Red Burda Blouse 6924

This August is pretty unusual here in Sofia - it's more cold and rainy even for the cold and rainy mountainous climate we are accustomed to. So last Sunday the backpacks were ready, the cheese pie (banitza) was baked and we were hyped to go hiking on Rila, but ... it wouldn't stop raining and the forecast was for rain and thunderstorms all day long. And what else could I do but sew another Burda 6924 blouse :)

Last year I bought this bright red viscose (it is blood red, in case your monitor, similar to mine, displays it otherwise). I believe I had at least 2.5 m of it and I was thinking of a long bright red dress. But I never wear long bright red dresses and where would I do wear them? So, I decided it was time to cut into it and make something, even something as small as this cropped front tie blouse.

 

It is exactly as the white blouse, only red :) I made the same modifications as for the white blouse, including the bias tape coverage of the back neck seam, french seams, four front buttons. Gaby already wore it to the dentists' and declared that she loves it even better than the white one and now wants a third, but with 3/4 sleeves. We'll see about that :)

 

Pattern: Burdastyle 6924

Fabric: 100% viscose, light fusible

Thread: cotton, red

Time to make: 2 days

Cropped Blouse and Paperbag Shorts

My latest makes for Gaby - a cropped blouse with ties at the fronts and paperbag shorts.

For months I've been planning a blouse for her with ties at the front. I considered a Burda pattern from a magazine I own, but it was long sleeved and a bit too open at the front. Then I downloaded a similar free french pattern, but Gaby didn't like the back of the blouse. So last week I browsed the Burda.ru site for sleeveless shirts and came upon Burda 6924 - it is cropped, with ties at the front and tailored at the back - just what I was looking for. I bought it and immediately printed it, cut and glued the pattern pieces and added my usual height corrections - removed 1 cm above the armscye and 1 cm above the waist, as regular Burda patterns are drafted for height 168 cm and Gaby is 163 cm.

My fabric is very light weight, gauze-like cotton, which was barely sufficient for the blouse, as it was single width (90 cm) - something I had somehow missed to notice in the fabric shop.

I followed the scanty instructions of the Burda pattern, my only modifications, beside the height adjustment, were my seams, which are french, and I covered the seam at the back between the neck and the collar with a bias tape, so I have no exposed fabric ends. And I reduced the buttons to four - five seemed a bit redundant for such a small cropped blouse with a lapel :)

Pattern: Burda 6924

Size: 34, shortened by 2 cm

Fabric: Cotton Gauze, 1 m

Thread: Polyester, cream

Time to make: 2 days

 

My second make are the shorts. I browsed for paperbag shorts and liked a lot of RTW items. The main features i wanted to recreate were the pockets, the paperbag waist, the turned cuffs and the large belt holders and the belt. For the basis of the pattern I used a true and tried Burda pattern - #117 of issue 05 / 2013.

 

I modified heavily the original long pants design - shortened them to 20 cm below the crotch, removed the upper elongations of the parts and added a separate belt, into half of which I added an elastic. I also made 5 long belt holders and a 6 cm wide 170 cm long belt, which Gaby skipped yesterday, as the tie of the shirt didn't combine well with the tie of the shorts belt.

Pattern: Burda # 117 05 / 2013, heavily modified

Size: 34

Fabric: cotton/linen blend, remnant from my husband's shirt

Thread: Polyester, cream color

Time to make:  1 day

 

A view of the shorts with the belt, tied in a butterfly:

Burda 06 2016 Shirt for My Husband

This is the second shirt #143 from Burda 06 / 2016, which I made this summer, this time for my husband. This is a short sleeved men's shirt, slightly tailored.

I made size 52, the same as for my father, and it fits husband beautifully. The fabric is a linen/cotton blend, fairly light and not that prone to wrinkling.

As the fabric is striped, I played with the direction of the stripes in the yoke and tried to perfectly match them in the sleeve cuffs and the pocket, as far as I could.

All in all, I'm happy with the final outcome and even more with a husband, willing to put up with me and pose for a photo session in his new shirt :)

Purple Shirt from Shkatulka

I started sewing this shirt way back in October last year. The pattern is from the Russian site Shkatulka and it is free for my size (Russian size 42, height 164 cm). For the shirt I bought a large piece of purple cotton viscose, which has very nice luster and drape and rich color, but turned out to be too thin, too much subject to wrinkling and with some defects.

I cut the fabric without making any height adjustments to the pattern, as it was stated to be for a smaller height (164 vs. the usual 168). I'm not quite certain what was my thinking at the time, but at 156 I'm still far from the stated height and two centimeters adjustment above the waist would have been beneficial for the fit.

Where I hit the rock were the sleeves - the pattern did not envision the usual cuts and cuffs, and though I've made already half a dozen shirt sleeves, I felt uncertain how to proceed. I abandoned the project, thinking it was only for a while, but the hiatus extended to January the next year, until I made Gaby's latest hooded shirt. It turned to be the make that kicked my behind to get a grip and finish the wretched thing.

And I'm glad I did. The fit is not perfect, the collar is not placed with the greatest attention to precision and the fabric is somewhat cheaply thin, but the overall garment is wearable and I adore the color, I've even already worn it a couple of times in public :)

Burda 01 / 2020 Hoodie #107

This is probably one of my best makes recently - hoodie #107 of Burda 01/2020. I love everything about it - the playful combination of the elegant shirt sleeves with cuffs and the casual hood and how well it goes with the rich natural viscose fabric and the little colorful monkeys on it :)
I had four small light green buttons, that suited the fabric surprisingly well and I wanted to make the cord of the hoodie in the same light green color, but I couldn't find the right color ribbon. I'm still searching and if I come upon one, I might change the cord.

The fabric is again a gift from my friend (I have a whole box of these fabrics) and it was almost 3 m, so I have quite a lot of it left and I plan a dress for myself from the same magazine.

I cut the smallest size of the pattern - 36 and downgraded it to 34 and also shortened the length of the body and the sleeves, following Gaby's individual measures. All of the seams are narrow french seams - lately I find it so much more pleasing, when the inside of the garment is neat and without any zigzaged fabric edges.

We didn't have much luck today with the weather - it was cold and cloudy and Gaby was freezing within minutes in her light viscose blouse

so off we go :)

Burda 6849 Sleeveless Shirt

And the second shirt I sewed for Gaby this summer, which she still hasn't seen or measured - another Burda 6849 shirt. This is my fourth shirt out of this pattern, but this time I decided to make it sleeveless. The fabric is shirting cotton with some body, which looks like chambray (maybe it is chambray, I don't know). Anyway, I decided to give the shirt a bit of a denim vibe, so I used light brown thread for the decorative seams, metal buttons and I added a small tag on the pocket.

Modifications to the pattern. I traced size 34 and shortened it 1 cm above the bust and 1 cm above the waist. I kept the length at the sides, but shortened the central length by 5 cm, thus making the hem less curved and the whole shirt much shorter than the original, which goes way below the hips.

To make the shirt sleeveless, I obviously omitted the sleeves and I also took in 2 cm from the shoulders. I still don't know if the armscyes will be gaping and should I have raised the side seams by 2 cm to adjust for the widening of the arm opening. I had only 0.8 m of this fabric and I used it to the last bit for the main parts, so I had to make a bias band for the armholes out of auxiliary white fabric. Initially I had planned the shirt with two pockets with flaps, but I didn't have enough fabric for the second pocket. However, I think it was for the best, I like how sleek it looks with the one pocket with the tag.

All of the visible seams are flat felled seams. For the double yoke I used again the burrito method. I also applied varying seam allowances - 1.5 cm for the flat felled seams, 1 cm for the enclosed seams and 2 cm for the hem.

Burda 6874 Men's Shirt

This is another one of my recent makes - a men's shirt out of cotton shirting fabric. The pattern - Burda 6874 is quite popular and I was especially glad to find that Carolyn had made quite a few of these. I followed her instructions for the flat seams and this is so far the best shirt I've ever made - as far as sewing skills go. The fitting is another matter altogether :( I made the shirt for my father, guessing his size based on my men (husband and son). It turned out I had guessed wrong and the shirt came too small and too short. It remained for my son, though the fit isn't quite right for him too. I'll be making another one for my father two sizes larger, hopefully the new one will fit him better.

A couple of pictures of Alex wearing the shirt. Sorry for the crumpled state it got after all the traveling that happened before I managed to take the pictures.

A few shots of the sunflower fields we passed by while traveling. I just love fields of crops!

The inside of the shirt - flat felled seamed sleeves. There are no raw edges zigzagged or otherwise cleaned - everything is hidden inside flat felled seams.

The outside of the sleeve - I just love how the seams aligned!