Velvet Dress n°1

Aka the green one, or the x-mas one. I actually wore it on New Year's Eve, but whatever, you got the idea.

I had order some velvet fabric at the end of the last year, one was a mix with viscose and this one 100% cotton. The cotton is much heavier than the viscose, but as soft, so great for some season-appropriate dress.

I had this pattern from Burda 118 from March 2020 in mind earmarked, so I figured this could be a good idea. Hmm, in the end not so much, as the fabric is way too heavy for that and there is just too much fabric for that on your waist, but it is a great and comfy dress and I loved wearing it on New Year's Eve. Btw, my BF is a big fan :)

The pattern is really great, the cleavage is somehow deep, but closed enough so when you stay standing, there is absolutely no way flashing anything. I think that is pretty darn good. Even relaxing on the couch, it does not open so much, so it is really well designed. In any case, I could always put in 2-3 safety stitches if needed.

You might have seen that the sleeves are not hemmed, actually, I must have cut them out too short, so they were just right not hemmed - this is a cotton jersey, it does not frau so I just let it go.

The dress creates a great silhouette of course, and I really managed to have waist sitting on the waist, which definitely helps, thank you Burda for being consistent with your sizes, as I can just blindly do a few standard adjustments and have a dress ready.

Drops cardigan

This post is super overdue, I just checked my tracking spreadsheet and it says this thing was finished in May 2020. Oh well..

I have dreamed about a casual black/not-so-black cardigan for some time. So when I found this drops cotton jacquard, I had to buy it. I was motivated enough to get it sewn rather quickly but I was looking for the right pattern.

The thing is, most cardigan pattern are not meant for really drapey fabrics and Burda is not a big cardigan source. Check StyleArc or some indies, which I basically never sew, and you will find many of them. But not the right one for my fabric.

After some ponderation, I decided to go for this Burda pattern: 119-08/2018 - it looks really cute on the model and is quite original.

Pattern downloaded, printed, fabric cut out, it all took only a few hours. The problem is that I was not happy with how it looked on me. Once I saw it on myself, I realized my mistake: the model is a slim tall person on which almost anything looks cute. Not my case, right? It added volume on the shoulders and around the top of my body which I did not like at all. I tried to slim it down on the sides but it only accentuated the volume on the upper part.

On side it went, I just did not want to lose the amazing fabric so I started thinking about how I could salvage it.

After some thinking about the Bianca wrap, I finally decided to copy an RTW cardigan of mine. Fortunately, I still had some fabric to cut out the sleeves, the body was cut out from the original version.

I am now much more happy with the result, it really looks good and fits my style much more.