Tag: Burda

Three-Piece Suit (part 3 – Jacket)

So, it’s been a while, but I finally got myself into gear and finished the jacket for my suit. I’d put on the new front a while back, and I had sewn the lining, but getting the lining in the jacket.. a whole other story. It wasn’t actually hard, took me a couple of hours over two days after I set my mind to it. The scariest thing was to make the buttonholes. I’ve had buttonholes completely fail before and it was the very last step, also one of the more crucial ones. Luckily it all went reasonably well and the button holes function fine.

The introduction to this jacket was written up in Three-Piece Suit (part 0.5 – Failed Jacket). The jacket was based on Burda 5/2009 jacket 102 A, changes included shortening the body length, reducing the length of the arms and making the front pointy. I also added facings to the lower back edge and the sleeves. I reduced the width of the front, because Initially I only wanted one button. In the end I decided to make too, to make the jacket hang nicer. I really like that it has pockets and I included a loop for hanging it on a coat rack, in case that is ever necessary.

I should probably have worn real shoes for the full picture, but I was too lazy. At least the picture shows the full finished suit. It’s done! YAY!!

I’m quite proud of myself for actually finishing the project and finishing it to my liking, mostly. Now, I just need to continue to wear it. For the future, I still have a couple of sweater bodies that need to be sleeved. I have finished knitting a hat, poncho-thing and octopus that I’ll let you know about. My holiday cards have already been made, they just need to be personalized. Next plans include another graduation dress for January and that’s about all I’m sure about.

Three-Piece Suit (part 0.5 – Failed Jacket)

So, for some reason I really wanted to have a three-piece suit. I’m not sure why, but I decided that this was a thing that needed to happen. So I started leafing through the pattern magazines and eventually settled on Burda 5/2009 jacket 102 A.

I’d found the last 4 meters of a bolt of grey stuff with a white running stitch at the front and dot-pattern at the back. I hoped that I would be able to make a three-piece suit out of it. So a jacket, a vest and pants. I cut out the jacket in a table cloth and fit it. I needed to take three cm out of the length above the waist, so I had some fun with paper, scissors and a pencil. I also wanted to have one button at the front, so I took the front in a little. I sewed it all up in the new fabric and it fit well. Then I added the lining and everything went wonky.

The lining was too short, so I tried all kinds of fixes apart from cutting out a longer lining. So I chucked it in the corner and started on the vest. After finishing the vest, it turned out that the vest peeped out from underneath the jacket, sneak peek in the picture. Queue plan B! Ripping out the center front pieces and re-drawing the pattern. Update on that in the future.

Striped Shorts

After sewing the Tantalus scarf, I started leafing through my pattern magazines and I spotted some shorts I thought looked cool. Burda 6/2009, shorts 120. I liked the idea of the vaguely paper bag looking waist and the ties on the side. So I copied the pattern onto pattern paper, made an adjustment in the width of the crotch (need to remember for next time to add even more width), since that tends to be a regularly required adjustment and gave up for the day.

 I hadn’t figured out which fabric I wanted to use, but the next day it came to me. Why not use some striped black stuff I’d previously used for something – cannot remember what – and make them look vaguely formal. So off to work I went, cutting out all the bits and pieces. Then I tried to follow the (dreaded) Burda instructions…  Well, until the zipper. The instructions were half a page full of text, no pictures whatsoever. I did not understand what in the world they meant. So after pondering for a little bit, I decided to ditch the instructions and use me some google to get the job done. This led me to a page of someone who also had had problems with the instructions and gave me the new name for all my boxes of fabric: the hoard. This is the quote from ‘Sewing for Life’:

“my hoard (I stopped calling it stash…it’s really a hoard of fabric I have.  A stash is something to work from, constantly being used and renewed.  A hoard is just a stockpile that keeps getting added on to and therefore keeps getting bigger and bigger!” (here)

I managed to get a good zipper in, when I figured out that the pattern also had a button. I was not interested enough in undoing all my hard work and just left the button off. The next day I finished hemming the end of the first and the second leg, and project was done!

There are in seam pockets, and those two little ties and I think it looks good. I’m hoping it will actually be nice weather again soon, because I cannot wait to try them out for real.

Jeans!

At some point in the past, I found some actual jeans fabric in a second-hand store and brought it home. A couple of weeks ago, I figured it was time to turn the fabric into actual pants. I washed the fabric beforehand, to get rid of some of the residual ink. However, I did get somewhat smurf-like hands throughout the project. It’s definitely destined for some similar colour laundry.

The pattern was a bootcut pants pattern, from the Burda Easy Fashion Spring/Summer 2009 edition, model number 3. I made a number of changes, including different pockets, more of a yoke, a higher waistband and some on the fly things. The back isn’t perfect, but the front is fairly nice and this thing does not sag after a wear. There are definite improvements possible, but it doesn’t seem to be worse than my store-bought jeans. Prepare for pictures…

Front Back

There is a quite severe yoke, and angled pockets as other ones would not have fit.

Yoke Pocket

The front also has pockets which I closed up a little after sewing to create more storage space. I also added a plaid as the pocket lining.

Pocket Pocket

It closes with a hook and bar type closure and again has the plaid as the lining.

Close Inside

This experiment was successful enough to try something similar again. I would like to create some pants that are a little tighter around the legs and flare out later. We’ll see if it happens!