Teal Blouse with High Turtleneck

I have a new favourite blouse! 

I bought this deep teal ITY at the end of last year, it is of the same type and quality as this wine ITY I sewed in 2020 and wore a lot throughout the temperate temp months.

I was really keen on sewing a similar blouse, I even bought several Burda patterns, but nothing clicked. I was almost ready to make a repeat of the pattern of the wine blouse, when I came upon Burda's FREE online sewing tutorial of Burda #112 of 10/2021. It is one of the patterns I actually bought when the magazine came out, but had my reserves about it.

The original blouse in the magazine is made out of thick and form-preserving knit fabric. However, the online tutorial showed how the pattern behaved with soft and fluid knits and I gasped - this was exactly what I was looking for. After I downloaded the course, I watched the tutorial videos one after the other so eagerly, as if it was a crime tv series - I was so hooked and itching to give the pattern a try. 

I watched the videos again while cutting and gluing the pattern, and then modifying it to fit my proportions. I shortened it my usual 1 cm above the bust, 2 cm above the waist and I didn't add hem allowance, thus additionally shortening the length by 2.5 cm. 

For the sleeves, I usually shorten Burda's long sleeves, designed for normal height, by 5-6 cm. I didn't want the cuffs to be too long, so I distributed the excessive length, by taking 2 cm off the sleeve body and 4 cm off the cuffs, and of course I also adjusted the length of the sleeve head to reflect the shortening of the armhole, as I am proportionately short everywhere, compared to Burda standards.

I didn't make any modifications to the neckpiece, but if I make this pattern again, I would widen it just a tiny bit, to make it lay a bit flatter. Nevertheless, I like it a lot as it is now too.

Pattern: Burda #112 10/2021

Size: 36, shortened

Fabric: ITY, 95% polyester 5% spandex 

Time to make: 3 days

I'm very pleased with the final result and heartily recommend the online tutorial.

Blue ITY Tunic

And here's the last thing I made in 2021 (finished on December 26th, to be precise) - a tunic out of a small piece of nice ITY fabric.

This was again one of those small cuts I find sometimes in the local fabric shops, less than a meter long, which I find a sweet challenge. As I am small, I can usually easily get a top out of such pieces. In this particular case I wanted to combine it with a remnant from another ITY fabric - white with blue hearts, the same blue as this navy ITY. And I even bought the dress pattern with these two fabrics in mind.

The pattern is Burda #117 08/2021, made in two complementing colors. My idea was to make the front and the back out of the white ITY and the sleeves and the skirt out of the blue. Nice idea and I might actually one day bring it to fruition with some other pieces of fabric. However the cuts from the white ITY turned out to be too small and strangely shaped and I could not fit the body pieces of the dress, however I tried. So, I decided to make the whole thing out of the blue ITY and to cut it as a tunic, similarly to the tunic, shown in Burda #109 06/2021, which I also happen to have.

I should probably mention here that the tunic was initially intended for Gaby and I was hurrying to finish it before her flight back to Vienna. She was totally on board with the idea for the color blocked tunic, but when she saw the finial all navy result, she did not like it and left it to me.

Demonstrating the ruffle on my sleeve :)

Because I was making the tunic for Gaby, who is some 3 inches taller than me, I did not make any corrections to the length of the body, I simply cut size 36 and cut the skirt about 14 cm long from the waist. Unfortunately, the fit turned out rather loose and unflattering and if I were to make it again I would have to introduce some crucial corrections to fix it.

Pattern: Burda #117 08/2021

Size: 36, cut to tunic length

Fabric: ITY

Time to make: 3 days

Despite the somewhat unflattering fit, the fabric and the pattern are very easy to wear - the fabric is very fluid, doesn't wrinkle and the color is pretty basic and universal, so I expect this little top will actually get a lot of wear once we are out of the -14C temperature range (the forecast for tonight).

Burda Black Dress and Purple Dotted Rays

This is my second Burda #114 06/2021, this time in black ITY fabric. I used the corrections I had made to the pattern when I worked one my leopard tunic earlier this month, introducing a further sway back adjustment. The fit is quite loose, but I find it very comfortable and as the fabric is drapy and fluid, the dress actually looks elegant, not too baggy, despite the amount of positive ease. However, when I make this dress again, I will try to go down a size by self-grading to the next smaller size (the smallest provided for this pattern is 36).

I've always been a staunch advocate of natural fabrics, but this ITY polyester is actually so nice and soft next to the skin and so breathable, that I've been reevaluating my fabric preferences for the summer and now I want a long dress in floral ITY, if I can find such fabric here in Sofia.

Pattern: Burda #113 06 / 2021

Size: 36

Fabric: ITY, 100% polyester

Time to make: 2 days

 And a few pictures of my old new Dotted Rays shawl. Three years ago I knitted my first Dotted Rays, using various yarn remnants. I loved the bright and a bit brave color combination, but the past three year showed that it was not well suited for my wardrobe and I was not using this shawl as often was I wanted. So this spring I decided to unravel the stripes up to the purple part of the old shawl and to overdye the yarn in purple and bordeaux colors. 

The light and darker blue and greenish stripes took the overdyeing quite well and looked in harmony with each other, however the bright yellow yarn kept clashing with the rest of the colors, no matter how much dye I added to it, until it turned dark brown. In the end I decided to leave it aside and dyed a new ball of the same yarn (white merino extrafine) in light purple (the fourth color stripe).

I am extremely pleased with the final result and now I intend to use this new Dotted Rays as much as it deserves - it is the perfect shawl for slightly cold weather

or as a summer evening cover. And although the temperatures these last days have risen drastically here in Sofia, it did come in handy yesterday evening after this photo session, while we were shopping in the cold storage area of our local supermarket :)

Pattern: Dotted Rays by Stephen West
Yarn: Merino Extrafine 150 g, self dyed
Needle: 3.75 mm circular Addi Lace
Time to knit: 10 days