Some Sewing Progress

I decided to make one of the Burda patterns I found while leafing through the magazines last week. It's a hooded t-shirt, so I hope it will be easy to sew. I traced the pattern Saturday and made copies of the garment picture and instructions to keep with the pattern pieces. That's one problem with Burda WOF patterns - how do you store them once their traced? I've traced off a few patterns from WOF before and the pattern pieces are scattered somewhere in the sewing room. This time I decided to be organized.

I decided to use some mint green knit I bought a few years ago in Philadelphia at JoMar, a discount fabric store. I have this fabric in both light green and pink - don't know why I bought both. I recall at the time thinking that the fabric would look good in a cardigan set but realize now that it's much too casual of a knit for that. It has a fine stripe to it so I think it'll look good in this sporty Burda pattern, but I don't know what to do with the remaining ~2 yards. Pull-on pants maybe or shorts.

I only got as far as tracing the pattern, washing the fabric and straightening the grain. Cutting is always a milestone for me. I see it as the point of no return. Of course it's silly to feel that way with this fabric. I have plenty of fabric to try again if the pattern is too small, which it may be. The size only went up to 42 (European), which fits my bust but not my waist. I increased the pattern about 1/2 inch at the waist and bottom edge, but I'd feel better somehow if there'd been a size 44 to have traced the lower half to.

Another reason I didn't cut the t-shirt out yet is that I have the unfinished Burda blouse hanging on my dress form. There's that "one-project-at-a-time" rule I have. So I took the blouse off the form and hemmed the sleeves and got as far as pinning one of them into the bodice. I first had to transfer marks onto the fabric that I'd forgot to make. I hadn't made them on the traced pattern, so I had to do that to. Harrumph. I hate when I have to go back and redo something I forgot to do. Burda doesn't use notches on their patterns, instead they make little tick marks. Obviously I'm either not used to looking for those or just missed them. But that's as far as I got on that blouse and hence, the hooded t-shirt remains uncut.

I also have to confess. I bought more fabric. I know, I know. I don't need more fabric, I really don't. The culprit was some cute hippo print fabric from fabric.com. I thought it would make a cute purse and just had to have some.


I also bought this to make a purse and hat:



Then I saw this fabric and thought it'd be great for this Vogue dress:



And, to complete the order I bought a yard each of white, black and rose cotton to use as lining for the purses. So in all, that's another 10 yards to add to my stash. Gulp. Well, the good news is that I didn't buy any more fabric this weekend. I stopped at Hancock Fabrics to pick up a zipper and eyelets for the hooded t-shirt and only managed to leave with those and a pattern. The Simplicity patterns were a $1.99 so I picked up a Barbie pattern. It was a reissued vintage pattern, so it was really cute and reminded me of when I played with Barbie and made clothes for her.

On a sad note, I just got an email that a former colleague of mine passed away. Jerry Kull worked on the GOES program satellite project as a NASA rep when I worked for the contractor. He was an eagle-eyed stickler for making sure the spacecraft test data was correct and every "i" was dotted and "t" crossed in the documentation. He was a pain in the butt sometimes but I have no doubt he was a benefit to the program and the satellites are flying successfully - perhaps due to his persistence. He passed away after an illness, presumably from Leukemia or Lymphoma, as his daughter is asking for donations to the The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family.