You might remember I fell in love with this one as soon as I opened the magazine. I seem to have a faible for pockets that turn into belt loops. And I happened to have the perfect fabric in my stash (I was actually trying not to build up one but the buying just goes way faster than the sewing so there you go: I’m officially a stash owner *proud* albeit a small one). The pattern instructions are excellent. The skirt was really easy to put together. Lined, invisible zipper on the side. The back is unspectacular, darts and that’s it. The fabric is a synthetic, which is good because the pleats hold their shape very nicely. It’s a very fine black and gold fishgrat, so fine it looks like brown. I should try and document the fiber contents of my stash fabrics (yes, my stash ha ha! feels so weird lol) to know how to press without having to test on scraps. My fingers were itching so I skipped that step and I’m quite sure I came close to burning the fabric while pressing the pleats in, which would’ve made me say words unfit for DD’s ears because I don’t have much fabric left. I doubt I’ll make this up again soon but if I did, I’d add width to the lining. It doesn’t restrict my movements but it could be a bit wider. I like the swoosh of the lining against the fabric when I walk, though. No major changes, except I didn’t stitch the belt loops down to the waist band because the pocket opening would’ve been too small. And I sandwiched the upper edges of the belt loops to the between the upper and inner waistbands instead of folding down and sewing on. I was to eager to end, didn’t read te instructions and noticed only to late that the hem was supposed to be handsewn.
I’ll try and edit this post later with pictures of the skirt with substance i.e. with me wearing it. I think the fit is nice.
I was actually not going to review the december issue of the Burda magazine, until this picture made me first shake my head in disbelief and then laugh out loud alone in the middle of my favorite fabric shop:
Edit dec 13: I suppose no one dared to answer because y’all were embarassed? Shy? Y’all are pervert (okay, I had that thought first but y’all having the same thought means I’m no pervert at all ha!). These are supposed to be flying fishes as Xmas deco. Flying fishes! Still makes me laugh…
Look:
Sorry, can’t review this right now. Need to go back to sewing machine. Later!
I’ve lost my sewing and my writing mojo, but my knitting and my cooking mojos are back. I haven’t photographed the handmade spaghetti, the other two brioches and the cookies, but this is what I’ve managed to knit:
Black is so hard to photograph *sigh* but you can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them. The pattern is from Lana grossa. I fell in love with it as soon as I opened the magazine. It’s the same issue I got this other pattern from. The only change I made was knitting it in the round. That’s how much I dislike the sewing up part at the end. If you ever do this, make sure you print out the erratum published on the Lana Grossa site. The sleeves look too short on the pictures but they’re really not. I must’ve pull them up without noticing. I tried the belt on pullover thing à la Mrs. O. I really had doubt this look’d suit me because I think it suits slender silhouettes best and well, I don’t consider myself slender. At all. But the belt thing is kind of growing on me. 
That’s it for today. I think the sewing mojo will be back soon. Can’t wait to have all of my mojos back at the same time but I suspect I’d need 36-hour days…
…what the fifth jeans pocket was designed for? I didn’t until a few days ago:
Picture from: www.gmtplusnine.com
Back in the 1800’s it was also called the watch pocket. I have to admit I don’t use it at all. Do you?
Look what DD and I made this weekend:
It’s a brioche with a nut and cinnamon filling. And it tastes as good as it looks. Recipe from here (in German! If anybody’s is interested, I’ll ask the author for permission to publish a translation and edit this post).
If you’re wondering about the title, it’s the literal translation of the French “aller se rhabiller”. I couldn’t come up with the English equivalent (if you know it, don’t hesitate to comment!). It’s a way to say “not impressive” (or in this case, not anymore). Originally, this expression was used familiarly to tell a performer or a sportsperson who has been a disgraceful failure to go back to the changing room, get dressed and clear off.
I’ll be back to blogging about sewing and clothing soon, I promise 
Edit: now the recipe, with Frau Antonmann’s permission. I didn’t copy her pictures and didn’t think of shooting my own, but they’re helpful, especially at the end when doing the braiding.
What you need:
400 g flour-25 g yeast-125 g milk-60 g butter-40 g sugar-1 egg
And for the filling: 200 g ground nuts-100 g sugar-80 g bread crumbs-250 g milk-cinnamon
Preheat the oven to 50 degrees (talking Celsius here), top and bottom set. Warm up the milk until lukewarm. Crumble the yeast into a mixing bowl and add the sugar and the lukewarm milk. Mix well until the yeast is dissolved and put for approximately 10 minutes in the oven. In the meantime, melt the butter in the warm milk jug, whisk the egg and weigh out the flour.
If after the 10 minutes in the oven, the yeast mixture has the texture of a yoghurt, then it has worked with the yeast. Add the liquid ingredients (butter and egg) stir. Gradually add the flour and knead with dough hook to form a smooth, not sticky, slightly stringy dough. Should the dough be too firm, add a little warm milk. Should it be sticky, add a little flour. Put the bowl back into the oven until… well, until it’s grown bigger, approximately half an hour.
In the meantime, prepare the nut filling by mixing together all the ingredients and two pinches of cinnamon. Set aside.
Put the dough on a suitable work surface, roll out into a rectangle and spread with the filling. Roll the dough, starting from a narrow side and cut it lengthwise with a knife. Carefully roll the two strands around each other and put the brioche on a baking sheet. Put it in the oven at 190 degrees for 35 minutes.
Done!
If you try the recipe, Frau Antonmann and/or I would love to hear from you!
Some knit patterns are famous and do not need to be presented anymore. Norah Gaughan’s capecho (more of a bolero, really) is such a pattern. And this is my version of it. And I like it. The yarn is Merino superwash (100% merino) from Lang, warm and soft. The color is “natural” (I think it’s cream or off-white). Something is wrong with the instructions, though, because this was NOT knitted according to the directions, although the result is close enough. Ravelry’s hundreds versions were a life saver. I applied the same modifications as rabittpie75 for the pentagons. Then adopted vaniglia and chouchoupinette’s back, after hesitating between that and ernte’s. Maybe for a second version? My personal touch was finishing the front edges with crabstitch, after hesitating between that and an I-cord. Yes, there was a lot of decision makng involved. This is quite an easy pattern considering the elaborate look of the final garment. The net knitting time was a few weeks, well… with the summer in between .
Until I turned 16 I went to school in Cameroon, where uniform is mandatory in high school. Consequently, I wore a uniform approximately 6 years long. It’s an effective way to at least minimize the social status differences. Many would probably barely have anything to wear if it wasn’t for the uniform, whereas others still found a way to show off despite it. So when I stumbled on Sheena Matheiken’s Uniform project in my internet wanderings, I felt compelled to spread the word.
Here’s an excerpt of the project description (published with the author’s permission):
“Starting May 2009, I have pledged to wear one dress for one year as an exercise in sustainable fashion. Here’s how it works: There are 7 identical dresses, one for each day of the week. Every day I will reinvent the dress with layers, accessories and all kinds of accouterments, the majority of which will be vintage, hand-made, or hand-me-down goodies. Think of it as wearing a daily uniform with enough creative license to make it look like I just crawled out of the Marquis de Sade’s boudoir.
The Uniform Project is also a year-long fundraiser for the Akanksha Foundation, a grassroots movement that is revolutionizing education in India. At the end of the year, all contributions will go toward Akanksha’s School Project to fund uniforms and other educational expenses for children living in Indian slums.“
I was amazed at how she succeeds in transforming the look of a garment by layering or using jewelry, belts, vests, collars, hats, tights or knee highs, shoes, brooches, scarves or any kind of accessory. She even wears the dress back to front! Consequently, even if the ultimate goal is to raise as much money as possible, donations can also be made in the form of an accessory. Don’t hesitate to visit the site or its blog and support the project.
These are the first two patterns I’ve made up a second time. They are pants for DD. Now of course, I’ve made a few modifications.
The first one is the Susette pants, except this time I graded them to size 98 and I made them fully lined, so that they’re actually reversible. I had to squeeze this pattern on a fabric remnant and I think it was a wise decision to line it since it allowed me to skip the hem allowances. I really used every single square centimeter of fabric and even had 1-cm seam allowance on some seams. The fashion fabric is a dark green cord and the lining is a striped somewhat thick satined cotton, very soft and nice to the skin:
The top is described here.I like those pants with elastics at the ankles for the fall and winter. And I like the style. I bought some fabric at the Holland fabric market for mine
The second pair of pants is from Bizzkids Winter 2007/2008, #3345. I made it up for the first time in the pre-blog era, at the time in a black velvet cord. This time I used a camo canvas and skipped the zipper, since DD cannot deal with them yet. The pants have seams in the front and pockets at the sides. DD’d like me to make the hip pockets a bit deeper next time. The back is yoked (click on the link, you’ll see that the alignment of these yokes is -I dare say- perfect). I made a mock fly zipper in the front, using the spare button that came with a store-bought pair of pants. The elastic is only in the back. Next time I transform a zipper pant in a non-zipper pant, I’ll taper the waist to the next bigger size because DD needs to do a fair bit of wiggling to put these up. Finish: french and flat-felled seams. Clean and beautiful *tap on shoulder*.
I have now released the waist elastic, so that the fit is better and the wrinkles in the front are gone.
The “Hello Kitty” scarf had to be in the picture. Don’t ask…
I went to the fabric market yesterday… *sigh*
