Tag: BWOF

Seeing spots …

On By Sharon7 Comments

I am heading off to the Australian Sewing Guilds 9th National Convention being held at Ballarat Grammar School in Victoria, next Sunday and thought I had better make myself some new pyjama bottoms so I am decent.

I found this spotty flanelette at Spotlight at the beginning of this winter and have always planned to make pyjama bottoms from it.

The pattern is Burda 11-2009-131 (sorry about the french but it is the only way I can find a link) and this looks very different to my version.

I made the 36 and besides shortening them 7cm in length I have made no further adjustments.

I did stitch a triangle at the centre back to make sure the elastic stays in place and also threaded through some pale green ribbon as decoration.

Thankfully I have a t-shirt that works perfectly with my new pyjama bottoms as I’m running out of time to do much else.

My wonderful Easter break

On By Sharon10 Comments

Wow, 2 posts in one week, so here goes.

This year for once we didn’t go away and DH had to work for two days as well, so I took advantage of 4 days of sewing, yippee.

Now over on Pattern Review they are currently holding a Mini Wardrobe Competition and one of my goals this year was to complete at least 1 competition, so I am going to give it a go. Needless to say this has been going since 16 March and finishes on 15 April, however after last weekend I am halfway there so fingers crossed.

This contest is to complete a 4-piece wardrobe in 4 weeks.

There are quite a few combinations for this and I first of all started to think along the lines of a dress, jacket, top and skirt.

I started with Simplicity 3775 which I had already traced off a size 4 at the shoulders and graded out to a 6 from the under arms and had done the following adjustments:

  • Round shoulder
  • Neck Gaposis
  • High round back
  • Sway back

when I cut the rather wild knit fabric out on Friday morning the pieces looked rather small so I used my Croverpro to Chainstitch the bodice together and I am so glad I did as it was a bit too tight with the 1.5cm seam allowances.

I ended up using 6mm seam allowances on the entire dress and this moved the front bands closer to the centre and the rest worked out perfectly.

Then I was thinking of using the Simplicity Cardi as the Jacket but after discussing this with Alison I decided this wouldn’t work with the dress. So back to 2 tops and 2 bottoms.

On Saturday, Alison and I headed off to the ASG group at Alexandria and I cut out BWOF 04-2009-101 Skirt in a salt and pepper mini corduroy fabric that I purchased at an Industry Day at Martin & Savage quite a few years ago. The smallest size for this skirt is a 36 and I am a 34, however I didn’t grade it down (still have to learn to do this) but thought with all the seams it should be okay. The only adjustment I did to start with was a swayback adjustment of 1.5cm.

Once I stitched the front yokes using Deb Thompson’s great tutorial I basted the remaining seams together then had some great help from Alison in fitting this. Essentially I made the side seams and back panel seams 2cm and left the front ones alone.

Sunday started with adding the side and back yokes to the skirt and getting it ready for DH to level the hem that night.

I then cut out BWOF 02-2009-108 in the cream Mercury Jersey that DM and I purchased from Lincraft back in February.

I had already traced this pattern out and had done the following adjustments:

  • Added 1cm to the neck edge
  • Round shoulder 1.5cm
  • High round back 1cm
  • Gaposis on front 1cm
  • Reduced the sleeve cap by 2cm and redraw sleeve cap
  • Sway back adjustment of 1.5cm

This went together really well finishing it on Monday.

Here are both pieces being worn to work today.

I have now traced off the Jalie Scraf-Collar Top and have started to trace off BWOF 04-2010-120 Jeans. I’m not sure about the Jeans as I haven’t made Burda pants/trousers before, so I may end up making a pair of casual pants instead, need to think about this one a bit more as the time frame will be a major consideration if I want to complete this competition.

LBD Update

On By Sharon4 Comments

Is nearly there –

and I need to get off the computer and get this done as I want to wear it to a function on the 30th.

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It was warm enough today to get a photo of me wearing my new coral top – BWOF-05-2008-103 which you saw on Isabel for the Six Piece Sew-Along.

It will also go with both the A-line and straight skirts I showed you yesterday.

Frustration and Smiles !!

On By Sharon8 Comments

The LBD has been challenging my sewing skills and knowledge of late and after much deliberation I have decided to make it sleeveless. My fabric after closer scrutiny is a Ronaldo Wool Touch Brazil Suiting. Now I really didn’t know what this meant, but I know now this is a fabric that does not like to be eased, has very little if any give to the fabric, and with the tight sleeves of this dress the two were not a suitable mix.

I spent last Saturday at the Alexandria Achievers ASG Group doing a lot of frog stitching and managed to work out how to change this dress to a sleeveless version. It is still not 100% to my liking and instead of rushing it and “just getting it done”, I have put it aside this week to restore my sense of achievement.

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This is BWOF 05-2008-104 which is the longer version of this top I made in January. My inspiration came from a dress by Phase Eight I saw in a magazine and my fabric is from KnitWit.

As I had already done the pattern alterations for the orange top, I only had to extend the pattern to a dress and trace off the new band to incoporate the buckle that I purchased when we visited Victoria Island in Canada earlier this year.

I cut this fabric out on Friday night and then on Saturday with my sewing buddies I got it up to the hem stage, and then today after DH levelled the hem for me, I hemmed it with my Janome CP 1000 (I had also used this for the hems on the band) and wore it to the Rhodes Fashion Sewers ASG group for their Christmas Lunch. (You read correclty I attended two ASG Groups and sewed with my regular sewing buddies this month.)

This knit has more stretch than the top I made so the neckline is a bit lower than I normally wear and it did take me quite a few tries to find a necklace that worked, and I can see that I need to find one similar to the one they have pictured with the inspiration dress.

Here is the view from back once I got home.

BWOF 5-2008-103

On By Sharon5 Comments

This is the first BWOF garment I have made and besides a few fitting issues that I have found now I am wearing it for the first time, I am really happy with the outcome.

First of all I really appreciate the Reviews at PatternReview so before I even traced the pattern I was aware of a few issues.

1. The neck line was a bit lower than most of the reviewers liked, so I added 1cm.

2. The bottom hem on the front of the top is actually curved at the bottom (you can see the curve line that I drew when tracing the pattern) it ends up following the edge of the bottom of the band. This is not how I want to wear my tops, so I added to the bottom of the front pattern so that it was the same length as the back pattern.

3. Others commented about the fullness in the front gathers, so I took out 1cm in the width above the horizontal dart to reduce this fullness.


4. The band is rather wide so I took out two lots of 1cm from the width to make this smaller as well.

These adjustments are in addition to my standard adjustments e.g. rounded shoulder, high round back, sway back and gaposis on the front neck edge.

So without further ado, here is the finished top

As you can see it is pulling in the front around the armholes and I need to deepen these as they are “cutting” into me and I’m not sure if this will fix the pulls in the picture, I will have to see. This will be a bit of a challenge as I have sewn the seams with my overlocker and can’t afford to make this top any tighter LOL.

My Janome CP1000 was christened for this project, and after doing the first lot of hems on the band, the sigh of relief that resulted with no tunnelling that I continually suffered with twin needles on my sewing machine was immense and even though I did have to “frog stitch” the hem, after reading Debbie Cook’s Coverstitch Tutorials I found the secret to doing these.