Thursday, June 16, 2011

Another photo opportunity

DS the elder is still home this week, so I grabbed the chance to get some photos taken of my outfit yesterday. These are taken at the end of the work day so please excuse that end-of-the-day-look!

Two new items in these photos. The top - my second version of Burdastyle 09-2010-121 (Turtleneck top). This one is made from a 70% bamboo and 30% hemp jersey. It behaves very differently to the last top in a poly jersey. It is looser, the sleeves hang further over your hands (because it's looser), however I still like it and I feel it looks a little funkier (and it certainly gets a little funkier around the sleeve edges by the end of the day of having sleeve ends in everything!)

The second item is the pants - Burdastyle 04-2011-117. Shannon from Mushywear is the only other review I have seen of these pants. I made mine from an inexpensive stretch woven purchased from Gardams a few years back. The fabric seems perfect for these pants but I am yet to find an equivalent of RTW pants fabric that has that little extra beefiness, however I was told this fabric would work for pants. Even though I don't think the weight is quite heavy enough I love this fabric - super-comfortable but did not stretch out too much on wearing. I made no changes to the pattern as this is my 'trial' version. If you have very long legs you may want to lengthen the leg length. Other than that I am very happy - comfortable, easy to wear and (hopefully) smart pants. This is a different style leg to what I usually wear but I do like them.

This pic is as I wore it with my Vogue jacket and spotty scarf (bought in Estonia of all places!).


Without the jacket...


From the back...

This is a waistband shot to show you the Petersham ribbon waist. I only had black or white Petersham and I didn't want them to show through clothing, so I tea-dyed the white so it wasn't so glaringly white (it sort of went a pink-skintone colour). It is also high-waisted - good for wearing under clothes (no tummy-peek) but if you can't handle high waisted pants it may not be the pattern for you.


My invisible side zip. Is it invisible enough or did I not quite get it??

The instructions tell you to leave the ends of the zip long at the top and tuck them into the waistband. It looks tidy enough but when you do the zip up it 'locks' into the end where they turn and it is very hard to get it started to undo... not good when you are in a hurry... I will try and fix that by making a faux stop at the ends by stitching over them. The next pair I make I will leave the zip stop at the top of the waistband and fold over only the very ends of the zip (hope that makes sense).

My review is here .  However I can say I like these pants enough to make them again and actually have another pair cut in a wool-lycra tweed (needed for this cold weather!)

I plan to wear my McCalls 5974 dress this Saturday night (office dinner) so will take the opportunity to get another round of photos ... I am on a roll...

5 comments:

  1. So pleased you've provided pics of the 2nd turtle knit top. It works really well with your layers. The pants have worked well. You're so clever with toning down the Petersham colour.

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  2. I'm going to try these pants. I like the shape and the higher waist is perfect. I like the outfit you've put together very much. I made the turtleneck out of a loose knit and the sleeves grow longer as the day goes on, but otherwise I rather enjoy the extra length at this time of year! Is it as cold up your way as it is in Byron? It was 6degrees when I went to the gym yesterday at 6.30am!

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  3. Snazzy looking ensemble, Sue! Those pants look fab!

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  4. Hey, hey, your pants turned out great! I actually like the higher waist on these. It's interesting to see the waistband made of the petersham. I like to take my zipper stop to the top also, and just turn the extra tape down without the teeth.

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  5. Wow- those pants fit great! I may have to check out this Burda!

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Love to hear what you think...