The Late Night Sewist

I haven´t mentioned it here, but although I currently live in my homeland Estonia, I don´t live in my hometown. My home at the moment is in a tiny seaside town with a population of 11 000 people. Coming from the overcrowded city of Athens, the change is really huge. It has its downsides as the variety of restaurants, bars or entertainment is really small. On the other hand, I walk to work and in 10-minute walking distance from my house there is a nice swimming pool. No squeezing in the midst of the crowds in the metro, no heavy clouds of exhaust to inhale! In spring and summer I will probably enjoy living here more, because I can then use my bicycle for getting around and for getting a workout. I really LOVE cycling!

Another downside, though, is that I don´t have any old friends or family in this town and everyone I know right now is from work. Immediately it brings about the problem of taking photos for the blog!  I have arranged with a colleague to take some photos if I am really in trouble, but I don´t want to make it a burden on anyone, so I´d rather wait until I visit my hometown and have someone take the photos then.

I spent this weekend in the capital, Tallinn, for a change, since the past 2 weekends I didn´t go anywhere. I had a good time, ate out, went to the movies and had some photos taken!  And because the Stardust coat is not proceeding much (I am afraid I still have to ask a friend to send me more fabric from Athens), once again I am showing you something I made before starting this blog.

It is the tunic from Burda Easy Fashion autumn-winter 2009.

The photoshoot was not an easy task, as the weather has been gloomy for the past days (weeks actually!) and a good light is really an issue. The following photos were taken during approximately 10 minutes, which was the lucky 10 minutes of sunshine we got on Saturday, believe it or not!

I need a special mood to wear it, because as you can see for yourself, it is a bit of a hippie-style or little-house-on-the-prairie-style, if such a thing exists! And honestly, I don´t feel like this very often, but when I do, I enjoy wearing the tunic a lot! And as my friend Taavi, who took the photos, pointed out, it is an investment piece for the future, if I decide to get pregnant 😀

Once again I am surprised at myself, since this is one of the first things I made when I started sewing again, and it is not exactly an easy project with the buttoned front, lots of gathering and plaid fabric.

I cut size 38 as nearly always with Burda patterns and didn´t make any alterations. The wooden toggles are from a dress I bought, but didn´t like them there, so I removed them and used them for the tunic. The fabric is some kind of a cotton mix, I believe, it is nicely lightweight, but wrinkles quite easily.

The boots are a cheap pair of a Greek brand called Hunter, but I loved them for the colour.

And last, but not least, remember this? :

The basic pattern is the same for these two items! The bodice part is the same, but the front yoke has pintucks and bow tie, the sleeves are different and there is remarkably less gathering on the blouse, but the bodice part is exactly the same!

The technical drawings once again:

Generally I would say that Burda Easy Fashion used to have more complicated patterns than they do now. I still buy the magazine, but they haven´t been able to  beat the 2009 issues, both spring/summer and autumn/winter.