My BurdaStyle Year Round-Up: Projects Review

[AD] My how time flies! A year ago I was approached by the lovely Meg Healy of BurdaStyle inviting me to become one of a team of 10 blogger/influencers for BurdaStyle. I had been sewing up a few of their patterns and loved the styles so of course I jumped at the chance to join.

I was provided with a PDF pattern of my choice each month to sew up and share on my blog and Instagram. I also had the chance to pick one of the BurdaStyle Academy courses to try out (more on that later). I thoroughly enjoyed the collaboration and I can’t believe I finished my last make a week or so ago. Anyway, I thought it would be great to run through all of my makes with a few thoughts on each one.

So without further ado let’s get cracking:

**Click on each photo to be taken to my original post**

BurdaStyle Year Round-Up: My Makes

1. Denim Wide-Leg Crops

The first thing that I made during my BurdaStyle year was in a trendy silhouette. I’ve worn these denim crops a lot, both in warm and cool weather with sneakers or ankle boots. It’s a fabulous well-drafted pattern and I’ve also made it up in a full-length version in camel corduroy.

2. Blush Trench

Words just can’t describe how much I adore this coat! It’s my favourite make of the whole year. It’s a lot of PDF to tape together, but boy what an amazing design. Runs true to size with a nice amount of ease for the style. I didn’t have any major struggle to understand the instructions either.

3. Silk Chiffon Cami

This cami is a lovely pattern and pretty easy to construct. Not many pieces either. The actual pattern is for just one layer of fabric, but I had to add a cotton muslin lining due to the sheer nature of my fabric. I also made straps and beaded them but the pattern states to use a fancy braid which would be easy to use. True to size.

4. Pleated Midi

A yoked skirt with wide pleats. I had to line my fabric for this pleated midi because it was a bit see-through but the pattern isn’t a lined one. Check out my post to see how I marked, pressed and stitched the pleats to make them more permanent. This midi length was a new to me style and although I love how I styled it for the photos, I’m just unsure about whether the style is really ‘me’. I’m on the fence as to whether I donate it even though it was a great pattern’…

5. Short Sleeved Raglan Top

This was a really fab, well-drafted raglan top pattern. Easy to make and the fit was amazing…but…this was a case of my own bad fabric choice. I would make this one up again in a heartbeat (in better fabric). This particular top, however, got donated 🙁

6. Funnel Neck Sweater

Love this sweater! I’m a total sucker for a cowl/funnel neck and this design had a lovely asymmetrical pattern design (check out the post to see the strange pattern shape). It was a quick easy make.  My fabric feels fab to wear and I have indeed worn it a lot. Love it!

7. Side Stripe Pants

This was a slightly more detailed pattern to sew with more complicated instructions. I think you need more experience if attempting these side stripe pants. The waistband is in several pieces with a piping insert. I strayed from the instructions and added my side stripe on top separately after sewing the seams. I also added ankle zips. I’m a difficult shape to fit and I can tell that I haven’t quite got the leg angles right. I should have done a knock knee alteration to the pattern and I didn’t…as a result, they do annoy me a bit to wear so haven’t worn them much…

8. Workout Pants

What can I say…these are such a great jogger style pattern. I whipped these up in a few hours and have worn them twice a week for all of my workouts. Easy to make too.

9. Red Sweater Dress

An unusual design, this sweater dress has side seams set forwards and small bust darts on the front panel for a good fit. A really nice pattern to sew. I just found the front neckline to be a little too high and had to scoop it lower. I also customised my design with checked pintucks around the hem and sleeves. Feels lovely to wear and very ‘me’ 🙂

10. Satin Camisole

This camisole was a repurposing project for me, in that I used a knee-length satin slip to cut up for the fabric. I had to add two extra seams on the fronts and a centre back seam in order to get the pattern shapes. Fairly straightforward to make, but only drafted for smaller cup sizes so I did some major alterations to the cup sections to get them to fit me. I included a tutorial on my post for this. I further customised the design with beading to take the look to more daytime and less lingerie.

11. Top With Side Gathers

A lovely elevated tee design which I further customised with a ruffle inserted into the diagonal seam at the yoke level and on the sleeve hems. Very quick and easy to sew. Good instructions and not too many pattern pieces. Check my original post for details about my ruffles.

12. Red Oversized Sleeve Top

My final make and this oversized sleeve top has already been already worn a lot. Such a fab simple design! I love the wide sleeves. The fitted body and cropped length are perfect. True to size. Love it!

BurdaStyle Academy Course

So as I mentioned at the top of this post I was also given the opportunity to take one of the Academy courses.

(note I was provided with a course of my choice free of charge. See my disclosure policy for further details on sponsored and gifted items).

I chose ‘Pattern Making Skills For The Advanced Sewist’ as my course. Meg is a great teacher and really explains everything so well. I worked through modules about skirts, tops and pants. For skirts I learned (amongst many other things) about pleats, gores, asymmetry etc. For tops I learned about moving darts, changing sleeves, necklines and so on. And for pants some of the topics covered were: pockets, yokes, contouring and baggy styles. There are a whole lot of PDF resources to download for each module too. I think you’ll get your money’s worth if you decide to try one of the academy courses out for yourself.

And Finally…

During my year as one of the influencer team, I was extremely pleased and excited to be chosen (along with lovely Sharada of Sweet Shard) to write two posts for the main BurdaStyle blog (for which I was compensated). I took over from Meg to write a Mash Up post in two parts and the design I chose to make was a waterfall collar blouse. You can check out my two posts here and here.

And that was my year. I had a blast. Thank you BurdaStyle for the opportunity and good luck to the next group of influencers who start in June. Be sure to pop across the the Burda website to see the monthly round ups.

In the meantime, I’m excited to see where my blogging journey continues to progress. I’ll still be sewing some BurdaStyle designs plus other brands and of course many of my own designs.

I’ve got a collaboration coming up in a couple of weeks and also a planned make as part of an Instagram challenge. So be sure to keep following along. I’d love your company 🙂

Thanks for reading. See you soon…