February Burda of the month: 3/2014 #117 pleated skirt

Friday 4 April 2014
At the very beginning of February I traced off three patterns thinking that I'd get not one but three February Burda projects done. Ha ha wishful thinking! Real life got in the way last month and here we are few days into April and I've only just finished one and it was such a simple skirt that I managed to cut it out and sew it last night and took photos of it today. In the end I made a skirt (3/2014 #117) from the "Pretty Grunge" collection of the March issue - having lived through grunge the first time around I was a bit hesitant but without Burda's crazy styling (socks and high heels, really?) it doesn't look too bad:


 

I did trace off a double breasted blazer with ginormous lapels in this issue too (3/2014 #101) which I thought looked interesting in a nice way and even made two muslins because it was a size 36 and I knew I needed to grade down a size. But when it came time to making it I discovered the fabric I wanted to use was too small a piece - it was left over from another project and I wanted this jacket to make a matching suit. So I've set it aside until I can decide on another piece of fabric (no shortage of that around here, I just need to wait until inspiration strikes). The other pattern I also traced is just a pair of tracksuit pants (3/2014 #112) which I haven't made yet because it's just so hot here still, and they possibly won't warrant a blog post anyway.

I used a piece of fabric from deep within the stash - literally it was at the very back of the shelf and I had to dig through to piles of other fabrics to get it out. I can't remember it's origin, probably an opshop I'd say. It's a crisp cotton in dark tan with a weird print. I was careful not to place one of those dark pink bits of the print at ahem, crotch level on the front:


but didn't give the same careful print placement consideration for the back view, so now it looks like I have a target on my butt:


And for the side seams I didn't even attempt pattern matching, or the waistband either out of pure laziness:


Ah well, I'm convinced that absolutely no one except for us sewists pay any attention to matching patterns at seams or print placement. Have a look at this lovely lady wearing a jumpsuit with questionable pattern placement that I pinned from whowhatwear.com just because it made me laugh out loud:

image source here
Obviously this pattern placement was very deliberate but I'm not convinced it's a look. So we should all be a bit easier on ourselves I think!

Overall I found this pattern to be pretty good. It has inseam pockets on both sides seams which are useful, the back is fitted with two darts so it's a sleek fit at the back but the slightly angled pleats on the front don't add an unsightly amount of volume either. I don't think the skirt is as narrow as the one worn by model in the photo suggests but any narrower and you wouldn't be able to walk because the skirt doesn't have a walking vent.  I also lopped about 5cm off the hem but looking at these photos it could probably be a bit shorter. You do need to remember to flare the hem allowance out because the skirt is quite pegged, which I forgot to do and so have made a super narrow hem instead - I've made many skirts like this in the past so I really should have known better.

And speaking of my past creations, can you believe it that Toby is 2 years old tomorrow? The time has just flown by. Tonight I need to put in some hours to make him a birthday shirt, I don't want him to feel neglected as the second child!


I caved in and went to the Fabric Cave sale today - so did a lot of people too judging by how busy the store was! The funniest thing was seeing the fabrics I donated a few weeks ago on the shelves, but I made sure I didn't buy any of them back. Unfortunately Toby fell asleep in my arms just as I arrived in the store so I was rather restricted in what I could get having to lug his 13kg around in one arm and dig through their packed shelves with the other. In the end I picked up these pieces for the bargain price of $15.80:


I do actually have plans for these pieces so I feel no shame in picking up yet more fabrics, especially as the proceeds are going to such a good cause and it's much less than my recent donation to them.

No comments:

Post a Comment