Burda Darted Blouse, in a floral extravaganza

This lovely floral blouse (105-04-2018) is the final project in my Burdastyle Academy Advanced Teacher Certification Course. It's an interesting pattern, with lots of detail -- front darts, two piece sleeve with a gathered cuff, collar and stand, and so on. 

It was an interesting make, with lots of challenging bits. Nothing really super hard, but lots of steps. I enjoyed it! I used a floral cotton from my stash, one that I've had for a really long time, and was delighted to finally find the perfect project for this fabric. Not only that, there was a very amusing typo in the selvages that entertained me -- so I had to use it as a garment label. Shout out to my fellow peons! 

This cotton behaved very nicely, taking pressing well, so that the darts and seams all lay nice and neatly. I had to shorten the sleeves quite a lot (thanks to my T Rex arms) and took 1.25" off both the upper and lower sleeve bits. Fortunately, with the cuff, that made them just the right length for me. Whew! 

I didn't shorten the body, although I could probably take a bit off the bottom length. I do like it as it is, however. I cut the inner collar stand and the interior yoke out of a tiny scale yellow gingham, also in my stash -- partly for the vibrant contrast, and partly because I didn't have quite enough of the narrow width floral to cut a second yoke anyhow ;)

I had a bit of a quandry picking buttons, but decided (with the help of many voices on Instagram) to go with this blush tone floral button from the extensive stash of shirt buttons that my sister thrifted for me a couple of years ago. I'm set for shirt buttons for a while!

My Janome is a little quirky when it comes to its automatic buttonholes -- they sew up nicely, but always slightly bigger than necessary. I get around this but testing with a button slightly smaller than the one I'm going to use, and when I get a buttonhole I like, I go ahead. I only put one button on each cuff rather than two, mainly because it's a bigger button and two would have looked squished.

I was so glad to have the extra instruction in the class to finally get the Burda bias strip sleeve opening done properly. It's just a little fiddly with attaching a bias strip to finish the slit, and then turning one side in before attaching the cuff -- makes sense once you do it, but hard to understand beforehand. 

I love how this turned out. I am really pleased with the fit and love the print. It was so great to have this push to make a more detailed project. It was really satisfying to slowly work through each step and make sure it was done and pressed well, then on to the next. And also a joy to use some of the beautiful fabric in my stash that has been hidden away on the shelves for far too long. 

That's it for my Burda classes, but I've earmarked a whole stack of Burda patterns I would love to make this year now that I'm much more comfortable with their patterns. I find they usually fit me well, and I'm planning to make a dent in my Burda magazine stash. For now I'll just swan around happily in my faux-Liberty "Europeon" blouse! 

January MAGAM plans

It took me a little longer to decide what to choose for my January Make a Garment a Month pattern. Should I make another dress, or something different? I looked at a lot of patterns, but in the end I decided that I needed something easy this month, and had just the patterns & fabric in my stash. Despite my recently stated sewing goals for 2014, I'm going to start slow this year with something easy -- still thinking about the bigger challenges I want to take on later :)

I don't like plain t-shirts, and don't really have very many. But I do like long sleeved comfy tops so thought I'd use some pieces of soft knit jersey in my stash to make up some more interesting tees. I have these two Very Easy Vogue patterns and these two colours of knit:

Vogue 8581 and Vogue 8514

My goal is to make at least one of them this month. I feel in need of something simple and comfy. I'm planning to make the blue fabric into the green view, and the grey fabric into the white view.

Seems Suitable

Today's look features Butterick 5217, Misses Tops, view C.

I don't make a lot of tops, generally sewing dresses as my first choice. But I had a really nice scrap of lightweight men's suiting that I wanted to use and thought it would make a great shirt. The fabric is soft and light, a mix of dark and light brown with black and even a smidge of navy blue in there.

I decided I had just enough for this top -- but actually there was not quite enough, as I ended up making the inside back yoke of plain black cotton and having to bias bind the underarm with black bias tape rather than self bias...but since I mostly wear it with this sweater that doesn't matter too much.

Excuse the wrist brace, all that sewing you know!
 At least it matches...

You can notice the black bias
tape on the underarm area here

I like it a lot -- it's comfy and the fabric has a nice shimmer to it. This pattern, however, fits very large. The yoke and bust fit correctly, as I cut it to size at that point, but it really poofs out, thanks to all those square pleats, front and back. Perhaps it was because of my heavier fabric, but I find the back to be quite "sticky-outie" and if I make this again I'll likely reduce the fullness to only one centre pleat. But I like wearing this and always get a comment or two about the fabric when I do :) The yoke actually fits me, it is just pulling oddly in the picture below because of the weird way I am standing...

Here I am auditioning for the
front of a pattern envelope

So, overall a top that I like, but to make again I would choose a much drapier fabric and take in the fullness a bit. Don't really need a maternity top to add to my wardrobe!