BurdaStyle 04/2011 - 124 Skirt & Style Arc Madeleine Top

Thanks all for the comments on my sequin top, I hope everyone had a great holiday season and that you are ready to see what 2017 brings.  I am loving reading all the 2016 recaps, not sure yet if I will get around to it, I still have things that I haven't blogged yet so I will get going on those first....

Not very sensibly, I decided in the week before Christmas that I wanted a new outfit to wear on the day, but at least I was sensible enough to use straightforward patterns I had made before which cut down on tracing, cutting and fitting time.



The skirt is BurdaStyle 04/2011-124 (previously made as a modified version in green eyelet here).  This time I kept all the seams in the skirt, the only change being to shift the zip from the side back to the side for no other reason than I didn't read the instructions!

I used this floral fabric, something like a jacquard or matelasse, it's quite stiff which works well for a party skirt to give it some structure and I love the dark, moody, oil painting-like quality of the flowers.

Reverse side of fabric showing the texture

Side zip, you can also just see the fabric texture here too

The top is Style Arc's Madeleine Ponte top.  I first made this (here)in a medium weight polyester knit really as a test version so the insides were unfinished and I really rushed it.  I ended up wearing that top until the fabric pilled like mad so a remake or two are long overdue.  This version is much more successful, mostly due to fabric choice - I guess it is called the Madeleine Ponte top for a reason!

I made a size 10 and nipped it in a bit at the waist.  Having made this before, I knew I could get away without the zip so left that off and eliminated the vertical centre back seam also.  The front band does still need to be secured in a few places on the front to keep it in place even in the recommended fabric; I just stitched in the ditch of the seam in a few places.  

I do think this would be easy enough to extend to a sheath dress and I might give that a whirl especially as I now have a healthy (or perhaps that should be unhealthy!) stack of ponte knits.

 

Here I am wearing the pieces together - despite the lack of planning and time spent on the outfit, it really was perfect for the day and it's a combination I will definitely be using again.

I think the print is quite wintery even though it is floral so I tried the skirt with boots and a jacket too for a slightly more dressed down look and to prove that this skirt needn't be just for Christmas!

Burda Style 04/2011 - 124 Flared Skirt

I can't really believe it's October and everyone is talking about fall and making coats.  It's still very warm here so forgive me if I'm still catching up with summery posts, no doubt I'll get to coats by about next May!

I found this bold eyelet fabric (I also got some in white) and knew that wanted to make a flared skirt with it for some reason.  Shown below with black cotton underlining.

Finding a pattern was surprisingly difficult.  I wanted as few seams as possible, but didn't have enough for a part circle skirt.  Eventually I used this Burda Style pattern from 04/2011 and combined the pattern pieces to eliminate the panel seams and moved the zip to the side seam (not really sure why it's not there in the first place, this skirt does have side seams).  It was a tall pattern (for 5'9 vs 5'6), but I ignored that and just left off the hem allowance.

http://www.burdastyle.com/pattern_store/patterns/a-line-skirt-042011

The drape would probably be better with the original panel seams in place since those side panels are supposed to be cut with the grain running down the centre.  I may well try this pattern again, but I really wasn't sure how this fabric would look with very visible seams.  I probably overthought this and no one would even notice them, but too late now!

I underlined with lightweight black cotton, I did consider separate lining, but decided that the seams would not look good or be very strong as the eyelet is so open.

The combination of the (now) a-line front and back and the slightly stiff fabric did make me worry a bit - like I would look like I was wearing a green triangle of garden netting and perhaps it does, but I really like the finished skirt and the midi length it ended up as, not a length I often wear.

Really ought to do a final press before taking blog photos!

It's been a bit quiet round here as I have just returned from an amazing vacation in Italy, visiting the Amalfi coast, Venice and Rome.  I took this skirt with me and wore it a few times so you get a photo that is not in my hallway, complete with packing wrinkles, oops!

BurdaStyle 04/2011 - 118 Top

I had some scraps of polka dot jersey left over from my Style Arc Marita dress, too small to do anything proper with, but too big to just throw away also so I decided to make a top using plain black as a contrast.

Somewhere in my mind I remembered this pattern though it took a while to track it down, it's from the 4/2011 issue of Burda.  It was the colourblocked dress I remembered, but I used the top pattern.

With it's batwing (or are they dolman, is there a difference?) sleeves, it is a bit 1980's, but I am lacking in long sleeve tops and this is super quick and easy to make.



It should be possible to whip this top up in about an hour, but I ran into problems with the overly wide neckline.  Much as I am a fan of Burda I often have problems with their necklines being too wide or low, I should know better by now, but I didn't realise until I tried on the top quite how wide the neck was - on me it was ridiculous and only just balanced on the edge of my shoulders!

I messed about with adding a neckband but that didn't look right so in the end opted for the quick fix of changing the shoulder line as you can see from the row of pins in the photos below.

The original neckline is just turned and stitched, but after making the change above I found it difficult to get a nice finish at the corners so I faced the neckline with a strip of the jersey instead and topstitched that down with a twin needle.  The hems are just turned and twin needled.

The only other change I made was to shorten the sleeves because my scrap piece wasn't wide enough.  I could have added contrast bands, but just wanted to get it finished after the neckline hoo ha so I have 7/8 sleeves.  The original pattern sleeves are very long, I'd have needed to shorten them in any case.

So, it took much longer than it should have to make this simple top, but I like how this turned out.  It's a good pattern for using up smaller pieces of jersey, just beware of the neckline width.

Batwings!