Not-your-ordinary-white-office blouse

 My inspiration was this white shirt from Burda 4/ 2012; mod. 117, size: 40.

and the color-blocking from this picture from the net:

My creation was this:

I've finally used 3 bigger pieces of leftover fabric. I've had them for about 10 years now so I'm really happy. The colourful one was actually bought for my wedding dress which I still have but it's in size 36.  I now make size 40 for myself .  Then there are white poplin stretch and a shiny white fabric. The shiny fabric is not exactly my favourite choice but I just tried to use what I already had in my stash. Keep in mind that I needed almost 2 metres of fabric (which I had but in pieces).

I changed the collar because I prefer a standing collar (in Slovene we call it a Russian collar). At frist I thought I'll just leave the shirt open but then I decided for a short zipper at the front. Now the whole shirt almost looks like a coat because there's a lot of fabric at the back. I love it.   

I had to construct my fabric (I needed almost 2 metres) so I decided to do the simplest variation possible. I arranged the pieces together so that they overlapped for 0.5 cm or 1 cm and first sewed them with a straight stitch and then went over it with my new cover stitch (Brother CV 3550) so the joining seams are exposed. (It might seem like a lot of work but it was actually easier than sewing wrong sides together as we usually do things.)

Front pieces:

 

I will show the rest: back pieces, the back tail and the collar in the next post because this is getting too long.

Simple ruffled and rich blouse

I got this wonderful material from my aunt. My aunt has been sewing for more than 25 years and she is a huge inspiration for me. We decided that instead of going fabric shopping, which is by the way our favourite past time activity, we can exchange some fabric from our stash. I thought I have lots of fabric but my aunt has definitely more fabric than me. Anyway, this wonderful fabric was in a terrible state. It was shredded. It was falling apart. Here's a picture of the state it was in.

The most beautiful details of the fabric were falling apart. I had to construct the fabric again. I used zig-zag and tried sewing the shredded pieces back in place. Luckily it was working. 
I chose a very simple pattern for this material because it's so rich in itself and the piece was not exactly big. Lately I do lots of simple patterns because my time is limited: cooking, 3-year-old daughter, cats, job, gardening, crocheting, blogging, a bit of sewing etc.
So I made this wonderful blouse, Burda 7/ 2014, mod. 108, size 38. I added a peplum piece/ ruffles from Burda 3/ 2014, mod. 119. And as you can imagine I carefully trimmed every piece of fabric to prevent further shredding.

My  wonderful fireplace.

My name tag - finally.

Very simple neckline.

Wonderful material with small sequins.

And since I mentioned my aunt, here is a picture of her. I wore my blouse to an operetta Die Fledermaus in Schlosstheater in Vienna, Austria. There is my aunt (wearing her own jacket), 2nd from the left, my cousin who is studying opera singing in Vienna and she is pretty good, my mum is next to her (wearing a dress my aunt made) and me on the right.

Floral peplum shirt

I have made another peplum shirt. The top part is my design and the bottom part is based on Burda's pattern from Burda 8/ 2012. I just love how the tail falls over my behind.  And I love the floral fabric. I bought it on line - from tissu fabrics. The top part is the same as in polka-dots peplum shirt, except I did different cuts on top due to the lack of the material. So I might publish it again but there's really no big difference.