Purple Blouse with Flounce Sleeves for Gaby

Last year in the section for precut small pieces of fabric and remnants in my favourite fabric shop I came upon a piece of very soft and beautiful cotton jacquard fabric and made myself one of my most favourte blouses, using a fairly fresh for that time Burda 12/ 2023  pattern. Not long afterward I found another piece of the same fabric and I snatched it for Gaby, planning to make her the same blouse.

However, when Gaby came for Christmas, she decided that she would prefer a more fitted blouse with interesting 7/8 flounce sleeves.

For the body of the blouse I used my tried-and-true Burda 6820, which I've sewn so far in plenty of variations - boat neck, henley neck, short, 7/8 and long sleeves, deep scoop and crew neck, almost every variation on the fitted T-shirt I could think of :) If I've counted them correctly, this is the eleventh blouse I've made out of this pattern!

As far as modifications go, this one was fairly close to the pattern. I changed the neckline, which I raised significantly and closed with a band and I took in the width of the shoulders by 1.5 cm, as Gaby has fairly narrow shoulders compared to the standard Burda model.

Pattern: BurdaStyle 6820

Size: 36, modified

Fabric: soft cotton jacquard, 1 m

Time to make: 3 days

The only interesting moment in this iteration of the pattern were of course, the flounce sleeves. I watched a couple of videos on the construction of such sleeves and in the end decided on the slash and spread method. I took a piece of paper, cut it in the form of a rectangle with length - the length of the flounce and width -  the width of the sleeve at the point of joining. Then I decided on the desired circumference of the hem of the sleeve, cut the rectangle in six pieces, spread them fan-like and the pattern of the flounce was ready - it's so easy. And because I'm a nerd, I even made a mock-sleeve out of a remnant fabric piece, to be sure, that I had nailed what Gaby had in mind.

I think the blouse came out fairly interesting and I actually plan to make myself a similar one for the spring/summer season out of light cotton-viscose fabric.

The Gold Dress

And here's the dress I sewed for Gaby's graduation - sheath dress out of intricate jacquard fabric, integrating black cotton, golden color threads and black velvety patterns. Taking pictures of it under the bright sun is a bit tricky, as it is quite chameleonic in nature and changes its outlook, depending on the angle of the sun rays, falling on it.

The pattern is the same sheath dress from the Burda autumn-winter 2015-2016 catalogue in petite size - such a joy to be able to sew without constantly making changes to adjust for the height.

The sewing of the dress went quite smoothly, I took into account all the small issues I had noticed with my first dress out of this pattern. The fact, that the fabric is kind of striped and pretty stiff also made the cutting and the sewing a piece of cake.

Pattern: Burda #6890 dress

Size: 17 Height: 154 - 160 cm

Fabric: cotton jacquard, polyester lining

Time to make: 10 days

My only small issue is with the width of the sleeves - it seams to me they could be a little tighter to fit the overall outlook of the dress. At least this is what i plan for my next make out of this pattern, when the time comes.

I think this will be the last dress for 2024, but can you believe it - I've made eight dresses this year. It seams every year there is a hidden theme in my sewing and this year dresses is definitely the name of the game :)