Colourful duo

I like to celebrate winter in style: with bursts of colour! In general, I avoid black in favour of colours, and being called “the bright girl” suits me fine. For this reason I sewed this combo: a purple silk blouse and a red knit skirt.

When working with Burda patterns, as a rule, I use a size 36 for tops. In the case of this blouse, I did not want it to be very fitted so I traced the pattern in a size 38 to creating some sort of breezy effect. I hope I achieved that! Then, I went for my favourite French seam to finish all the raw edges and bound slit, following this tutorial by Marina.

Do you see the seam at the centre of the front piece? Well, that happened because I cut the pattern pieces in the wrong order (the back and the sleeves first, then the front) and the last piece of fabric was not wide enough to fit the entire front piece. Therefore I had no other choice than to cut two pieces instead of one. Damn it! Nonetheless, it looks like a blouse with a “designer” modification.

The fabric for the skirt was purchased during one of my trips to Paris where Julie took me fabric shopping to some fabric re-seller, called Will. He sells fabric remnants from different factories as well as designers. Then, he sells them on local markets in different cities around Paris. So to buy some great fabrics from Willl, Julie and I went all the way from Paris to a local market in Nogent-sur-Marne, where Will was selling fabric pieces (called “coupon” in French) which are three metres each. According to Will, this fabric was a leftover from an Isabel Marant collection; I took his word for it. It was love at first sight! First of all, I absolutely loved the colour, but also, because I’ve never seen anything similar before: this knit came in a tubular shape! Well, most knit fabric is made as a

tube anyway, but I’ve never seen shops sell it this way.

In order to make the skirt, I cut one length of fabric and overlocked seams, but left the hem’s edge raw. For the waistband, I attached the widest elastic band I could find and covered it with self fabric.

After all, I was quite happy about it! Working with silk becomes easier and easier with each project as well as tackling new sewing techniques. I am not 100% satisfied with my bound slit but I hope to improve with the next garment. At the end, I think that both garments are a very successful addition to my wardrobe.

The only inconvenience for me is to cycle in this skirt. Other than that, I receive a lot of compliments for both pieces. And so I say, let’s sew more colourful garments!