Jungle January forever!

Myra and I are in just under the wire, but we could not miss Jungle January! Leopard is our spirit animal.

We went with an easy wardrobe addition - simple knit tops. Leopard print, of course. And for a little flair, waist level ties. We like a little fun.

My top came first. I used burda magazine, 10/2016 #101, which is a drop shoulder tee with an integrated tie. The pattern is pretty interesting, which made for a fun sew.

The left side tie is cut on with the front of the tee, but the right tie is actually a separate piece. Both ties are faced, so the wrong side showing isn't a problem.

Since the ties are not incorporated into a waistband, it leaves the tee with a nice flowy, relaxed fit. It's not my usual style, but I think it works in this fabric, a slinky ITY from FabricMart.

For Myra's tee, I wanted a similar look. I started out searching for tie waist tees. And burda did publish one, but drafted for wovens and sleeveless.

I didn't want to do that much drafting, so I found a good drop shoulder Ottobre tee (01/2015-11) that I added a waistband and faux tie to.

The look is nicely complementary while the hip band and slightly longer length make wardrobe malfunctions less likely for my active girl.

Both tees got self fabric bound necklines and coverstitched sleeve hems. You can also see the dropped shoulder of both tops in this shot.

Blow a kiss, Myra! Let's go paint the town... leopard!!

Burda 10/2005-115: Still in the Jungle

This great snow leopard ITY was just crying out to be sewn for Jungle January, but none of my usual knit top patterns were singing to me. I was randomly flipping through some old issues of Burda, when I ran across this great top with draped collar in the 10/2005 issue that I had mentally earmarked to make, then forgot.

10 years later... Ok, not really. It's an issue my mom gave me, but it has still been several years. I'm always impressed at the longevity of some Burda patterns. When you weed through the uber-trendy, there are always a few high quality classics that will stand the fashion test of time. I think this design is one of those.

In essense, this is a simple design; a basic fitted tee with long, banded sleeves. The interest comes in with the semicircular, not-quite-a-cowl collar.

In an atypical move for Burda, there is not cleavage baring plunge here. The neckline is fairly high and the collar wraps around to drape over the shoulders.

In back, the shape of the collar is more evident. In matching the dominant black stripe of the print across the collar in front, the circularity of the collar makes matching in the back impossible. You can see how the collar is shaped by following the rotation of the leopard print. You can also see that I should have done a full butt adjustment. Next time.

I made no alterations to the pattern, other than the construction of the collar. Burda had the collar a single layer, with a plain hem around the edge, but this fabric is fairly slinky and I knew there was a much greater than zero chance of the wrong side showing as I moved, so I did a double layer collar, seamed at the outer edge rather than hemmed. It has very nice weight and drapes beautifully without exposing the wrong side, but it did eat up a lot of yardage, particularly as I matched the dominant black stripe.

All in all, I'm pretty thrilled with this top! I'll definitely  be using this pattern again. I'll probably lengthen it a bit to give it a more modern feel (and to balance out my short-waisted, long torso), and adjust for my prominent backside, but this is well on its way to becoming a favorite pattern. Now to breeze through those old Burdas again! Who knows what other gems they are hiding?

Burdastyle 08/2010-108 slim pants

Pants are one of those things, you know. You need them in your wardrobe, but fitting them; well, it just ain't always fun!

I made these as a wearable muslin of sorts. I really am happy with the Jalie jeans pattern, but it is for stretch denim, and I have a ton of bottomweight fabrics without stretch that I would like to turn into pants. This particular piece is a heavy-ish non-stretch denim that has been in the stash for quite a while.

So I went hunting in the pattern files and pulled out this Burda (08/2010-108) It is extremely basic, with front and back darts, side seam pockets and back pocket flaps - no actual pockets back there. There is a shaped waistband and front fly zipper.

This extremely flattering shot gives you a glimpse of the higher rise, and waistband. You can see the itty bitty front darts. I usually despise front darts, but they work in these pants. I did make the waistband a smidge wider by adding 5/8 seam allowances and then only sewing 3/8. This gave me an extra half inch or so, which was enough to justify an extra snap. I like the look of doubled snaps, and they feel very secure.

As far as fit goes, I actually made very few changes. Other than widening the waistband, I scooped out and raised the rear crotch hook slightly. I compared it to my Vogue 1059, which I've made 3 times with good results. I did eliminate the side seam pockets. These pants have very little ease at the hip, so the pockets gaped horribly.

Sadly, that means that the pants have no pockets, which means they are unlikely to become a favorite pair. I thought about adding rear welt pockets, but since I wasn't sure I was going to be happy with them, I didn't want to waste the effort.

And when it really comes down to it, I'm still not sure how I feel about these. They're comfortable, fit well and are serviceable, but I don't love them. The shape of the leg feels a little dumpy to me, and I can't decide why.

I think I'm going to have to wear them a few times and decide if I'm going to use this pattern again. I do like how clean the lines are. Maybe I just need to alter the fit of the leg?

Burdastyle magazine 04/2011-105 blouse and Sewaholic Renfrew sweater

Most of the blogs I follow are sewing and crafting blogs, but a few style blogs have managed to stay in my reader. One of them is Pink Avenue. I know Corinne in real life, which makes it even more fun to follow her blog, but I also really love her style, and I get a lot of inspiration from her. When I saw this post, I knew I needed a leopard print blouse and red sweater. Stat.

Even better that it's still Jungle January! Perfect!

For the blouse, I wanted something with minimal shaping, but still not bulky so I could wear it layered. Initially I thought about the Grainline Archer. It looks great on everyone! But as I was perusing some back issues of Burdastyle magazine, blouse 105 from the 04/2011 issue caught my eye.

It has very sleek lines - just a bust dart for shaping, lined shoulder yokes that wrap to the front and a nice shaped hemline.

The collar has a stand, which is a nice feature. The cuffs are interesting. There is no placket and the cuff is left open, giving it a slit effect. You may notice that I chose pearl buttons for this. Thanks to my social media buddies for weighing in!

The cuff opens over the thumb, and the sleeves are quite long, so the cuff comes down to cover the hand. When I first put this on, I thought that would annoy me and get in the way, but the slit is in a very functional location and keeps the cuff out of the way as I work.

The back yoke is fairly high, and the back is cut without an ease pleat. The fit is comfortable though, even without the pleat and I really like the sleek look.

From the side, you can see that there is very little waist shaping. The shaping in back is all in the yoke seam, although between the bust dart and the yoke shaping, the fit through the shoulders and upper chest is very nice, which allows the rest of the blouse to drape attractively.

The fabric I used is a rayon challis from FabricMart. I don't know why I haven't made more blouses out of challis! This is so soft and comfortable to wear and the drape is really lovely, especially in this unfitted style.

The sweater is another Sewaholic Renfrew. I've made so many of these, I didn't think it deserved a separate post. This is the long sleeve version with a v neck. I used a very thin Hatchi knit from fabric.com. It's actually sheer enough that you can see the leopard print right through it, but it is rather soft and cozy.

The knit was so unstable that I used red rib knit for the bands. I was pleased to find I had a rib knit that coordinated exactly in my stash! I'm trilled that I got this outfit out of my head and into my closet so quickly, and even more pleased that my stash provided all the materials I needed.

Burda World of Fashion 04/2009-112 lace tee

Happy New Year! May your stashes continue to be bounteous and your seams be straight in 2014!

Despite being out of town for the last week and a half, I just couldn't let December come to a close without sewing some Green! So in the 11th hour (the morning of the 31st), I whipped up this green lace top with my favorite raglan tee pattern.

This is Burda World of Fashion from 04/2009 (back when it was still BWOF), #112. This is the third time I've sewn it and the second time using lace. It's definitely a TNT for me. The color in this pic isn't quite right. The lace is much more of an emerald, like the other pics. The lace and black bamboo jersey are both from FabricMart.

Barbara and Carolyn have both blogged recently about the shift from sewing to fashion bloggers, and the tendency that comes to over-glamorize our lives, so I decided to snap some quick pics just doing what I was doing today, which was cleaning out the kids playroom. No glamour. Lots of mess. But my tee held up great!

The fit is nice in back too, which is one of the reasons I keep coming back to this pattern. I didn't do my usual swayback alteration, but it still works. (Side note - awesome braided bun courtesy of LadyKatza, who shared this gorgeous pin with me.)

The other reason I keep coming back to this pattern is the two piece sleeve. It seems like a fussy detail for a tee shirt, but it makes the fit through the shoulders so much better than a one piece sleeve.

I'm so glad I made another lace tee to replace the destroyed one and also thrilled I got to my Green December garment while it was actually December! Now it's time to start some Jungle January and y'all I have plans...

Burda magazine 10/2005-132 man pants

I feel like there a certain "big" sewing projects that are sort of sewing milestones. For me, successfully fitting and making pants for Mitch is one of those big milestone projects.

AND I DID IT!! Ahem. Sorry for the screaming, but I am so excited to have finished this project well. They are not perfect, but Mitch likes them and I intended them to be a wearable muslin of sorts anyway, so I wasn't going for perfect.

I already talked about the fitting journey we went on in this post, so I'm not going to go there. I do want to tell you about this pattern though. It is from the 10/2005 issue of Burda magazine, so naturally it has some really interesting details. I chose it because it features a faced waist rather than a waistband. Mitch's favorite RTW pants have this feature, so I thought we'd start with something that we knew worked.

Here is the waistline up close. I did topstitch it to give a sort of waistband appearance, but you can see that the topstitching stops at the fly. Oh my goodness, that fly construction was wacky, and Burda was no help at all.

Here is how the fly looks on the inside. I truly have no idea how it all came together. The facing had to be attached to the fly and the waistline, but without covering the zip. I ended up just ripping and rearranging until it worked. Hopefully I can replicate it on the next pair... Anyway, after all the pain, I really like how clean this looks. The shaped underlap looks seriously professional and the finish is so neat. But yeah, man pants are hard.

I wish I could have done the fly first, because after all that, these back welt pockets were laughably easy. I cut the welts on the bias to avoid having to match the pinstripes because it looked snazzy. I always get nervous slashing through darts and these pants have two per pocket, but all was well.

You can see here how much fabric can affect fit. These pants are made from a heavy cotton canvas from FabricMart, and my muslins were all light cotton sheets. In the final product, we could use just a touch more room back there, and I think that all has to do with how relatively heavy and rigid this fabric is. Even without stretch, fabric makes a difference.

So while they have some imperfections that I'll tweak for the next pair, they are significantly better than the best RTW has to offer, and we are both very pleased with them. Yay for man pants!!

Todays tip:
While sewing this stiff, heavy canvas it was really hard to pin anything, but particularly when attaching the belt loops, the pins wouldn't even penetrate all those layers (and I used heavy steel corsage pins!).

Enter one of my favorite notions, Wonder Tape! Instead of pinning, I use Wonder Tape to stick on anything I need to sew down that I don't want slipping around. It's double sided, so you cut it to the length you need, stick on the sticky side and peel the backing away to reveal the second sticky side. You can see that in the top right pic. Then position your fabric, and sew! It is perfect for belt loops, pockets, zippers - pretty much anything you want to stay put as you sew it. I've even used it for small appliques. It won't gum up your machine and it washes away, so it doesn't permanently affect the drape or appearance of your fabric. If it doesn't stick well, a quick shot of steam from your iron will fuse it more securely.

Burda Magazine 04/2009-112 lace knit top

I've been salivating over all of the lovely lace makes on the interwebs lately, but when I saw this on Pinterest, I knew what I wanted to make, like right now.

Obviously, mine is somewhat different than the inspiration piece, but I've seen several other lace overlay tees lately, so this is really more of a conglomeration of all of those.

The pattern I used was Burda Magazine 04/2009-112. I made it a couple of years ago in a striped slinky knit and I wore that one so much I wore the fabric threadbare.

The fabrics I used both came from FabricMart, although I purchased them years apart. I'm thrilled with how well the colors match. For some reason, this color is really hard to photograph. The modeled pic at the top shows the color the best. The solid knit is a rayon-lycra jersey and the lace is poly-nylon stretch lace.

I elected to use the fashion fabric as for the neck, wrist and hip bands. Unfortunately, this fabric has a ton of stretch, so despite shortening the neckband by about 3 inches, it still collapses a little into the cleavage. Meh. I don't think I care enough to rip it off and reattach it again.

Should you be interested in recreating this look, it's really simple! Just choose your favorite raglan tee pattern (although if you use a set in sleeve pattern, that will work as well) - You could use this one, this one or this one. Cut out your knit as usual, then cut the lace (make sure it is stretch!) in just the front and back bodice pieces.

Overlay the lace on top of the jersey (like an underlining) and baste the two together around the edges only, inside the seam allowance. I use a zigzag stitch to baste, then I don't have to pull out the stitches later, since they are hidden inside the seam allowance. Now just assemble your top according to the pattern instructions, treating the basted pieces as one. Easy peasy!

I'm so pleased with this top. It was a really simple make, but I think it has a lot of impact. Mitch was pretty impressed with it, and even mentioned how versatile it would be. I think so, too. The lace allows it to be dressy, even though really it's just a tee shirt.