In Progress : Another Burda

Emboldened by my very recent successful experiment with a Burda pattern, I am making another one!

I recently found this wool at the thrift shop and was going to make a skirt, but after washing it, I thought it would be a waste and a jacket would be better so I set up looking for one with very little yardage : #113 looks awesome. I am not sure about the back slit yet, but I like the extra long sleeves and I found this matching crazy ass chemical experiment gone awry polyester print for the lining and gave the project a go! 

Being out of drafting paper, I looked around the house for a possible replacement and found cooking parchment. It's slippery and scotch tape won't stick to it, but it's transparent enough to make sense of the psychedelic pattern sheet. 

Like with the Claire Shaeffer, I drafted every pattern piece, outer shell, lining and interfacing, which will help me get the precision I want. I did a quick tissue fit last night and everything looks in the right place. I'll try cutting it today and get back to you. I have very little fabric to work with, matching the plaid will be difficult, but I only paid 2€ for it so I won't fret over it too, too much.

Just in case you are wondering how I cut the lining pieces, Burda has a great video on how to do just that, I will use Fashion Incubator's tutorials on bagging a jacket and the Vogue 7467 instructions for the pockets so I won't follow the magazine's cryptographic instructions which never cease to baffle me, in either French or English. 

It's a regular complaint, I wonder why they don't document the making of the garments they sew for the magazine's pictures. Now that's an idea....

New Sewing Tool

Good morning to you all and please welcome my new sewing tool.

It doesn't have a presser foot, but it might as well, it puts Sewing U right here at my fingertips.

I am giddy at the tought of being able to watch all of Nancy's, Sandra's, Threads', Burda's tutorials and finally see your stuff in real colours.

Let me set this thing up and I'll get back to you.

Burda 7517

Burda 7517 is done. Pfew!

I may be reconciled with Burda patterns, thanks to a good idea I had before I started the project. 

When I was showed how to make a Burda, I was taught to cut the pattern and then mark a 2cm seam allowance on the fabric. For some reason, that method didn't work for me. The results were baggy, needing lots of alterations and I ended up with a UFO pile of Burda fitting issues.

I am not quite sure of the nature of this thrifted fabric, it looks like "polyester acetate whatever" and is shifty as hell, so I thought that if I marked a 1,50cm, allowance on the paper and then cut it, it would be easier for me. It was and I will be working that way from now on.

The fabric stank so I washed it and it lost all the protective coating that made it sewable, so meet my new friend : Fabulon's fabulous starch!

I don't recommand doing this to every fabric, but on polyester "whatever", starching works. 

I also found a new colored washable glue at the supermarket which I really like because it's cheaper than buying the japanese import one and it was a great help with the zipper.

The dress is comfy, I am not sure I like it all that much, it doesn't fall like on the enveloppe, but it's grown on me. What I like most is the fabric's motif which, a friend rightly pointed out, is layed out like Monet's nenuphars. Wearing a little art makes the day go brighter.

Costumes Bretons

Yesterday, the village where I live was having it's annual Fest Noz, girls and some boys were dressed in their best Brittany dresses and danced traditional dances.

After the French Revolution, sumptuary laws regulating "Superfluity Of Dress" in France were revoked and Brittany women took that as a cue to embellish their frocks. All of a sudden, they could use gold thread, beads, lace to show off and by gosh they did!

Highly codified and regionalised, your social status dictated how high on your skirt the black silk velvet could go or if you could embroider the top of it. It dictated how many button you could put on a men's coat. The handwork is exceptional and some details of construction were very interesting. 

Do you see these handmade ruffles? Amazing. Look at the bodice, hand picked shaping. I had a grand old time, talking to the older women, how they got their dresses from their mother, an aunt, heirlooms, passed from one women to another. 

And I got to touch black silk velvet, the feeling of which is now engraved on my fingertips.