Burda top

The advantage of preparing 3 garments to be sewn at a time, is that when you get to sewing, it really goes fast (most of the time). I find that a lot of time is in tracing the pattern, making adjustments, cutting and marking. And I did all those things for 3 patterns last weekend and Monday night.
(This does not work for me with jackets or coats btw, those are time consuming projects also in the sewing stage).

After the dress, the top is now almost finished. Black was on my sewing machine and serger, so I continued with the top, as this is also sewn with black.

This is not a pattern I would normally take for myself, but I find that with all the projects I see on Pattern Review and other blogs, that I become a little more experimental.

And with success, I tried it and my daughter immediately was very enthousiast: "you must wear this tomorrow". (having a birthday party to go to). And my husband likes it too. But unfortunately I can't finish it tonight, as I the shop I went to for notions did not have a black or invisible zipper that was long enough. The black band is cotton batist, no stretch: a zipper is needed.
I like it too, and want to finish it soon.

This time I sewed all seams on my sewing machine first, as I want to make the band match exactly in the side seams, which with serging sometimes is a bit difficult. Also used my walking foot on this combination of stretch knit and cotton batist.

AND: my 14 year old Bernina serger is giving problems again!. Arghh. It had a rather expensive repair this winter, so I think I must go back with it this week. And I hate to miss it.

Wrap dress finished.

The wrap dress is finished. I find it remarkable to see the difference in the way it looks with or without belt. A lot of time went into adding the tie, turning and topstitching it. Certainly if you compare the time that it took to the time that the rest of the dress took to make.

And in the end I like it better with a black belt! A full review I have added to Pattern Review.

Wrap dress

The wrap dress is almost finished. It is such an easy pattern to make. My first one only took part of an afternoon and evening to make, this one was sewn (after cutting and marking) in about 3 hours. Only thing left to do is double layering the tie.

I finished the neckline, armholes and skirt with folding elastic, which I first ironed double, a tip I read on PR, and which makes working with this easier. When pinning neckline and armhole, I stretched the elastic a little bit, to prevent gaping.

Because I didn't want any difficult overlaps with the elastic, I first sewed the shoulders and then attached the elastic to the armholes. Only after this the side seams are closed.






Elastic sewn to armhole, then stitched and serged.


















Top of seam handsewn to lay flat, and finished underarm seam.
















And this is how the top of the dress looked like after attaching the elastic. You can see that the normal length of the top is too short for me (I alway lengthen patterns 4-5 cm in the waist). I had made the original dress longer, but have added a tie in this dress, so the extra length will be in the tie.
The armhole needed no change, as the pattern is for knits already, the armhole was not wide at all.

All Burda patterns

My sewing baskets are full again, and all three are Burda patterns. Didn't do this on purpose, but I like the fit of Burda patterns, and you have quite a few patterns with one magazine, so a large pattern stash. And as I practically grew up using these patterns, I don't normally have much problems with their descriptions, nor with the fact that seam allowances are not included.

Thinking about my next projects I realised:

1. Summer holidays are approaching fast (we're off to France, looking forward to that)
2. I promised myself last year to throw away old shorts that I've worn for ages (only wear those on holidays)
3. If I want to throw away shorts, I'll have to make (or buy) two new shorts. Buying is no option, would take long shopping hours to find something that fits, which is frustrating and usually very expensive for a garment that I seldom wear.
   
4. I'd like one easy dress, that needs no ironing and can be worn to go to a restaurant for example. Not too fancy, but I don't like to go into a restaurant in shorts.
   

This weekend I cut out the shorts, the dress and a top. These are my current projects:

Burda 06-2004-111, shorts
These are shorts without waisband, I like the pleats in the front and cut them out of a brown kaki from my stash. The largest size was 42, so I cut 3cm seam allowances at the sides, because I'll probably need a bit more room at the hips.
And I made the length longer, added 20 cm to make them knee length (my legs are not so beautiful as the model in the magazine, plus I'm not 18 any more).




Burda 05-2006-115, wrap dress
I made this dress before, also from a Gorgeous Things fabric. This time I'll make it sleeveless and with a waistband that can be pulled through a hole on the right side, so that wrapping the dress is a bit easier.














Burda 03-2007-113, top
This has been on my "to make" list since a while, I liked the results of others who reviewed this pattern on Pattern Review. And when I received this Gorgeous Things fabric, thought it would suit this pattern. I'm making it with contrasting black cotton batiste.

Reaction on comment

Nancy just asked in a comment how I did start making lingerie and whether I have any books. Let me answer this question here.

First: how did I start?
I started with a course on sewing lingerie that was held in the town I live. The woman that minded my children two days a week when they were little was on this course and told me about it, knowing that I sewed too. It was a great course, that thought me all the basics. Then I started reading information on the internet, bought a few commercial patterns, took another workshop with someone else. All this together let to the bra's I make now for myself and my daughter. So, it's a combination of lessons and trying, my first bra's did not fit as well as they do now. From a technical point of view: you must be precise when sewing lingerie, a few millimeters make a big difference in a bra, where in a skirt you won't see the difference.

And on books: I do not have any book on lingerie making. I considered buying the book "the bra-makers manual" last year, but thought it too expensive for my needs, as I read this book is mainly for those who sew for others.
Someone wrote me a mail and told about an Australian book "Making beautiful bra's" that deals with copying an existing bra. But I don't know this book myself.

And if you have an old bra that fits you well, you could just pull it apart and make a pattern of this to start with.

As far as English patterns go, I'm very sorry but I have no experience with those, so I can not recommend.
But I would be glad to help with a translation from Dutch or German for those who would like that. Just mail me.

Empty sewing baskets!

This does not happen too often, all my sewing baskets are empty! I finished the Burda top for my daughter, see below and the review at Pattern Review if you want more info. The fit is fine, but I think the neckline is too low.


Further I finished my Sewy Linda bra and panty.



For the bra I will write a review on PR sometime this weekend, the panty pattern is drafted from instructions to my own measurements. Made this panty first in white lycra with white lace as a muslin. This muslin is very wearable, so now I made this one to go with the bra. I like the way the two fabrics fit together.

Further I finished the panties for my daughter, the dark blue capri for myself was finished more then a week ago, but I could not make a good picture of this as the fabric is so dark.

So, what's up next? I have so many ideas, too many fabrics and of course lacking time.
I think of making my DKNY dress in a plain fabric, and altering the skirt and make it wide with godets. Want to make shorts, t-shirts etc.
And want to make a dress (yes, another one!) of this fabric from the package I received from Gorgeous Fabrics. It will be a sleeveless version of the Burda wrap dress I made earlier this year.


And I took lessons again, this time I'm going to make a swimsuit! Very anxious to see how this will be.
This is the fabric I'll be using for the swimsuit. And I'm not going to count this one in my sewing baskets!

Bra construction

One of the things I'm making at the moment is a Sewy pattern for myself. As I mentioned earlier, I usually make bra's from a pattern that is drafted to my own measurements. But I like exploring and trying, so that's why I bought a few commercial patterns in the past years. Plus, like most women I think, it's nice to have different models.

The Sewy pattern called "Linda" has very different cups. That's why I bought it about two years ago. I made it then as a wearable muslin from brown lycra and lace. But though the fit of the cups was right, the overall feeling was not good. On the underside the elastic flipped to the inside and the side cups in lace were not interfaced, which made it not strong enough for my D cup.
I left it at that but the pattern remained on my mind and I decided to make it again, altering the pattern.

The main change to the pattern for the cup so that the wire chanelling was not flipped towards the cups, but outward (as I'm used to do).
Here are three pictures of three different bra's to illustrate the problem.

The Linda pattern is a full band bra, and in that case you sew the chanelling over the elastic. But not in the description of Sewy (and two years ago I had not enough experience to know beforehand that I had to change it). In the picture of the brown bra you see the way the Linda patterns describes it. The wire is above the elastic



In this picture you can see the "normal" construction for a full band bra, this is the bra I'm working on.



And in this last picture you see the wire chanelling on a partial band bra. You sew the chanelling towards the cups, but that is no problem, because there is no elastic on ther underside of the cups (btw: this is the inside of the blue bra I posted early in May).