Mirroring Suzy Bee Sews - Life So Strange It Should Be Fiction

Burda 11-2011-114 has been on my list  ever since the magazine was published!  I got this fabric at Golden D'Or in Dallas in December 2011 and way overpaid for it at $8.50/yd, but I love the color and the subtle "space dyed" gradation.  It is extremely lightweight with little recovery and I don't expect to get more than a dozen wears out of this top before the fabric stretches out beyond redemption. Alas.   The biggest negative for this pattern is that the front piece is a giant fabric hog and I couldn't find an efficient cutting layout that didn't waste a lot of fabric. The center back is drafted on the fold, which doesn't work for my swayback.  I used my TNT tee to shape the side seams and add a center back seam. This is the "easy" sewing pattern with illustrated instructions for the November 2011 issue.  I am sure I would have figured it out eventually from Burda's written instructions, but it was really nice to have the illustra...

So last Spring, almost a year ago now, I was in a mood to tackle a big project and to do it right.  I don't know why that came over me--it's unusual!  I am more of a "make it in a weekend" gal.  So I decided it was time to make a trench.   Burda 11-2012-118  is *almost* the perfect classic:  it has the separate collar stand, double breast, and gun/rain flaps--but the latter are weird and asymmetrical.  A totally unnecessary variant!  However, it was relatively easy to turn them into the classic look, and the pattern needed only my usual fit alterations to be perfect. Fabric Mart had some fabulous red water resistant (more on that later) nylon allegedly from Marc Jacobs, I splurged on fabulous hardware from Pacific Trimming, and patiently got started. Well, back up.  After tracing out and altered the pattern I cut it out in a coated linen I got from Fabric Mart a while back.  Luckily, I thought to actually test the f...

Tweed Ride was a couple of weeks ago.  I wasn't sure I'd be able to attend so I hadn't put any thought into an outfit, but I ended up being free that day and I had one week to pull it together.  Eek!  I had just returned from vacation, before which I had engaged in an absolute orgy of sewing and was still kind of worn out.  So of course the logical thing to do was make a jacket.  A lined jacket.  In plaid.  In one week.  But last year I vowed that if I did it again this year I *would* finally make this wonderful plaid (a wool/poly blend, as it turns out) from The Carol Collection into a jacket. I went through my BWOFs and decided I just loved Burda 05-2009-102.  Unfortunately, the smallest size it comes in is 36 and the pieces are complicated enough that I skipped grading to a 34 at the shoulders and bust as I would normally do.  Luckily, I was able to narrow the shoulders a bit on sewing and the fit in the upper part was pretty goo...

I didn't order the Burda Classics magazine from GLP--never got around to it--but while in Porto, Portugal I saw it--in French--in the window of a tiny newsstand on a little side street.  Apparently, Burda is not pronounced anything like "Burda" in Portuguese, because it took a bit of gesturing and explaining to indicate which magazine I wanted to buy (the window copy was the only one), but eventually it was mine, all mine! I was happy to see a simple 3/4 circle skirt in the magazine.  I am just too lazy to draft my own pattern, and I had been wanting one as a bike-friendly alternative to an A line.  I thought I'd start with a silk chiffon version--it goes with a bunch of tops already in my closet and would work year round. Well, who knew a freaking two piece skirt could be so much trouble?  I cannot even begin to describe how much fail went into this. Fail #1:  Cutting.  This is totally, completely my fault.  The chiffon was not wide enough ...

After a long stretch of unappealing, Burda finally started getting interesting again late last year.   Burda 09-2013-105  was one of the patterns that went on my list as soon as the magazine arrived.  It has a pencil skirt silhouette, but the front wrap/split means that it's fairly bikeable.  Perfect! I shortened the skirt three inches before cutting and still had a generous hem allowance for a skirt longer than I usually wear.  This would have been mid-calf had I not shortened it.  Because the shapes of the front openings is the major part of the design here, for my short legs the skirt needed to be at full knee length so the graceful arcs would have their full space to be graceful.  When I pinned it at a shorter length it lost a bit of its sophistication. I love wool crepe for office clothes.  The only downside is that it wrinkles almost as much as linen.  To attempt to keep the wrinkling slightly under control, I underlined it with silk o...