Cape Crusade

Suggestions for the Front Closing

The only bit to finish is the front closing.  Do I use hooks and eyes, buttons velcro or what?  I've turned down one side at the front  collar and put a brooch on to make it more modern and less Sherlock Holmes.  My youngest son (13) said he didn't like the cape- but I was in slippers so I changed into boots and jeans and he then said, "Now that looks good!" and I agree.  Let me have some suggestions on how I might close the front.  Vote using the Poll on the right.  Then I will finish it and will take a photo of me in it so you can see how styley it is.  I'm now thinking it will be good for Sunday walks in the Botanical Gardens and to wear to photography club where we sit in a big hall and I often wish I could wear a peggy square rug!

Destruction (Poor Instructions)

BurdaStyle magazine really is doing itself an injustice  by having inadequate instructions. It has not been until I have actually made one of their patterns up that the problem is evident.  There is a lot of clues on the internet though, but I thought, how bad could they really be! It's not like I always follow the instructions, but seriously what are they thinking or not thinking.  It's not fair on the sewing community to assume we instinctively know what they mean. (Yes, I am a bit grumpy about this!)

Vent

Apparently the cape is meant to have a vent!  This is me venting about the vent.  What vent? in the back seam, in the side back seams? where?  My cape does not have vents! Vents optional!

The Collar

You know those geometric puzzles - this cape has one of those in the three collar pieces ...and I'm normally good at those sorts of puzzles, but this was infuriating.  In the end I made my own one piece collar (double sided) and put iron on interfacing on one side.

Incredible Hulk Shoulders

My shoulders are not the same as this pattern shape which are more incredible hulk than damzel on a bicycle (like the picture suggests), so I  trimmed down  the sides seam only which turned me into more of an urban batwomen shape.

The Lining

I ended up lining the cape - my fabulous mother says "You are going to line it aren't you!" so that helped with that piece of procrastination.  But since I had changed the shape of the incredible hulk shoulders, it was quite hard to get the lining right but it has turned out fine.  I pressed open seams on the slits for the hands seams and was able to sew the lining seam allowance for a nice finish.  I overlocked the other seams which took out lots of bulk (rhymes with Hulk!)

Let the Cape Commence!

I'm surrounded by capes.  The boys are watching the Dark Knight on telly tonight and since it's Mother's Day my boys have made me feel like a super hero!  My youngest son baked biscuits and made cucumber sandwiches and organised savouries all while the rest of us were at the hockey.  I arrived home to  High Tea all laid out nicely with my fabulous mother also joining us.
I cut out the cape Pattern 112 from Burda Style Magazine 08/2011 size 42.  I gave a generous seam allowance of just under an inch (just in case).   Piece 1 is actually the centre front and the facing section.  Watch out for the straight grain lines: pieces 2 and 4 seem wonky but that's because they drape on an angle.  I gave the hem a little bit extra (2 inches) so I can decide the length I prefer.

I will leave the cape on my model for a few days to see if the shoulders drop.  Perhaps they are a different shape than mine so I might get hubby to pin it on me inside out to get a better falling line.  My shoulders are squarer not so curved.

I have decided to line the cape even though the instructions aren't for a lined cape.  (I'll work it out!)  I imagine myself going out for brunch and flinging it over the back of a chair and it would be nice for some nice black shiney lining to show! And I am going to get some bobbincat labels made just to give it the professional touch. lol

See the fraying !

With the loose weave fabric I would in future zigzag or overloack immediately because as you can see in the photo above they unravel easily.  That got me thinking about button holes and how they could be tricky on this fabric. And then the sewing god spoke. She said go forth and look in Fabric Vision while the boys are warming up for an hour before their hockey game. How could I refuse? After about half an hour of dreaming up creations I nearly fell over a stand adorned in a sewn simplicity garment showing an example of how tape can be used over knit fabric as a firm base for the buttons and button holes.  I whipped out my iphone and took the shot. There is a sewing god - the  universe is talking to me. lol. My tape and buttons will be hidden but they will be better on this as opposed to relying on interfacing for stability.

This is my wonderful machine.  

Who knows the words?  

Bernina, Bernina so easy, simple and versatile,
Bernina, Bernina gets all your sewing done in style,
Bernina, Bernina the experts all agree,
no other sewing machine today is more versatile in every way,
just try it once and you'll agree
what a wonderful machine,
Berniiiiiina! 

That jingle has been in my head since I was 6 or 7 years old!  (So this machine was the first thing I bought when I started work and it's been going strong ever since - It even got thrown  off a shelf and fell 1.5 m onto a tile floor in the February 22, 2011 earthquake and it still hasn't missed a stitch!

Vintage SINGER Teenage Dress Making Contest Qualifier's Award Pin Broach

I have been growing fond of wearing broaches lately so just out of curiosity I decided to browse ebay.  There's some pretty uuuggggly looking broaches out there, but there is also some exquisite ones. I came across this wonderful keepsake. Some teenager in Ohio, USA earned this badge and as a dressmaker  I am now going to proudly wear it.  Isn't it cute!  Can't wait til it arrives!

Vintage SINGER Teenage Dress Making Contest Qualifier's Award Pin Broach

Happy sewing this week!

Cutting out the Patterns - BurdaStyle Magazine Challenge

Talk about procrastinate!  It was very difficult to choose but in the end I have chosen one pants pattern and one cape pattern.  I did like the green cape in 08/2013 but my 15 year old son told me I would look like a homeless person in a blanket!!  So I couldn't unthink that visual image and have gone for somethiing more contemporary looking.

BurdaStyle  03/2010

Pants for Making

Cape for Making

BurdaStyle 08/2011

 As I metnioned I use vilene (non-iron on interfacing) since I got a bag of 5 metres for NZ $3.99 whereas 4 pieces of flimsy Burda tissue was NZ $15.99.  I use a ballpoint pen to write on the vilene having carefully pinned the vilene in 4 places near the edge of the sheet to keep it secure.

Vilene at Spotlight for $3.99 for 5 metres

Things to remember when tracing:

• Label each piece with magazine number, pattern number, piece number out of total number of pieces and the name of the piece which you get off the instruction panel.
• Mark the straight grain (tricky to find sometimes but look for the big arrowhead in the appropriate colour.)
• Check for the instructions that apply to the piece you are cutting out like "fold line" and mark largely and clearly.
• Remember the seams and hems aren't included!!
• Pin the vilene pieces together for safe keeping - a single pin usually does it.

I have this cape material in my stash so will begin on this.  I am a bit apprehensive about what size to cut for the pants which will take some thinking about.

The lights in my house are not good for sewing at night - silly halogens.  I find they don't give good coverage and there are lots of dark spots.  My fabulous mother bought me an angle poise standard lamp to help so I will get that out now that daylight saving is over.

Burda Magazine Challenge - Sew A Long

Still Deciding...

It's the 2nd May and I can't decide what to make!  lol  I thought I would make some pants from cotton sateen or maybe drill, but quite a few people have had trouble with the way Burda pants fit.  A toile might be the answer.  Note to self....I'll go out and get some calico tomorrow.

I also want to make a top out of knit but now I am getting ambitious and too much of that leads to unpicking and disaster. My goal is for three garments over the month.  I'll start one project on Saturday so I will have to decide by then.

Capes

Secretly I have always loved capes.  My nana gave me one of those peggy square crotcheted ones with pom poms on the end of the ties.  It was red and white and I felt like a story book character. I don't even have a photo of me in it. drat and Mum threw it out in one of our many moving houses episodes.  There is something wonderfully romantic about the flow of a cape.  I get images of knights and white horses in the woods and a maiden in her Burda cape. The question is whether I would wear it in public?  I just went to Capes on Pinterest and find Nina Garcia has put up a board on Fall Trends - Capes.  They are to die for.....go look....And I see one person in the sew-a-long has indeed chosen to make a cape.

And then I remembered this other cape that I owned and loved.

This is me with my brother Marty.  Me in the cape and Marty in the coat that our fabulous mother made for us to wear to Sunday School.  The cape was green and had lapels and it felt good to wear even as a 6 year old.  I guess that settles it - a cape is now on the Burda agenda!  Interestingly I got told off on numerous occasions for picking flowers in the Botanical Gardens on the way home from Sunday school.  I should have been born somewhere where wild flowers grew on my pathway to church!

Certianly I do have a rather deliciously warm and ridiculous looking coat, my latest purchase - the walking sleeping bag - yes I got a Katmandu long puffer jacket in the sale.  You can blame me for the balmy 21 degree heat on Monday the day after I bought it.  But I am a hockey mum and my boys are now playing late afternoon and early evening games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.  I won't be making it to all the games, I have another priority you know - sewing for myself!

Tracing Labrynth

I will use that cheap interfacing for tracing my patterns onto. This was some tights I tried but they are still a work in progress and the fabric makes me look like I have elephant legs! (No, you're not getting a photo!)

Close Encounter with a Librarian 

The other thing is of course that I have been getting the mags out of the library and you only get them for two weeks before you get fined for having them overdue.  I'm a great contributor to the local library in terms of fines. A few weeks ago after being out for a lovely Sunday walk, the librarian there wouldn't let me take out the Burda mags without my library card.  She wouldn't even let me log in with my password to confirm my identify or check that my record would show that I have been getting Burda Mags out for quite a few months now. I went back the next day and the Burda's were all out to other borrowers! Such is life! lol

Buy the exact fabric seen in BurdaStyle Magazine

By chance I came across a fabric shop in Germany that sells the fabrics as featured in BurdaStyle magazine.  It's not very PC from a sustainability viewpoint - but for those who want to make the garment exactly like it appears on the glossy pages it's worth a look alfatex.de/modestoffe/burda-style/  (And there's a translation to English button when I used Chrome as the browser.)  Very tempting! Not all are the original fabrics but they suggest replacement fabrics.  The trouble for me is that it's winter here and I generally sew my winter garments in the winter and summer ones in the summer.  Perhaps a little planning ahead will enhance my stash. For all those who are coming along for the Sew Along with Curious Kiwi, take a look!

Love that Lace Skirt

If anyone sees anything like this lace then please, please let me know where I can get it.  I love the rows of different patterns and the adorable colour and haven't seen anything like it, but I love it.  It's a Burda 03/2013 cardigan but seriously the skirt is amazingly gorgeous!

BurdaStyle Magazine Challenge

I've just made a commitment to join in the Burda Magazine sew-a-long with Curious Kiwi and followers for the month of May. I get all the Burda Mags out of the local library and love them but like a lot of people have never actually made anything from them. That's the whole fab purpose of this challenge. I will choose carefully since the more ambitious I am the more unpicking and swearing and cursing that can go on.  This is particularly true of fabric choice and I am finding stretch fabric to be a puckering challenge.  I changed the settings on the overlocker, yep I read the instructions for knits and the change has helped.  Shall I make a jacket, a coat, a dress or a skirt, shall I play it safe or shall I step up the challeng?.  Shall I choose somethiing from my stash or buy something new?  It's winter here so a jacket or coat is appealing. I saw some nice chocolate brown soft wool....

Yesterday I went to Sakaguchi's fabric sale. He's a fabulous designer and is located right here in my own city.  At the end of each season he has a sell out of left over fabrics for more than reasonable prices and so I brought home a great stash - a bit much black but as Sakaguchi himself told me at the till, you can never go wrong with black! One great purchase was an embroidered silk!  What do you think I should make with this gorgeous piece.  I have 0.9 metres and it's wide.

I never used to have a stash - didn't appreciate there was a concept and didn't realise the pleasure and the treasure. As a teenager and a student and even as a young married person, I only ever had enough money to make one garment at a time so I only bought purposeful pieces with a pattern.  But sewing bloggers out there you have made me realise that it's perfectly normal to be completely obsessive with buying fabrics - and now I buy guilt free especially at sale time. Besides, I learnt the hard way that the roll does not contain an infinite amount and once it's gone, it's gone.  don't you hate going to the counter to get 2 metres when there is only 1.2 left on the roll. Check out this piece of blogging which had me in hysterics How to buy fabric. What a fantastic attitude this blogger has!

Roll on May and the great Burdastyle Magazine Challenge! I might even try and do a step by step blog for this challenge. Very excited.

LBD

LBD

That toile just keeps giving and giving.

I decided to go to an Awards dinner so the LBD was the obvious choice and since I had my trusty fitting toile I used that as the basis.  I chose black stretch satin and chose a high neckline.  i also bought some wide lace and then cut out the sleeve pattern.  Then to dress it up I made a sash.  I was going to wear my mothers marcisite broach on the knot but in the end I bought some flowers.  One for the bow and one for the top of the zipper where it gaped.  Embellishments are marvelous for covering up slight imperfections in the sewing. And of course of got some lovely new shoes!

A nice piece of lace and a sleeve pattern borrowed from a blouse pattern. 

Have a look at this invisible zip!!  I looked up the internet and found a site that told me open up the zip and iron the zip to UNCURL it.  This enabled me to get the stitching closer to the zip and I was thrilled.  Invisitble!
Thanks sewserendipity

Initially I hemmed this traditionally with slip stitches and got that horrible dimpled looks so in the end I decided to "make the problem a feature" and I used the rolled hem on my overlocker which gave it a stylish wavy look.