Burda + Ottobre + A Sunny Spot = a new outfit

Three garments, made in bits and pieces over the past few weeks:

1. Ottobre (Autumn 4/2010) 'Montparnasse' hooded jacket
2. Burda miniskirt revisited, and
3. A Sunny Spot's 'Ribbon tie tunic'.

First, the jacket. Luckily for me, I noticed a tutorial for the jacket on the Ottobre blog - what a find! This made it super easy to sew, even though I mixed up elements from the two different jacket styles (I made the longer jacket with the gathered pockets and hood elastic of the shorter version) and ended up with a zip that was slightly too short (totally deliberate, naturally). The fabric is a midweight cotton French terry that I picked up at an op shop a while back, and the hood lining is a scrap from another op shop fabric, so all I had to buy was the too-short zip and a new double needle as my old one had disappeared. Love the fit of this jacket on R and will happily use this pattern again.

Next, the skirt. A while back I made a denim mini for R using the same pattern, which is actually called 'Girl's metallic skirt' and is intended to be made in metallic faux leather. I loved the skirt but R wouldn't wear it because the zip and waistband fastening were scratchy - it needed a fly guard. So I remade the whole thing in a denim that R chose, adjusting the waistband so I wouldn't have to elasticise it like I did last time and - of course - adding an improvised fly guard. Although R is really happy with the new skirt, I don't like it as much as the old one. The denim isn't as nice a colour, the less A-line shape doesn't look as good and the waistband is still too big. Clearly I will have to have a third go at this one!

The top is a simple little pattern from A Sunny Spot - you can see my previous version here. I made this one the same way, lengthening the sleeves and omitting the hem facing. Although it is not what I would call tunic length, the 'tunic' cut gives it a nice flare at the bottom. For this one I used cotton jersey bought on clearance at Spotlight, so it was another cheapie.

Yesterday was freezing and windy (and today is even worse!) so I had to photograph quickly, but I predict the hoodie in particular is going to get a lot of wear.