every which way plus a contrast bodice, which definitely makes the most of the print. I liked using the border as the midriff in my Simplicity 3503 knit maxi dress.


















I think this style is the winner, however, for the knit print, although with a higher neckline! Burda has had several patterns in this style, 03-2009-113, 04-2009-122, 07-2009-119, and 10-2009-117 would all give me a place to start.


All my border print inspiration images are here.

What are your ideas for border prints?