The Late Night Sewist

Hi!

This years holiday took me to Hungary for a week full of unexpected events – a thunderstorm that robbed a big part of central Budapest of electricity for more than 12 hours and for a slightly shorter period, of water as well. In addition to that, our brand new rental car (less than 3000 km on the odometer) broke down on the first day. It may sound like an awful week, but my boyfriend has an extremely patient and calm mind, which he maintains even in situations where I would get totally upset, so in the end I only have positive emotions when I look back at the past week. Plus, I got a new dress to show you!

The dress is a simple and quick make, the pattern is model 109 B from BurdaStyle 04/2013, which is exactly what popped up in my head when I saw this pastel-toned Missoni-ish net at a local fabric store. I immediately found a matching cotton/poly mix fabric for lining and then combined all that with a cute metal zipper for the back.

The pattern is very shoulder-revealing and the armholes generous, so not every bra fits under that dress – my advice to anyone trying this at home would be lifting the armscye by up to 2 cm.

As you can see, I also made some minor changes to the pattern by omitting the side zipper and back neck slit, using an exposed zipper on the back instead.

Some more detailed photos here:

The photos were taken at Takler Kuria wine estate in Szekszard where we spent nearly two days just enjoying the surroundings, the wines and food.

Prior to that we spent a few days in Budapest, where I did some fabric shopping as always. It seems that sewing is popular in Hungary as the ease of finding fabric shops reminded me of that in Portugal, where in addition to the shops that I found online, there where several that I just stumbled upon in city centers.

I visited two shops in Budapest, but also found one in Keszthely, Szombathely and even in a small place like Bonyhad where we just happened to stop for a moment.

The shops in Budapest were both special – the Mathe Textil shop is probably the most beautiful I have ever visited and Kis Brammer, which was a minute to walk from our apartment, managed to seduce me into spending 60 euros for a piece of fabric that hopefully will be enough for a skirt!

Mathe textil shop interiors with solid wood panels, mirrors and soft red carpets:

Here is a photo from Kris Brammer tiny boutique as well and another one including the fabric I got:

The fabric selection in Kis Brammer is very luxurious – lots of silks, wool and lace and the prices are accordingly high. They also have a great choice of wedding dress materials for brides-to-be. The only downside is that the shop is so tiny that it is difficult to see everything and due to the shop assistants´ poor English, it was also hard to communicate.

The final three days of the trip we were based by Lake Balaton, but did lots of sightseeing, both by car and cycling in the western part of Hungary, up to the lovely town Köszeg close to the Austrian border.

The most interesting experience was the thermal lake in Heviz, but also the thermal baths of Szechenyi in Budapest. The water in Heviz was 32*C and the warmest pool in Szechenyi is 38*C, all natural. I preferred Heviz, though, because it was less crowded during our visit (also meaning the changing rooms were nicely clean) and it felt more natural, a total relaxation.

A few photos of the trip here: