Is it a boy? Is it a cat?

If you ever had a cat, you know they like to hide in boxes

Even if the box is less then 10cm wide

They jump on the fabric after you carefully measured from fold to selvage and made sure it’s on grain.

Hmmm… Do you believe in reincarnation? 😀

Burda top 111 02/2014

The February issue of Burda is the first one I bought in a very long time, maybe more than half a year. I loved many patterns when I saw the first preview but this wasn’t one of them. I actually thought this was ugly.

But then Pauline helped me see beyond the ugliness of the ruffly sleeves and I decided to give this pattern a try. OK, maybe they are not that ugly, but it’s not something I’d like to wear.

It’s just a basic blouse and in this fabric you can’t really see the lines of the pattern. I think this is the first time I’m making something with raglan sleeves. I usually make size 38 when I sew with Burda magazine patterns, but this time I decided to go with 36 after measuring the pattern across the bust. The top fits well around the bust, but it is a bit too narrow at the shoulders.

I like this two piece raglan sleeve, the shape of the shoulder is very soft.

Instead of using facings I decided to finish the neckline with bias tape. You might wonder how I handled the corners. 🙂

When sewing the tape on the right side of the blouse I made a small pleat at each corner. The pleat allowed the tape to “turn” at corners. If you don’t help the tape to turn and instead you stretch it around the corners, the neckline will pop out. It’s not very visible, but it happened to me at the right front corner. The pleat I made there was too small and I had to stretch the tape a bit.

It’s a lovely little pattern and I’m thinking of making it again as a plaid dress with bias cut skirt.

What do you think of the ruffles? Would you give them a try?

Jalie + Fehrtrade = Love

I LOVE THIS SKORT! It’s Jalie 2796 and it’s such an ingenious pattern. There is a pocket on each side, so I won’t be needing my running belt when wearing this.

I didn’t expect this to fit so good, it was more like a test for the skort I plan to wear when running my first half marathon this April. I’m going to make one in red for the HM, because I can’t just run it wearing whatever, right?

The waist band fits snugly all around, but the skirt is loose enough to be comfortable when running. I guess. It’s still too cold to wear it outside.

Under the skirt there’s a pair of compression shorts. I zigzagged over the inseam and crotch seam to keep them flat, no chafing’s going to take place in there 🙂

The fabric is supplex from Tissu. They have terrible (none) customer service, but they’re cheap, so I’m probably going to buy from them again anyway.

Why didn’t you reply to my email, Tissu?

You probably recognized the top, is Fehrtrade’s XYT top, which I’ve sewn before, but it turned out much better this time. This was supposed to be in animal print with hot pink FOE around the edges (scruffybadger style), but life’s hard and Tissu don’t actually send what they confirm as shipped. And they don’t offer cheap shipping, so you can’t just order another animal print unless you want to pay more for shipping than what you’re paying for the fabric.

I was trying to get an action shot here but the pictures were too blurry to be used for anything else than a gif.

I’m still making an animal print top to go with my red skort. I have to run my first half marathon in style 😀

Vote for your favorite Plantain

I got a notification from WordPress a few hours ago saying that my stats are booming and my blog is getting lots of traffic. I checked my stats and noticed that my Plantain post has more than 160 hits today and most of my visitors are from France. So I figured that my Bowie bow-y Plantain has made it in the top 10 out of 551!!! Merci beaucoup  Amandine, Camille, Anna and Eléonore 🙂

So go and vote your favorite – if it’s mine, great! If not, that’s ok, I didn’t vote for me either. I gave my vote to Felicia because her draped red Plantain is gorgeous, I absolutely love it.

Running belt

I re-started running before Christmas last year and one of my problems was that I only had one pair of pants with a pocket. So I either had to run with the phone in my hand, or use the same pair of pants every time. I chose the second option almost every time, but I had to do something so I can wear my Fehtrade leggings more often.

I found this tutorial early this year and I finally took the time to make a running belt. I used the same idea but my belt isn’t double all around. I didn’t want to cut in a new uncut meter of fabric, I wanted to use the small pieces left from previous projects and they weren’t wide enough to go around my waist. So only half of my belt is a long strip of folded fabric, while the back is only one layer.

This means that I don’t have to worry about my belt rolling or bunching, the back part and the side seams help it to keep its shape, so I didn’t have to sew fold over elastic on top and bottom.

It’s a great idea, I like it more than an armband. I already used it a couple of times and it serves its purpose very well.