Made by a Fabricista: Summer Time Blues

Hello again and happy July! In April, I started sewing a work wardrobe in red and black, and I decided to expand that work wardrobe to include blue and white. I just love the combination of blue and white especially in the summer! For my work wardrobe, I want fabrics that do not wrinkle easily, can be laundered, and can mix and match with other fabrics. I ordered several coordinating fabrics- a white ponte, a blue chiffon print, a blue geometric crepe de chine, and a blue double weave suiting. Most of these are still available as I write this, but are in the 60-70% off categories, so if you like any, I would order soon!



Have you ever used a Burda Style pattern magazine? I used to always subscribe the Burda Plus magazine which is for larger sizes, but they stopped making it in English and I stopped my subscription. I missed it so much, that I took a chance and ordered it in French directly from France on burdastyle.fr. It wasn't expensive- about $15 total including the postage, but it did take a month to arrive.


Here are the line drawings for the patterns in this issue. Amazingly, they've illustrated the instructions for each view, which has really helped supplement my knowledge of basic French. I take a size 14 in most ready to wear, which I find corresponds well to Burda size 44. I traced the fitted jacket, jeans, button front top, and skirt for this post.


I made style #412 from a white ponte knit. The ponte was an absolute dream to work with! OMG- I can't tell you how much I love this stuff. I should have bought more because I know that I will eventually drop some tomato sauce on this skirt. But I will be nice and let you all have a chance to buy it first! For the skirt, I lined it with a white athletic knit. The skirt has a back hem vent, waistband with zipper and button and darts. It looks just like a pencil skirt, but is way more comfortable because of the ponte.


I also used the white to make for these jeans, style #414 from the magazine. I'm not much of a jeans wearer because I don't have the figure type for the jeans to stay up. But, I've seen something in ready to wear lately, that I decided to copy.


And that is to put a length of elastic under the waistband, just in the back. I used what they call a "woven" elastic that doesn't have much stretch. I bought it at a Tuesday Morning store in their sewing finds section, and when I got home, I was so disappointed because it was so non-stretchy. I thought "This is the worst elastic ever!". But now, I see it's usefulness- it really has helped to keep the waistband in the right spot when I'm wearing these pants. I will look for it again whenever I run out of it.


Here are the jeans with another top that I made back in 2017. It was made out of a polyester crepe de chine and is one of my favorites. More details on it are here.


The zippered jacket is from style 417 and was made from a cobalt blue crinkle double weave suiting. It has a lot of stretch, and is perfect for this snug style. The color is amazing- very vibrant. One thing that I discovered when working with this fabric was that I really needed to stabilize the front jacket edges with strips of interfacing, because it would stretch out under the weight of the presser foot. Other than that, the fabric was easy to work with.


I lined it with a stretch pongee lining in navy. I always stock up when I see stretch lining in basic colors, because it is a little hard to find.


Here is the jacket with a skirt from the polyester chiffon print. This is a variation of the style #410 skirt in the magazine, as I didn't want to do all of the elastic shirring in that version. Instead, I found a remnant of an aqua activewear knit, and made a yoga waistband from it. This is such a cheater skirt- no zippers, buttons, or facings. So, if you are ever thinking- "What can I make from chiffon that is easy?", then this is your answer!


This is very simple to do- just cut the waistband whatever length that you need for it to be snug around your waist and whatever width you like- I made mine 12 inches wide by 34 inches long, with the most stretch going in the length direction. Sew the short sides right sides together, forming a loop. Fold that loop in half, wrong sides together. This is now your waistband. Gather the top of any gathered skirt pattern to a length that is a few inches longer than your hip measurement. You need it to be wide enough to pull over your hips. Stretch the yoga waistband to fit the skirt top and pin together. Sew together, and voila, you have a skirt!

You could just leave it as an a-line skirt, but decided that I wanted some frills. I cut three layers of ruffles on the bias. I didn't have quite enough fabric to make it as long as I wanted, so I supplemented with a layer of solid turquoise, which I also used to line the body of the skirt. Technically, I wouldn't have needed to hem them as they shouldn't unravel on the bias, but I decided to use the narrow hem option on my serger to give the edges a little more definition.



I made this very easy button front shirt from style #402 in the magazine using a polyester crepe de chine. I say that it easy because it doesn't have a collar band or sleeve cuffs, compared to a traditional button front shirt. It just has four pattern pieces- front, back, sleeve and collar. This fabric is sold out now, but I almost got this crepe de chine and it would also work for this type of shirt.


Here is the shirt worn with the white ponte knit skirt. Have you seen Fabric Mart's "Mystery of the Day" fabric? Well, I couldn't resist a mystery, and this is what I got- a stretch sateen in a blue floral print! Isn't it gorgeous! I'm afraid I am hooked now on the "Mystery of the Day" fabric.


So, this is the same skirt pattern, in a longer length made up in the floral stretch sateen. I also had enough sateen to make the jeans in the shorter length (style #415) too!


I really had a blast sewing all of these items. I printed out the style photos, put them in 6 x 9 plastic zip bags with the traced pattern pieces, and swatches of the fabrics that I used, just to jog my memory of what I made. I plan on using these basics again, and this will save me time to not have to retrace everything.


I hope that you are staying well and finding time to sew! Have you tried Fabric Mart's Mystery Fabric of the Day yet? If so, please share what you got! I love to live vicariously through others' orders!