Burda #110 3 2013 Shift Dress

Finally a photo session of me in my new shift dress I sewed for the high school graduation ceremony of Alex. I know, it's not much of a dress, but I was happy to have improved my dress making skills enough so as to be able to wear a dress, a fairly complicated dress, in public.

I've been planning to make this dress ever since the Burda issue came out in 2013. I had bought the fabric for it and everything and then I cut the fabric for another pattern which was a failure and the idea was abandoned. Until June this year. I made a few small tweeks of the pattern  - I left the ribbons out, raised and narrowed the neckline a bit (should try to make it even more narrow next time) and shortened the pattern to fit my height.

The hems of the skirt and the sleeves are done by hand. I bought a cotton lawn in black for the lining of the dress, but in the end decided to leave the dress without lining. The main fabric is cotton which wrinkles a lot and looks a bit dull, it just does not look classy enough to justify the effort of adding a lining, I've decided to regard the dress more like a wearable muslin.

This is my first invisible zipper installed following the priceless instruction in the Copen dress video. After I finished the zipper I noticed that the back was gaping a lot at the neck, so I corrected it with two small darts. Next time I'll try to figure out how to move the darts towards the zipper, so that the neck would fit me without darts.

And a bonus photo of me husband took at the local Lidl - embracing the beans :)

Bistritza - Aleko 2019

The weather forecast for Saturday was rain and thunderstorms from 15:00 pm on, so we decided to go to the mountain outpost nearest to us - the village of Bistritza, starting early in the morning and returning before the rain. We climbed from Bistritza to Aleko last year and I had liked the path a lot. This time - not so much. The rain and sun this spring and summer had let the open part of the path to be overgrown with raspberry bushes and other grasses and it was not very pleasant to fight our way through. I'm short and it was an issue for me, as the vegetation was up to and above my head and I had to protect my face from the stems and leaves. Still, I'm very glad we went up and had a good exercise that will keep me energized for the week ahead.

Trail info: 16 km, 910 m elevation gain, 4 hours and 40 min total, including a lunch break.

BTW, the weather forecast was right and it did start to rain about 15:30 pm :)

Burda #114 5 2015 Pants

This is the second pair of pants I sewed for Gaby last month. The fabric is natural viscose, very fluid, light and breathing. The pants turned out exactly what she wanted for home - wide enough and comfy for lounging in the warm spring and summer days.

I made a few small mods to the pattern - the waist band has triple elastic and a string. I think I used 12 mm elastic band. For the string openings I installed two small rivets.

 Of course, the pants have pockets - probably the most complicated part of the design.

The cuffs are also with triple elastic. I used narrower elastic band here, I believe it was 8 mm. The triple elastic bands were the new skill I learned with this project and they took me almost a day to finish, but I'm quite pleased with them.

I love the colorful design of the fabric - the tropical birds and flowers have that bright summer vibe I was looking for.

Razgrad At Night 2019

A few photos from our car journey during the weekend to Razgrad and back:

: Sunflower fields - husband knows how much I love to photograph sunflowers and stops the car wherever he can to let me take a few pictures:

: A walk through Razgrad after sunset - the best time for a city walk on a hot summer day.

: And back to Sofia - and plenty of other sunflower fields to enjoy and photograph :)

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!