Speedy Black Tie Outfit ; BurdaStyle 07/2004 - 134 Long Skirt

We were invited last minute to a ball due to a cancellation (I'm not proud, if someone wants to give me a free ticket for a do at the Four Seasons, I'm in!).  We got invited on Thursday for the event on Saturday and my first thought was that it was a shame I didn't have time to make a new outfit as I love making stuff for special occasions.

This was soon followed by an impulse to make something anyway, just a simple sheath dress, but in a great fabric, maybe a nice brocade or lace.  Before dashing off to the fabric stores I thought I had better have a dig though my stash first just to check I didn't already have anything and I remembered this amazing stretch velvet I bought in Sydney back in February.  My husband was astonished that I could have forgotten about it so quickly, but hopefully you understand better!

This fabric is a stretch embossed jersey (I think, it looks like a burnout velvet, but I think the velvet is stuck on rather than a layer being taken off, if that makes any sense) so I changed my plans completely, but still needed something quick to make and not requiring muslins or tricky fitting.  The base is a deep indigo and the velvet spots are a raspberry through purple ombre effect - really difficult to photograph, but just gorgeous.

This is what I came up with.  The skirt is from way back in the archives - 07/2004 - 134, without the godets and the top is yet another version of the one in my last post (08/2011 - 126).  I knew I could make this fast.  The skirt is part of a completely over the top outfit, but if you just focus on the line drawings it is possible to see beyond the gold satin crop top!

Despite it being a quick make, I love how it turned out.  Admittedly the fabric is doing a lot of the work, but I really like the cut of the skirt, the shaping of the centre back seam makes it drape really nicely.  The skirt is lined with a non stretch silk so I needed to insert the zipper otherwise it would have been even quicker.

The only change I made to the 3rd version of my top was to eliminate the centre front seam so I didn't have to think about matching the dots.  The pattern is quite large and I doubt I would have had enough fabric anyway.  I finished the neck edge with a drafted facing of lightweight knit lining, clipping right into the v and topstitching to keep everything in place.

I was really comfortable all night, yet felt dressed up.  I have no idea when I will get to wear the whole outfit again, but I will be able to wear the top with other bottoms for less formal occasions.

This is a snap in the hotel lobby, I wore it with black satin sandals, pink sparkly earrings and a pink satin woven clutch bag.

BurdaStyle 08/2011 - 126 Dress (or not...)

Delving into Burda's archives here while I wait for 2015 issues to be more to my taste or for me to catch up with fashion.....

08/2011 - 126

This is one of those dresses that looks like a skirt and top, which after cutting out I decided to make into a skirt and top anyway!  Bit bonkers I know, but as I was putting it together two thoughts kept nagging away at me:

• I never wear pencil skirts with the top tucked in
• The skirt fabric I chose had such a great collection of colours that it seemed a shame to commit it to one top forever

I always maintain that you should try new things now and then so I did go so far as tacking it together and trying it on before confirming my gut feeling that my fabrics would be better off as separates.  Luckily this was an easy fix after unpicking the waist seam.  The top just needed a yoke band added onto the hem.  I had already raised the neckline by a massive 13.5cm, even Burda styled this with a cami underneath!

The recommended fabrics for the bodice are softly draping fabrics and the pattern has a side button fastening so it can be used with a woven, although both of Burda's versions and also mine use a knit - so I omitted the fastening.  You can see from the dressform side and back photos that there is quite a pronounced blousing effect.

I liked this top so much I immediately made another one from some leftover knit in my stash, I love clearing out those little pieces!  I cut the yoke band on the bias so I didn't have to worry about pattern matching (and, due to the bias I suppose, I see that I need to take it in a bit at the sideseams).  I did match the pattern down the centre front seam though.  I'm interested in trying it in a woven too.

The skirt is a basic pencil skirt, you could use any one.  I made a couple of changes from the pattern.  My skirt fabric had quite a large repeat and I didn't have enough to be able to match across a centre back seam so I eliminated that and shortened it a bit so that I could walk in it without needing a slit.  The zip is collapsing in on itself in the hanger photo below - it is a normal, symmetrical shape with a body in it!

I did a very lazy finish on the waist, I just added a strip of interfacing, folded it down and topstitched in place.  We'll see how robust it proves to be, hopefully it won't stretch out, I do like how completely unbulky it is.

I did quite a deep hem and planned it so that the machined hem almost disappears into the black part of the fabric.

As I mentioned above the colours in the skirt make this piece a great jumping off point for a mini wardrobe - black, navy, cobalt, cream, light blue and bronze.  I already have black and navy tops, need to work on the rest.....

Vogue 1247 Rachel Comey skirt

I'm back from Austalia and pleased to report that we had lovely weather and I did get to wear my new dresses out to dinner - Sydney has some amazing restaurants, thank goodness for the elasticated waists!

While there I met up with Maria and Sharon , who both came to Hong Kong last year, and spent an afternoon of coffee, lunch, chatting and, oh maybe some fabric shopping.  They made me, I tell you!  We visited Pitt St Trading, a gorgeous store and a refreshing change for someone used to rummaging about in markets, The Remnant Warehouse, a great source for activewear and bra fixings, and NSW Leather, a must visit if you want leather with it's jaw dropping selection.  Having never sewn with leather I had no idea where to even begin there, but I will do some planning before my next visit.  Thank you ladies for a lovely afternoon!

Here's what I picked up, I can get a huge range of cheap fabric locally so I tried to focus on unique pieces that would be harder to track down here.

From Pitt St:
A digital print jersey, a burnt orange (despite what the photo says) doubleknit and a stretch cotton sateen remnant;

Matt black sequinned fabric;

Stretch burnout velvet in a dark purple with an ombre effect, also impossible to photograph, but it is stunning;

From The Remnant Warehouse:

Two lightweight silk cotton prints and two pieces of powermesh.

Previously Maria had gifted me some fabric so on the day we met I wore this new skirt that I made from it and utterly failed to take a single photo, you know how it is when you meet fellow sewists - time just flies.  This is the very popular Vogue 1247 Rachel Comey separates pattern.

I made a size 12 and lengthened it from a mini to just on the knee.  I was too lazy to bind all the seams, although it does make for a lovely finish, and instead just used my serger.  I get why this is such a popular pattern - it is a basic a-line shaped skirt, but the inseam pockets in the front seam are a great, fun little detail.

Funnily enough, Sharon was wearing her version of both the skirt and top, I really want to make the top too, but lots of people have reported sizing issues.  Sharon gave me some tips and references to look up so I'm going to try it soon.  By then I hope Spring will have arrived and I will be more inclined to model a summery outfit!

I've got a few tops to post next, plus a ton of workout gear, then I am diving into the new stuff!

Another Patrones 272/48 Stretch Pencil Skirt

I have reclaimed my sewing room after having my sister visit from the UK for Chinese New Year.  It was great to spend a decent amount of time with her and although I miss her now she is gone it is nice to be able to sew again.

The next few projects were all finished before she arrived, but I'm still working on the photography for some of them.  We had unseasonably gorgeous weather here in Hong Kong for Chinese New Year and I should have used that opportunity to take photographs, but I was tied up with other things and of course now it is dark and rainy.

This one is a pretty boring make, and is in fact a complete repeat of this skirt here, even down to the store where I bought the fabric.  One yard, HK$20 and about an hour of sewing and I have a new skirt.  Nothing new to add on the construction I just wanted to show that even projects that are so easy they seem like cheating are worth doing.

I know purple is not everyone's cup of tea but I am going through a bit of a purple phase right now, spurred on by my new not-balenciaga bag.  It will pass eventually!

Lastly to those who asked, the pattern for the navy doubleknit dress from my last post was from the monthly Burda Style magazine, the August 2009 issue.  You could try searching ebay and similar sites for it.  Burda make lots of their patterns available online here, but they don't seem to go back as far as this one unfortunately.

BurdaStyle 06/2008 - 109 Zip Top / Jacket & Patrones 272/48 Skirt

It seems that taking photos of myself is the bottleneck for this blog, I need to schedule more vacations!

Here are two pieces I made recently, not necessarily to be worn together.

First is this top / jacket from BurdaStyle 06/2008 - 109.  I had a remnant of black doubleknit and a fun patent zipper that needed using up and this pattern seemed to be the perfect match.  This isn't the kind of thing I would normally make or wear, but this was so much fun to put together and looks very RTW sportswear.

This is a very easy pattern to make, although to get Burda's results a coverstitch machine would be nice!  I made a size 38 with just one alteration.  The instructions are to simply turn the neck edge, but I decided to draft a facing which I topstitched down - my fabric is probably heavier than the one they used and I felt I needed something with more structure.  Although my zip was the perfect length in total the teeth come a bit short and the neckline on this top was already pretty low so I wanted to use the whole zipper length.  Alternatively I could have shortened the hem band I suppose.  The opening at the neckline does look a bit unfinished, I might look out for an interesting closure to fill the gap.

Confession time - after I had carefully sewn on the exposed zip, feeling rather pleased with myself at my straight stitching I zipped it up only to see that my pockets were horribly misaligned!  Unpicking the zipper would probably have left holes in it and I didn't fancy unpicking one of the pockets in this fabric either so I cheated and put some tape over the seams, offset to look they they match and added another row of topstitching where needed to make the two sides look the same.  

The neckline on this top is very low and loose fitting, there is no way you can wear it without something underneath it which is a bit annoying, but overall I am glad I used up fabric, zip and got to try something completely new (to me).



I'm still figuring out ways to wear the - what, top, jacket, cardigan?  I think it will work best as an hoodie alternative to throw on over workout clothes although the short sleeves probably rule that out for half the hemisphere at a time!  For the purposes of killing two birds with one stone I'm wearing it here with a simple stretch jacquard pencil skirt.

This was a remnant of some stretch fabric I picked up on a recent jaunt to HK's garment district (the rest of the fabric is a simple sheath dress, in the blogging queue).  The two sides of the fabric are different and I decided to play this up and use alternate sides on the centre and side panels, although the effect is quite subtle and can't be seen in my lousy modelling photos at all.



The fabric is so stretchy that I omitted the zipper and just did an elasticated faced waistband, using the exact method shown here.  You can see my chalk marks on the elastic below that I used to divide it into quarters and match to side and centres of the skirt.

The pattern is a panelled pencil skirt from Patrones issue 272 - #48, but it is such a basic skirt shape there are plenty of similar patterns around.  You really can't see the skirt details at all below, but here is the whole outfit.  I'm predicting this will be a workhorse skirt in my closet and I'm even starting to look forward to cooler weather so I can wear it with boots and a sweater.