This week I made a new shirt using a Burda style pattern from one of my magazines. I have used this pattern before when I made my Rochester dress and I liked it so much that I wanted to make a shorter version. The knit fabric I used is the same that I used for the dress - just orange :)

You can find this pattern in the Burda Style magazine 4/2013 or the Spring 2014 edition. There are two versions, the top #106 (as seen on the picture) and the dress #108.

One thing I like about this pattern is its simplicity. The pattern comes with only two main body pieces (front and back on the fold) and the neck facing. (The dress pattern also comes with an optional belt and pockets.) This time I decided not to attach the neck facing to the neckline but simply fold the fabric of the neckline down to the wrong side by 3/8" and stitch it with a twin needle. So all in all I only used the two pattern pieces below to sew my shirt!
This pattern is rated as "Easy to sew, with simple features" and I recommend it for a sewing beginner. Especially if you haven't sewn with knit fabricy yet, this is a nice project to give it a try.

I needed about 3 hours to finish everything. The neckline is pleated - the original pattern asks for four pleats but I folded six (as I have already done with my dress) to make it fit me better. I also stitched the side seams of front and back in a slight curve since I thought it would be nice to have a fitted version.
Finally all I had to do is finish the sleeves and the hem with the twin needle. That's it, all done!

Enjoy the weekend everyone! Are you going to be working on some sort of sewing project? Temperatures will hit 80F here so I will probably skip sewing until Monday... at least I have enough dresses and shirts now to wear for this kind of weather :)

It's been pretty quiet here lately but I finally have a new project to show you. I finished another knit dress, made from one of the fabrics I bought in LA at Mood Fabrics.
I decided to go with a Simplicity pattern (# 2883) that I had bought almost two years ago. I bought it on Ebay since Simplicity does not sell this particular pattern any more. This was the first time working with this pattern and I loved it!
The pattern comes with only four pattern pieces (well, five, if you count the tie ends; six, if you are adding sleeves): bodice front, bodice back, skirt front panel, skirt back panel. No darts or anything on the bodice. The skirt panels are being gathered at the top. That's it! It took me about three hours to cut everything and sew it together with my serger :)

I cut the length of the pattern down by approx. 1" so that the dress ends right above my knees. Originally I wanted it to be shorter but I figured it would destroy the nice large scale print.

(....Please ignore my cats' litterbox which is showing in all the pictures. Did not intend that :))

And the best thing: I don't have to wait for better weather to be able to wear it. Summer arrived upstate NY and I am loving it!
Are you working on any projects for the summer right now?

I am so excited that Caroline at Sew Can She wrote a review of one of my sewing patterns this week! It is one of my favorites, the Working Girl Laptop Bag pattern.
If you are interested in what she thinks about my pattern please head over to her blog. She picked some really nice fabrics for her project and I very much enjoyed seeing her finished laptop bag.
Click here if you want to learn more about the pattern and to see all the bags of my pattern testers. Maybe this will inspire you to make your own Working Girl Laptop Bag? In this case you may head over to my pattern shop on Craftsy!

Have a great week everyone (with hopefully lots of sewing)!

A couple of months ago I reviewed a bag sewing pattern as part of Purse Palooza over at Sara's blog. The pattern I tested was the Tandem Tote, a pattern by StudioKat Designs.
The pattern is perfect for geometric fabrics and I decided to go with this orange one. I like the way the orange shades are paired up with a hint of turquoise and navy blue in this print.
I like small bags and this one is just perfect when you only want to carry your essentials like phone, wallet and keys. The measurements are 7" x 7" x 2 ¾".

I did not run into any major problems with this pattern when I assembled the bag. Even though it is one of StudioKatDesigns older patterns with just illustrations and not color photographs I found it very easy to follow the instructions. It is not a beginner pattern, simply because the bag is small and there is a lot of detail work involved like for instance the two zippers. An advanced beginner or an intermediate sewer should have no trouble assembling this bag.

You can read about my bag winning the contest here. I was being told it was a close contest so I am even more happy about winning this! The prize is a certificate I can use to shop for StudioKat Designs products. Yay! This is actually the first time I won anything "sewing related". I have to say it is pretty awesome! How about you? Have you ever been lucky in a contest or a giveaway? If so please leave me a comment, I am very curious :)

I am honored to be a guest blogger for Sew Mama Sew!! My review about bag stabilizers was posted two days ago and you can check it out here!

(They also posted a small bio about me which you can find here.)
If you haven't seen it already I would like to invite you to head over to Sew Mama Sew and check out my review. I am sharing my favorite stabilizer product options for making bags, with tips for the best way to use each product. Those products are By Annie's Soft and Stable, Timtex, fast2fuse Heavyweight, Stiff Stuff, Roc-Lon Multipurpose Cloth and two versions of Vilene Decovil which is more common outside the United States.
I hope you will like my review and that it will be helpful to you with your upcoming bag projects. Which stabilizers do you usually use? Maybe there's more out there, that I haven't tried yet? You are welcome to leave me a comment or post a comment over at Sew Mama Sew! :)

When I was still living in Germany I used to buy Germany's famous "Burda style magazine" which is published monthly. The story behind that magazine is actually a really interesting part of German publishing history. I don't want to bother you with too many details but let me just tell you this:

There is this woman, Aenne Burda, who after World War II decides to publish a fashion magazine, known as "Burda Moden" (= Burda fashion). Soon after it was launched in 1950 this magazine became famous for adding sheets of paper with patterns for clothes. She had the perfect idea at the right time: the people in post-war Germany were able to create stylish and modern clothes even without having to invest a lot of money (which they didn't have to begin with). During the next 15 years, Burda Moden should become the worlds bestselling fashion magazine! Oh and did I mentioned that in 1987 it became the first western magazine to be (legally) published in the former Soviet Union? Not bad, huh?

So anyway, when I moved to the States I started to focus more on the tons of patterns I already had since I thought Burda style was not available here. By the way, yes, my Burda style magazine collection moved to the US with me, so I still have plenty of patterns to choose from, BUT: for my birthday which was in December, my lovely husband gave me a subscription of Burda Style - the English edition!
It's basically the translation of the German edition - now I like to hang on the phone with my mother and we talk about the variety of patterns of the current edition, me browsing through the English and her through the German one :-)

Right in the center of the magazine you will find two large sheets with all the sewing patterns (in this issue there is a total of 53 patterns!). I admit, it looks a little wild on the first glance. Before I copy the patterns I like to use a pen or marker and trace the lines of my pattern, so they are better visible when I put my tissue paper on top. Of course, if you copy them with wax tracing paper it should be easier. I don't even know if you can buy Burda tissue paper in the US?

More sections in the magazine:

If you're thinking about subscribing to the magazine, here's where you can find more information about Burda style and the current rates. You can subscribe for three months, six months ore a whole year (the rates per issue get cheaper the longer you subscribe of course). The magazine is published monthly.
All prices are subject to change!

Only a few more days until St. Patty's Day, the second one I'm going to be celebrating here in the US. We got invited to a party and of course my first thought was: "OMG, what am I gonna wear??" followed by "I don't have anything". (These are probably the two most common thoughts of women after they got invited to... well, pretty much anything) Since I haven't made any clothing in months this turned out to be a really good opportunity for me to finally sew something that is not a bag or a wallet.

I found a really nice green and black striped jersey fabric, a rayon/polyester mix, at a local fabric store. The idea for my outfit was to make a simple short sleeved shirt with the jersey fabric, wear some of my short pants with it as well as some green leggings. That should be enough green to not get pinched ;)

I looked through my sewing magazine collection for a nice pattern and found one in Burda Style 3/2010 which didn't look to complicated. Well turns out I had not quite enough fabric (I bought like 6 inches too little…urgh!) but so the shirt would have to be a bit shorter.

The first step was to make the very decorative pleats at the front part. Therefore I had to baste along the marked lines first, to be able to gather the fabric. After gathering I folded and stitched the darts.
Then the instructions tell you to stitch both the shoulder and the side seams. The front piece looked really wide from the beginning and after stitching it together with the back part, I tried it on and didn't like it at all. Yes, this shirt is supposed to be loose-fit but this way it just looked weird on me. I decided to make it a bit tighter by cutting off approximately 5 cm (2") from the front part. Since I used my serger machine I simply cut the seam open again. There is no use in trying to open a serger seam with a seam ripper. A lot of work with poor results ;-) After reducing the width and sewing both parts together again the shirt already fit much better!

The next step was stitching the sleeves. Those had to be gathered as well and then trimmed with a cuff. This part was a little annoying because jersey fabric is not the easiest one to make sleeve cuffs with. The fabric has to be folded in half with the wrong sides together and ironed, so that you have a crease at the middle. This has never happened to me before but I seriously managed to iron a hole into my cuff fabric!! Unbelievable.. I quickly decided that ironing is for losers and I would manage to get the cuff straight onto the sleeve without all that, which luckily worked out pretty well.

Next I folded down the seam allowance around the neck area and stitched it with a twin needle. I did the same with the hem and now my shirt was actually done.. at least according to my Burda pattern, but… the neckline was just way too wide for me ;-) I had to change that as well and used a piece of elastic ribbon which I slid into the seam allowance of the front part. This way the fabric gathers and the neckline gets a little tighter which is totally the better way to go! I finally folded another pleat at the right side and handstitched a leaf button onto it.
Yesterday I finally managed to drag myself to the mall and buy some green tights. Since their only purpose is to be worn on St. Patty's day I couldn't care less about the rather bad quality :) The shirt however is really comfortable and I'm sure I'm going to wear it a lot during the summer!

Today I would like to share my experience with one of Amy Butler’s handbag patterns with you.
It’s the blossom handbag/ shoulder bag from the book “Style Stitches: 12 Easy Ways to 26 Wonderful Bags". I don’t own the book but this particular pattern can be downloaded for free from Sew Mama Sew!

What you see on the picture above is actually the second bag I made with this pattern and the first one really gave me a hard time so this is why I decided to talk a little bit about the pattern and share some tips.

Since there are already a lot of very good reviews on this pattern on the internet (just google “Amy Butler blossom handbag” and you will see) I am not going to show you a detailed step by step instruction of how I assembled my bag but rather focus on the parts that have been a bit tricky to me and give you tips that might be helpful for you if you should try this pattern.

First of all, if you don’t have the book and download the pattern from the above mentioned website you will get the pattern as a pdf. I always mention the following in my own patterns but since this one is not primarily a pdf pattern there was no extra hint, so that I made the first mistake at the very beginning:
When printing the pattern, make sure your printer settings (size options) are set to “actual size” and not to “fit”, otherwise the pattern will NOT have the right size!!
This will get you into a lot of trouble since there are a few rectangular pieces, which you will have to cut out according to the sizes in the instructions. If your printed pattern comes out too small all these other pieces won’t match the pattern anymore and I only noticed that after I had assembled the (slightly work-intensive yet really pretty) handles and attached them onto the bag. As a consequence, my flap wouldn’t fit anymore, so in order to make it fit I had to cut off quite a little bit of fabric of the flap, which slightly altered its distinct shape. Too bad but I had no choice.

The handles are the prettiest part on this handbag and it should be fairly easy to assemble everything. The instructions for the handles don’t come with pictures but only with illustrations, which I think should be no problem since they are very detailed and of good quality. Someone with intermediate sewing skills should be able to rely on the written instructions only, combined with the illustrations for the trickiest parts.

The bag closes with a magnetic snap. I love using magnetic snaps, since they are easy to apply and look really professional. The instructions tell you to insert the male part of the magnetic snap into the flap. I did so, being extra careful to place it centered.

After that you are supposed to insert the female part into the front exterior main panel. This is something that I come across very often with sewing patterns but I find it kind of risky to insert the closure into the single pieces at the very beginning. It means you will have to be extra special careful when sewing together all the different pieces, let alone cutting them out! This is why I always wait with inserting the other part of the closure until I have assembled the “basic structure” of the bag. Specifically, this means you can do so before you close stitch the lining of your bag.
What I recommend is pinning the flap onto the back of the bag, so that you can see where the upper part of the closure (the one on the flap) would go when I close down the flap. I use the measurements in the instructions for help to make sure, the bottom part of the snap doesn’t move too much to the top or the bottom edge of the front part of the bag. After marking the spot with a pen it is now that I insert the female part of the magnetic snap. This method might not be for everyone but for me it always worked out well so far and I never had to get furious because I ended up with the closure parts in the wrong spots, not matching together.

The pattern calls for extra heavy stabilizer like Peltex 70 by Pellon but I am not that big a fan of these kinds of interfacings, so I went with Decovil (a German brand but available online in the US) for the first bag and fusible fleece for the second bag for a slouchy look. I also have to admit, as nice as the structure of the first bag looks thanks to Decovil, sewing extra heavy stabilizer with these kinds of bag patterns is not my favorite thing to do. I would never recommend that for a beginner of sewing since the layers that you will have to sew will get so thick, it’s really a challenge to move it along under the sewing machine, keeping your seam straight at the same time. And try to find the appropriate needles to handle it in the first place! I ended up using a leather needle for the part where you have to stitch the dividers into the bag because others just broke (I think I lost a total of three sewing needles in one evening...). This was one of the reasons I went with fusible fleece for the second bag. The shape is not quite as nice as the first one’s but at least sewing all these layers and around the curves was a real pleasure this time ;-) 

Another part that was a bit confusing to me was making the divider panel with the zip pocket. I think it would have helped to have at least some illustrations or even pictures with the instructions, however, I ended up making a simple “zipper pouch” that I inserted as the divider panel. For those of you who should have similar problems, you can check out my tutorial on an easy zipper pouch” here in my blog and then use it as a divider panel just like I did.

Attaching the dividers is actually the very last step to complete your blossom handbag. This is the part I mentioned above where you will have to be sewing through very thick layers of fabric and interfacing. After finding the right spots for the dividers (as given in the instructions) you are supposed to pinch the top of the side panel around each end of the divider. I didn’t even try to use pins for that step because they would obviously not have survived it :-) This is when I like to use sewing clips to hold everything in place. I found mine in a local fabric store in the quilting notions section.

I decided to stitch parallel to the side edge of the divider panels for about 10 cm (4“) in contrast to what the instructions tell you. First of all this holds the dividers better in place (since they are not attached to the bottom of the bag but only to the side panels) and I also felt like this would make them more stable and less likely to tear off.

I am pretty happy with how the second bag turned out. Since I can’t sell it in my shop (there’s a copyright on Amy Butler’s bag patterns) and I already own far too many handbags, I will donate this bag to a local silent auction here in Rochester, NY. I hope it’s going to raise some good money and its future owner will enjoy it!