Burda magazine February 2013

Thanks very much for all your kind get well wishes on my shingles and compliments on my lingerie set! I’m finally starting to feel a little bit better today, plus I’ve been a lingerie sewing whirlwind while ill so I’ve got lots more to show you, including some using the purple lace I bought at Kantje Boord in October!

In the meantime though, I want to show you my picks from the latest Burda magazine, because this one is a real keeper!

I LOVE this teeshirt with gathers on the raglan seams (front and back). There’s also a short sleeved version, too – I am totally making this!

Burda have a new feature in this issue (maybe it makes up for the lack of vintage pattern?) where they compare a bunch of their patterns with the latest catwalk trends…

Spring 2013 Sewing Ideas

Thank you all so much for your lovely comments on my asymmetric Drape Drape teeshirt! A girl could get used to that level of flattery…

It also marks the start of my sewing short sleeves, which means it must finally be Spring, and hence, time to start thinking about marrying up the patterns and fabrics I’d like to sew for the next few months. I really do these only for my own benefit, and so they’re not a “SWAP” in the sense that everything must coordinate against each other (lord knows I have enough clothes that I don’t have problems putting combinations together!).

This is more just a set of ideas towards which I’d like to work, so when I get to the end of a project, I can quickly refer to this image and go “oh yeah, I want to sew that next!”

For the first time I’m also including running/exercise gear in my plans, since I’m wearing lycra as a significant portion of my weekly wardrobe, and I want to contain all of my sewing ideas together. So you’ll find all the running stuff on the bottom row, and the rest of life’s wear on the upper two rows!

Top row:

Burda magazine March 2013

I’ve seen a lot of hate for this issue online, and after the fabulous February issue, well, it was certainly going to be a hard act to follow. But if you look beyond the bridal and the strange styling (ankle-length lace vest, anyone?), there are some truly great patterns hiding in these pages…

First up is something so good I’ve already traced it and mentally assigned stash fabric to it – a cardigan with a gathered front, shown here in stretch lace, but also elsewhere in a different jersey. Cardigans aren’t something I’m usually attracted to, and in fact, I’ve never sewn one that I can recall, but I really like the look of this one, and I even like the idea of a lace one as a dressy coverup for a few weddings I’ve got coming up…

I will probably never make them, but big up to Burda for including a pattern for leather trousers. Often sewists complain that there are too many “easy sew” sack patterns in magazines, but Burda really are including difficult patterns in here, too. (I’m not even going to mention the unspeakably ugly cape, though.)

And to go with the leather trousers, a biker jacket! Though not in leather, I still love the seaming and topstitching details in this, and it’s uncommon to see a biker jacket pattern with a centre-front closure instead of diagonal.

My Image Spring/Summer 2013 & giveaway

It may not feel like Spring yet, but all the pattern companies and pattern magazines seem to be releasing their warmer-weather patterns right now and My Image are no different!

The big news for this issue is that MyImage have started making Plus-sized patterns! When someone on the Pattern Review board asked why there were only a few Plus patterns instead of extending ALL the patterns to the Plus-sized range, the creator of My Image gave this reply, which I thought was quite a reasonable one:

“A wider range of sizes will make the magazine a lot more expensive. Also, the pattern sheets will be less clear than they are now and therefore we need to add 1 or 2 extra sheets, what will also drive up the price. As a starting magazine, we can’t raise our prices, otherwise we loose half of our customers and we have to stop again 🙂

We choose to make and print every pattern in 6 different sizes. We try to choose these sizes as careful as possible. For jumpsuits we usually start with 34, because jumpsuits are mostly loved by teens (12-20yr) For more casual clothes we start with 36 or 38 and we stop at 46 or 48. From 46 to 56 we made a new size chart, especially made for plus sizes. It isn’t simply possible to upsize “regular size” patterns to 48/50+ sizes with remaining a great fit.

Also, when someone needs another size than the 6 on the sheet, they can use our custom pattern service.

Anyway, I thought that was worth repeating here as it gives some insight into the difficult decisions patternmakers go through in order to try and please as many people as possible.

But enough of that, let’s have a look at my picks from this issue!

Speaking of Plus, here’s a great knit tunic with gathered sides and a classic jeans pattern (seriously, I can’t remember Burda ever producing a Plus-sized jeans pattern!). I’m not a big fan of shorts, but I really like the gathered-neck top on the right, and I think it’d be pretty versatile for layering as well as hot days.

A Year of Burda Magazine Patterns – Challenge Completed!

I (silently) set myself the challenge to sew one garment from each issue of Burda magazine (aka BurdaStyle) in 2012, and I’m proud to say I completed it! I’m not the sort of person to make New Year’s resolutions, or proclaim lofty goals to everyone who’ll listen – I’m more the sort to quietly commit myself to something, and see if anyone notices what I’m up to before the completion… I do know that Kristy has also been keeping up with the Burda challenge this year, and it’s been fun to see which patterns she’s chosen from the same issues (and on occasion we selected the same pattern!).

There were some roaring successes, a few fails (both my fault and not), and some that I changed my mind on only after months of wear. So I thought it was worthwhile to have a look through all the projects from this year, and my thoughts on each looking back from now…

January


Rating: 9/10
Link to original post: Great Basic – Grey Flannel Trousers

At the time I said: There’s nothing particularly earth-shattering about this design, but I just thought it looked nicely versatile, and something I could wear to business meetings as well as just team with a teeshirt if I fancied it.

My thoughts now: I don’t think these look as nice in the photoshoot as they do in real life. I genuinely love and adore these, and have worn them pretty much nonstop, at least once a week to work, since I made them a year ago. I wouldn’t change a single thing about this pattern, and the silk pocket linings fill me with glee everything I slip my hands inside. I really do need to make some more of these!

Happy 2013!

As is traditional, I like to take the first of a new year to take the opportunity to look back on what I’ve sewn in the previous year. So without further ado, here’s a visual reminder of 2012!


Click the image to see it better, or right-click here to see it in a new tab to get a better look!

Tip: If you’d like to skim back through the posts for the above projects, you can click Gallery in the upper left menu, which will only show you finished projects, without all the magazine reviews and in-progress reports getting in the way!

By a mere glance at the collage, it looks like I’ve sewn less this year than in past years, but really I just became more efficient with my photoshoots and so most of the photos contain more than one garment! That, and there were a few that weren’t properly documented, oops.

The Year in Stats

In terms of pattern companies used this year, I made: 11 Burda magazine (more on that in January as I finish up my Year of Burda), 6 Papercut Patterns, 5 Jalie, 4 Pattern Magic, around 4 self-drafted, 2 Manequim magazine, 2 Young Image/My Image magazine, 2 Pattern ~ Scissors ~ Cloth, and one each from: Lekala, Simplicity, Vogue, So… Zoe, Christine Jonson, Wiksten, and KnipMode (oh how the once-mighty have fallen!).

By my count, I made: 19 Tops, 15 pairs of Trousers, 4 Dresses, 4 Skirts, 3 Coats/Jackets, plus two slips and a handful of pairs of panties, an iPad cover, some running armbands, and a boat skylight cover!

But the biggest number of them all – 21 of the above were for running! omg.

Happy 2023! (Year in Review)

For the past 15(!) years I’ve posted my year in review on 1 January, but not this year. I lost my sewjo around the end of September so I didn’t really have much to blog about. I waited for it to reappear (as I learned a long time ago there’s no point in trying to force it) and prepped a few projects, tidied a bit, planned a bit, and then fell into a massive “Interview with the Vampire” fandom hole (more on that later), and generally was happier in October and November than I’ve been in a long time (completely unrelated to the sewing) but that’s not the reason this post is late.

This post is late because, despite my best efforts (cycling to/from, FFP3 masking indoors with my CO2 monitor and otherwise staying outdoors) I caught a virus of some sort at the office christmas party which left me practically bed-bound with post viral fatigue for 4+ full weeks (no, not Covid, not flu, not RSV, not anything they swabbed for at haematology, but thankfully not EBV either). Like, 21+ hours a day in bed, and if I sat up for more than 15min to eat or drink, I’d have to lie flat for another hour. So sitting up to type was impossible, and I wrote this in pieces on my phone when I could, not being able to put it all together until I started improving a little bit in the past few days.

So apologies that it’s late, and for the blog silence for the past few months, but hey, 2023 can only get better from this dismal start, right?? Without further ado, let’s have a look back at 2022…

Happy 2021! (My year in review)

What. A. Year! I’m not even going to attempt to sugar-coat things, and any attempt to try and put things into perspective just sounds like a cliché after all this. But for a year where I was essentially under house arrest since March, it’s surprisingly not all bad. Above all else, I’m grateful to have spent the time with my husband and that we both were able to continue our office jobs from home at full pay and remarkable support. My sewing was both a welcome distraction and a balm in this year of chaos and uncertainty.

I’m going to try to use my usual year-end format again, though this was clearly a year that broke all attempts to contain it so let’s do what we can (clearly a motto for the year!)…

Happy 2019! (My year in review)

Happy new year! It’s traditional for me to reflect on the year that’s just finished on the first of a new year, and this year’s a weird one because I’d love to just say “this year sucked”, but there were some fantastic things that happened this year amoungst all the sickness, disappointment, frustration, and hard work. So let’s try and focus on those.

Happy 2014! (My Sewing Year in review)

As I do every year, I like to spend the first of a new year to take the opportunity to look back on what I’ve sewn in the previous year. So without further ado, here’s a visual reminder of 2013!


Click the image to see it better, or right-click here to see it in a new tab to get a better look!

Tip: If you’d like to skim back through the posts for the above projects, you can click Gallery in the upper left menu, which will only show you finished projects, without all the magazine reviews and in-progress reports getting in the way!

The Year in Stats

In terms of pattern companies used this year, I made: 15 Self-drafted (including Pattern Magic), 11 Burda Magazine (aka Burda Style), 8 FehrTrade, 4 Style Arc, 4 Cake Patterns, 3 Christine Jonson, 3 MyImage, 2 Pattern-Scissors-Cloth, 2 Jalie, and 1 each from Elan, KnipMode, Papercut Patterns, Drape Drape, Lolita Patterns, Kwik Sew and Simplicity.

So that’s precisely one garment made from any of the Big Four, but a whopping 23 items I either drafted myself or drafted and then released as a pattern! It’s no surprise Burda is otherwise up in the 2nd place position, and I’m pleased to see Style Arc and Cake ranking highly this year, since I discovered both companies this year. It is a bit disappointing that I failed to make a single Manequim pattern this year, despite reviewing my monthly copies! I must try harder next year to justify the subscription cost.

By my count, I made: 22 tops, 13 trousers (including leggings), 9 dresses, 9 pieces of lingerie (bras, panties, slips, etc), 3 skirts, 3 jackets or cardigans, and 3 bags.