Apple Green Dilgul Top

I am building a small spring wardrobe for Gaby, as I intend to send her a package to Vienna these days. So far I have only shown you the hoodie, and here is one of the blouses. 

I had a nice quality viscose knit in a fresh apple green color and I wanted to make something flow-y and spring-y from it. I wеnt through my Burda blouse patterns and nothing clicked, so I googled images of long sleeve blouses and came upon these tops with interesting pleated plackets.  

I am always in for a challenge, and I decided to try and make that look, starting from a basic long sleeve pattern. For my base I chose a true and tried Burda long sleeve - Burda 6820.

I left the sleeves and the back as they were and modified the front. I cut the front pattern in seven places at 1.7 cm intervals and added 1.5 cm pleats. If I were to make this pattern again, I would reduce the width of the pleats to 1 cm or 1.2 cm and I would raise the neckline by 3 cm and make it a bit more square, as it is in the original. The way I made it, the neckline sits low enough and does not favour unbuttoning, which kind of makes all this elaborate button closure redundant.

In the original the bottom hem is simply roll-hemmed on the overlocker, but to me this kind of finishing looks a bit cheap, so I decided to hem it with a narrow hem with a double needle.

And one more detail - always finish the neck with the neckband first and then add the Henley placket. I made it the other way round and it proved the wrong way, as the finishing of the placket is not that sharp. Lesson learned, I hope :)

Pattern: Burda 6820 (base), Dilgul Pleated Top (inspiration)

Size: 36, heavily modified to #makethatlook

Fabric: viscose knit, 1 m

Time to make: 4 days

Still, I think it is a nice and different long sleeve, the fabric is extremely pleasant to the skin and i hope Gaby will like it and wear it this spring. And it was a fun #makethatlook challenge.

Plaid Pleated Skirt

The second skirt and the last item I made out of my 2 m plaid wool fabric - a pleated skirt for Gaby. I designed the skirt myself, using pattern 112A from Burda 03 / 2020 for the yoke of the skirt. The smallest size of the pattern is 36, and as Gaby is 34, I reduced the pieces of the pattern by 1 cm.

The original Burda skirt has an invisible zipper on the side, but I though a fly front zipper would be more appropriate for the style I was going for with this skirt. This is my first ever fly front zipper and I am very, very happy with how it came out. I watched two video tutorials and followed them step by step to make mine.

I also decided to add two small decorative pockets to the front, to add a bit of interest to the skirt.

To make the pleated part I measured the width of the yoke at the hip, tripled the length and cut a rectangular piece of fabric of the calculated length and about 30 cm in width. Then I carefully folded and ironed each pleat, basted it in place and then heavily ironed the whole pleated part again and left it to sit basted for a week, to fix the pleats.

The inside of the skirt. The overlocked edges make garments look so much more professionally made, I'm pretty happy with my work on that skirt :)

Pattern: Pleated Skirt, self-drafted, partially using #112 from Burda 03 / 2020

Fabric: wool with elastane

Size: 36, reduced

Thread: black polyester

Time to  make: 3 days

Burda #106 4/2013 Blouse

My latest most favourite blouse - the pleated blouse #106 from Burda 4 / 2013 issue. I came upon this pattern quite by chance. First - the fabric. While buying linen-cotton mix for a shirt for my husband, which he requested and which will not be sewn this summer, it seems :( (bad me), I saw a small piece - only about 70 cm, of gorgeous dark blue viscose-cotton fabric and I grabbed it for a blouse for myself. Then I went to Peppermint Magazine site and browsed through their free blouse patterns. They have a cute pleated top, which I downloaded and was prepared to print and cut, but unfortunately it came with no instructions. So I searched the web for images of this blouse sewn by other people and came upon a similar pattern by Burda, which I liked even better. So, against all hope, I went to our Burda shop in search of a particular 2013 issue and there they had it - just for the meager € 1.50! I literally cried YIPPIE when I found it :)))

The pattern is very simple - just a front with pleats and a back and two small pieces of the neck lining. I made my usual modifications to size 36 - took 1 cm above the arm opening, 2 cm above the waist and I rounded the hem a bit. If I make this a second time, I will make the shoulders more narrow - I finally figured out one of my problems with Burda patterns - I am more narrow at the shoulders than their standard model, so I have to learn to grade my patterns from 34 at the shoulders to 36 downwards.

I like the length of the blouse - I used to enjoy fitted and very short T-shirts and blouses, but lately I'm very much into oversized, boxy and long upper garments. May be it's just a phase :)

The inside of the blouse - this picture is much closer to its true dark navy color. The shoulder and side seams are narrow french seams, the curved edge and the arm openings are hemmed with 3 cm double folded hem and the neckline is formed with the lining pieces, which are interfaced with fusible and are understitched.