Renewed Adventures...Including My First Attempt at Deciphering a Russian Pattern

So it's been over half a year since I posted anything here, I am ashamed to say that the reason is that for most of that time, I had not done ANYTHING of interest in the sewing room.

But, over the Christmas holiday something happened that made a huge difference...I finally got new furniture in my sewing room.  I'll do a separate blog post on that, but thank goodness my brother-in-law lives about a mile from Ikea.  Visits to him have resulted in all new furniture, organization, and less of a feeling of "ohmygod, what a horrible mess" every time I walk into the room.

With a freshly organized workspace, with lots of working surfaces, I seem to have found my creativity again.  I also have been doing more with independent patterns.  For years, all I sewed was "Big 4," but since more and more independent companies are out there, and Burda is available for download, even though I let my subscription lapse...I've been trying other new things.

The first thing I made in the new sewing room was a Burda from 11/2010, a wrap blouse:

Nothing really to say about this one...how many times can one say that Burda has good fit, interesting styles, and crappy instructions?  Ditto for this.  I made it with a georgette that I had in my stash...that waist tie takes a ton of fabric, so you need nearly 3 yards of 60-inch wide fabric.

A much more interesting endeavor was the purchase of my first Lekala pattern.  Lekala is a very interesting pattern company from Russia...the styles are alternatively fashion-forward and a bit risqué (lots of bare midriffs).  I decided to give it a try and the best advice that I can give is to read Melissa's post at "Fehr Trade," on how to purchase Lekala patterns.  The process is a bit confusing because the english on the site is not fantastic...and there are a lot of steps to purchase:

1. you have to purchase a code for downloading patterns from an external site
2. you have to return to Lekala to activate the code
3. after you activate you can order patterns 

I can say that it is well worth it mainly because even after the conversion from euros to dollars, the downloads cost in the neighborhood of $1.00, AND you purchase them according to your own measurements, so the patterns need little, if any, alteration.  Sure, you have to tape the pattern together but...a dollar.  It cost a dollar.

I started with Lekala 4100, a knit shirt with an interesting collar:

After jumping through the hoops to purchase and activate the code, I received an email with the pattern pdf...and a little something extra.  You get what the computer has decided you look like based on the measurements you entered.  And all I have to say is "holycraponacracker, tell me I don't look like that!"

Aaaanyway...the pattern was pretty simple to assemble...21 sheets.  Not ridiculous like some Burdas I feel like I have spent days taping together.

Much like Burda, the instructions are not going to be helpful if you don't already have a pretty solid understanding of clothing construction.  Google translate is only minimally helpful:  link to instructions.

As for the construction, the front collar gave me a bit of trouble and I ended up scrapping and recutting it once on the first shirt...and changing it on the second.  Here is the collar:

It looks like it has an overlap, but the way the pieces are constructed, they butt up against one another:

In the second version that I made, I ditched the piece on the right, and just cut 4 pieces of the one on the left, and created the overlap that it appears to have in the line drawing:

The shirt also has sleeves gathered into a small cuff:

The first version I made from a bamboo knit.  I had never sewn with bamboo before, and it has a great hand, but is it ever infuriating to work with!  The final product was better than I possibly could have predicted:

The only issue that I encountered was that it was a bit smaller across the hips than I would have liked, but I'm not even willing to say that it is a fit issue, as it may just be more personal preference in regards to amount of ease.  In fact, I liked it so much I made another version today.  I had a yard and a half of a wonderfully soft rayon knit that I purchased in Texas many years ago and could never find anything I really wanted to use it for.

The only problem was, I didn't have enough.  So I had to convert it to short sleeves so that I could use the fabric that I wanted.  I used a sleeve from a tshirt that I had made before and just drew the contours of the sleeve right onto the sleeve pattern piece, so the sleeve cap would remain unaltered:

And in a snap I had a short sleeve, and a 3/4 sleeve traced off.  Here is the second version, with short sleeves:

I made one other change in the construction, I moved the gathers for the neckline further down towards the point:

The reason for this was in the original, the placement of the gathers made a couple of small wrinkles that extended from the neckline to the armpit.  Maybe I'm just being overly critical, but I disliked the same thing about my Hot Patterns Weekender Sunshine Top, I suspect that the combination of those gathers and a full bust means that those wrinkles will just happen if not placed PRECISELY right.

And since it's the dead of winter and too cold to wear short sleeves, I made a cardigan from Simplicity 2603, that I think everyone and their mother has made at some point:

It seems more difficult than it looks because I don't actually hem them...I just cut it really carefully so the edges are PERFECT.  The first one I made I hemmed, and it did NOT drape the way I wanted it to, and I believe the thickness of the hem was to blame.  I noticed that RTW versions were made without hems, so I gave that a shot and...much better.

All in all, a productive weekend...and I will DEFINITELY be making more Lekala patterns.  I am thrilled with how this first one turned out.

PS...all of these were made with fabrics and supplies from the stash.  It sure didn't make much of a dent in it, but I'm trying to NOT buy new fabric for a while!