The rule of three: Pattern Pyramids & a Blog-o-versary (+ bonus giveaway!)

Last month I received my third Pattern Pyramid, this one all the way from Canada via Gjeometry and boy, did it take it’s time!

Posted on February 19th it didn’t finally turn up on my door step until May 2nd!

Check out Catja’s super cute (and very athletic) kitty choosing the winner. I am inspired to convince Harri into helping with my PP giveaway. Paper is one of Harri’s favourite toys right at the moment ss evidenced by the piece of paper I left alone on the couch last night which is now sporting some new tiny teeth holes!

So you all should know the drill by now, here is what is up for grabs:

I am keeping the Butterick wrap dress because I have a soft spot for wrap/reversible/infinity style clothing.

It joins these three in my pattern collection:

Here are your rules:

• Anyone, anywhere in the world, can enter by leaving a comment on this post by midnight NZDT (UTC/GMT +12 hours) on Friday 31st May (which really means when I get up Saturday morning!) but you must have an active blog.
• I will randomly select one winner and post them the collection of 6 patterns.
• That person will then pick one pattern to keep for themselves, then host their own give-away. They will randomly select a winner to post the remaining patterns to.
• And so it goes on until there is a last pattern winner…you get the idea.

• Some people like to replace the pattern they are taking with another from their stash, this keeps the pyramid going longer, but is not compulsory. I am not adding this time around but I do have another giveaway to share below.

So comment below to be in the draw and tell me which pattern you would keep out of the selection above. Then pop over to Gjeometry’s blog, she just received one of the original Wellington Pattern Pyramids!

Now, apparently it’s that time of year again, it always sneaks up on me! It’s my Blog-o-versary, I have been blogging for 3 years, wow!

So that’s a good excuse for another giveaway!

How about a BurdaStyle magazine? I should really have thought of this sooner, like mid-April, since May has been our Burda Month Sew-along but that’s OK, it’s still a good prize no?

The issue is November 2010 which you can preview here also.

Here are the highlights:

If the winner is not in NZ I’ll also throw in a bonus Kiwi treat for you to try

Participating or not you can enter to win, anyone, anywhere is eligible. It would be awesome if you do win please sew something from it and share it with me later.

So, it’s easy, leave me a comment if you want the chance to win this magazine and tell me: Do you have any of these mags or none at all? Are you sewing along with us? Following in spirit? Have we maybe even convinced you to give Burda a try?

You can enter for either giveaway or both, just make it clear in your comments and answer my questions

Good luck!

Tracing Burda patterns is like eating peas…

I don’t like to eat peas.

Apparently I used to although I was too young to remember the day I decided to stop.

Of course my Mum remembers.

One day my Uncle R visited from Australia and when Mum was dishing up dinner for everyone he asked to not have any peas. I guess I realised at that point that eating some foods must be voluntarily and I asked for no peas too and decided that I didn’t like them from then on and never ate them again. Well, that’s not entirely true, I am sure there is more to the story, probably an argument with a stubborn child who believed they had some new and fantastic knowledge about food choice and was keen to exercise it.

I have occasionally eaten peas since “growing-up”. NH eats them and sometimes I cook them for him so I eat them too. I don’t really dislike them but they are a take-it-or-leave-it vegetable option for me. I think it’s the chasing them around the plate bit that I don’t like more than the taste. If they are mixed into a meal (Chicken Fried Rice for example) or if I am given them as a guest at someone’s house I will eat them and not say anything but if I can fill my own plate I am more than likely to leave them behind.

I guess that story is a long way of illustrating my point that in life I think we often make a snap decision about something based on the opinion of others. These decisions mean we might not give something a try or when we do, we do so with the expectation of failure and a closed mind. Sometimes we just need to give something a go and make up our own mind.

Perhaps that’s a bit deep.

What I am trying to poke my unpicker at is that many people give Burda a lot of cr*p for their pattern sheets. I think the lack of love they receive online puts a lot of would-be Burda converts off.

A whole fashion magazine of sewing patterns? There must be a catch, oh yeah, you have to trace from this crazy looking sheet.

But how else do you expect them to produce a full magazine of patterns each month for just NZD$13.00?

Sorry if you think tracing is hard work, I don’t agree, and Burda isn’t really that bad.

As a member of Team Trace All My Patterns, I’ve been tracing from them for years. Obviously, even if you are on Team Cut The Patterns, you cannot, since they overlap lots of other pattern pieces.

And yes, I completely agree when they have halved the number of sheets recently to cram more patterns on each one it did make it a little bit more difficult but still, you get an edge index, 4 colours and different line types to follow. It’s not that hard once you get the hang of it. There is a method to the madness, a way to find your pattern piece within the scribbley mess of lines and after a while your eyes start following the right line and you sort of blur out the rest of the pattern sheet. I call this phenomenon “Burda Vision”, it’s magic!

Argh! Where is that sleeve piece?!

Ah ha! Same sheet, but through the eyes of a practised Burda Tracer – believe it or not you too can acquire the magic Burda Vision with patience and practise.

I’ve even got black and white large format copies of Burda pattern sheets and I still manage to trace from them.

Ok, I’m a visual person, I admit it is possible that I might find it easier than others but, before you judge, take a patience pill and give it a go with an open mind.

There are lots of tutorials out there on “How to trace Burda” or any pattern really, I’m not reinventing anything here, we all know how to trace. I just thought I’d show you how I deal with Burda in particular, the following works for me, it’s efficient, take from this what you need and jump right in.

First thing you need to do is grab some supplies:

• My tracing medium of choice is “butter paper”, A1 sheets specifically – It’s a designer thing so don’t stress if you have no idea what that is. You can buy anything that is slightly see-through, a large stationary shop should sell rolls or large sheets of tracing paper, velum, film, they may even have butter paper too. I used to trace on cheap cooking paper from the $2 shop.
• A pencil and a couple of pens – I like to trace the outlines in pencil and mark on darts and other pattern information with pen
• Rulers for the straight lines, circle template and curves if you can be bothered
• Some scrap paper for notes
• Pattern weights (optional) can come in handy for keeping things still. Bluetack or masking tape work great too. Kittens are not recommended.
• Scissors and sticky tape, sometimes you need to stick tracing sheets together for larger pattern pieces

I’m guessing you’ve already worked out your Burda size and if not go do that now:

Taking Measurements & Burda Size Charts

“Tall” Size Chart

First we need to work out what sheet our pattern is on and which pieces we need to trace. Remember this example from my earlier post?

It was my intention to make just one item this month, the dress version of this skirt above, but I changed my mind, because I can

Cardigan 117, Burda 04/2010

Then I was going to trace this cardigan but I realised it is one of the “extra” patterns that is shaded in red, not the best for this example, but good for you all to know that in each issue there is an “extra” pattern that is all shaded red with no overlaps so if you want you can cut it out or better yet, photocopy it , then cut it out to preserve the other patterns it overlaps.

“Extra” patterns are coloured in red and do not overlap each other – they are often spread across several sheets

I am going to make this cardigan (in this cute knit) but for this example I’ll trace another pattern that I’ll also try and make instead.

Skirt 111, Burda 07/2009

My pattern is on Sheet H and I am following the red lines for size 42. I usually trace a size 40 or 42 and take in the waist as needed. I need to trace pieces 1 through 4 and piece number 8.

On my scrap paper I write all this down for quick reference and checking off. I don’t generally trace in numerical order plus and as you can see, you don’t always get a simple list of pieces numbered 1 through 8, sometimes the pattern calls for pieces 22-26 & 32. It could get confusing so I cross them off as I go.

Now that I have my pattern pieces listed and the right pattern sheet in front of me the only thing left to do is actually find each piece to trace within the mess of lines. Burda has a system, basically you find your coloured pattern pieces number along what I call the “edge index” then trace a line perpendicular across and you will hit that piece.

I might run my finger around the shape to familiarise myself with it and then I lay my butter paper over and get tracing. I refer to the mini pattern pieces in the description as I go so that I pick up all the markings and grain lines.

Don’t forget to write on those little numbers (circled in purple above) when you are disoriented by the bewildering labyrinth of Burda “instructions” they will be your map for seam construction: 1 joins to 1, 2 joins to 2 and so on…

That’s it!

Now we start tracing.

Bonus Curious Kiwi Tip: I always trace the largest and most complicated piece first then work backwards towards the more simple and smaller pieces, that way it gets easier and faster as you go.

You’re welcome

To prove that it isn’t as hard as you think I am going to show you in real-time me tracing this Burda pattern, but in fast forward, otherwise that would be super boring, and fast forward is much more entertaining.

I was going to try to make this more LOL funny but really once I got started I just kind of got on with the tracing Also I don’t do any talking so I tried to add some great Kiwi tunes instead but YouTube doesn’t like that *sad face! Anyway, I managed to add some random instrumental track from AudioSwap (which should actually be called AudioLame)…enjoy:

12 minutes, 26 seconds

…aaaand we’re done. Now I am ready to cut it out and start sewing…finally

Sewing helper update: Harry is officially Harriet, or Harri for short and my little “runt” is now 10 weeks old and weighs 900 grams. She’s put on over 300 grams in 3 weeks since leaving her litter mates who were hogging all the food!

If you are wondering where my little furry helper was during all of the above, well I was hoping to get her into the video but Friday was a big day for her. Most of Saturday was spent underneath my cutting table snuggling in my scrap box.

More kitten pictures I hear you cry? Why I thought you’d never ask!

“Ohh wool remnants, my favourite!”

“No more tracing Mummy, attentions please!”

Sick of kitten pictures? Sorry, not sorry Now go eat some peas trace your Burda patterns.

Fabric: Studies prove more effective than pain killers

This is a short and apologetic post. I do not have a Burda tracing post ready to share with you.

Instead I narrowly avoided a migraine yesterday which left me sitting quietly on the couch for about 4 hours waiting for my vision to return to normal. Migraines for me are rare but I am lucky that I get an “aura”  warning. As much as partially losing my sight freaks me out (I call it “sparkly vision” but actually it’s called scintillating scotoma if you are interested) the upside is that it gives me forewarning to take whatever I need to avoid the actual migraine.

Enough depressing health stuff, don’t you worry about me, I know what to do with these things. Today I will move about slowly, drink lots of water and eat well, I’ll be back to myself by this evening.

Squinting through a receding spangled blur I still managed to buy some fabric from the internetz and I am pretty sure it helped more than the special blue pills I swallowed earlier.

I have been obsessed with Dolly Clackett’s Meta Dress since one of the WSBN girls pointed her blog out to me. I wanted that fabric baaaadly, I search a bit half-arsed for it initially before getting distracted by something else and temporarily forgetting about it.

Then yesterday afternoon Pinterest delivered. Someone pinned it from an online UK store and I jumped on that woven gold so fast I think my credit card got whiplash.

I didn’t buy exactly the same colour-way as Ms Clackett, I almost did, then I saw this one instead and decided I liked the colours more:

It is from Minerva Crafts and you should go get some too

Now, allow me to distract you with too many gratuitous pictures of Harry’s first venture into my Sewing Studio on Sunday afternoon. He moves fast, so they are all a bit blurry!

Like all cats I have ever known when he sees a camera he runs straight at it.

So many good hiding places to practise our new favourite thing: Jumping out at the unsuspecting humans! Also my cat photography skills need upgrading, bear with…

No lace was harmed during this adventure.

Forewarning for all who are interested: On Friday Harry goes to the vet for 1st vaccinations, micro-chipping and a “special” operation (you know what I mean). After said visit you may notice I refer to Harry as Harri (short for Harriet) because if the YouTube video I watched on the weekend has any truth to it, he is more likely a she. The vet will obviously have the final say, stay tuned…

Pretties (or Not Burda)

Gosh it’s all Burda, Burda, Burda around here lately aye?!

Well, just to break it up for those of you not participating, here is some pretty fabric I picked up this morning at the Mandatory moving sale:

(left to right)

A lightweight spotty cotton, pretty greens and blues which make a great Summer dress.

Floral cotton below that, to become a cute shirt? Maybe one of my new Deer & Doe patterns.

A nice thick dark denim, never turn down a good quality denim!

Then some sort of blue/green striped jersey, it is so soft, will become a really comfortable t-shirt of some sort.

Then, the pièce de résistance: an AWESOME (caps lock, bold and underline all required!) reversible black and white content-unknown. Never say no to a reversible fabric. How amazing will a dress made out this be?!

And lots of buttons, some great metal ones, I also never say no to good metal buttons.

Edit 13.05.2013 – Added close up of the revisable fabric as requested: