Buy the exact fabric seen in BurdaStyle Magazine

By chance I came across a fabric shop in Germany that sells the fabrics as featured in BurdaStyle magazine.  It's not very PC from a sustainability viewpoint - but for those who want to make the garment exactly like it appears on the glossy pages it's worth a look alfatex.de/modestoffe/burda-style/  (And there's a translation to English button when I used Chrome as the browser.)  Very tempting! Not all are the original fabrics but they suggest replacement fabrics.  The trouble for me is that it's winter here and I generally sew my winter garments in the winter and summer ones in the summer.  Perhaps a little planning ahead will enhance my stash. For all those who are coming along for the Sew Along with Curious Kiwi, take a look!

Love that Lace Skirt

If anyone sees anything like this lace then please, please let me know where I can get it.  I love the rows of different patterns and the adorable colour and haven't seen anything like it, but I love it.  It's a Burda 03/2013 cardigan but seriously the skirt is amazingly gorgeous!

BurdaStyle Magazine Challenge

I've just made a commitment to join in the Burda Magazine sew-a-long with Curious Kiwi and followers for the month of May. I get all the Burda Mags out of the local library and love them but like a lot of people have never actually made anything from them. That's the whole fab purpose of this challenge. I will choose carefully since the more ambitious I am the more unpicking and swearing and cursing that can go on.  This is particularly true of fabric choice and I am finding stretch fabric to be a puckering challenge.  I changed the settings on the overlocker, yep I read the instructions for knits and the change has helped.  Shall I make a jacket, a coat, a dress or a skirt, shall I play it safe or shall I step up the challeng?.  Shall I choose somethiing from my stash or buy something new?  It's winter here so a jacket or coat is appealing. I saw some nice chocolate brown soft wool....

Yesterday I went to Sakaguchi's fabric sale. He's a fabulous designer and is located right here in my own city.  At the end of each season he has a sell out of left over fabrics for more than reasonable prices and so I brought home a great stash - a bit much black but as Sakaguchi himself told me at the till, you can never go wrong with black! One great purchase was an embroidered silk!  What do you think I should make with this gorgeous piece.  I have 0.9 metres and it's wide.

I never used to have a stash - didn't appreciate there was a concept and didn't realise the pleasure and the treasure. As a teenager and a student and even as a young married person, I only ever had enough money to make one garment at a time so I only bought purposeful pieces with a pattern.  But sewing bloggers out there you have made me realise that it's perfectly normal to be completely obsessive with buying fabrics - and now I buy guilt free especially at sale time. Besides, I learnt the hard way that the roll does not contain an infinite amount and once it's gone, it's gone.  don't you hate going to the counter to get 2 metres when there is only 1.2 left on the roll. Check out this piece of blogging which had me in hysterics How to buy fabric. What a fantastic attitude this blogger has!

Roll on May and the great Burdastyle Magazine Challenge! I might even try and do a step by step blog for this challenge. Very excited.