This Week in Patterns (23-Oct-2015)

We had a pretty interesting week of new patterns this week, including a couple of major indie releases and a new BurdaStyle Plus collection. Here are the new entries:

• BurdaStyle Plus
• Colette Patterns
• Pauline-Alice
• Peekaboo Patterns
• StyleArc 

BurdaStyle (Plus): November 2015 collection (Canal Walks)

I've been so impressed with BurdaStyle's plus collections as of late that I recently spent a chunk of birthday money on a trial subscription (after not having subscribed in ~5 years). While maybe not as outstanding as the September 2015 collection, November's collection has a few pieces that are right up my alley.

11-2015 #130: Cuffed Culottes

First up is a completely unremarkable pair of culottes.  Can you even call these culottes--they don't really have any of the volume associated with culottes and look like long shorts or short capris to me. This is probably the worst design out of this group.

11-2015 #130: Cuffed culottes

11-2015 #129: Button Up Blouse

Up next is a nice basic: a darted button-up blouse. I think that this could be a nice alternative to the Grainline Archer for those of us who wear larger sizes. Note that the Burda (unlike the Archer) has a bust dart for shaping.

11-2015 #129: Button up blouse

11-2015 #128A & B: Shirt Dress and Tunic

Next up are my two favorite pieces of the collection--a retro-inspired shirt dress and tunic. I love the gathered shoulders, open neckline, and tie option on these.

11-2015 #128A: Shirtdress

11-2015 #128B: Tunic

11-2015 #127: Long Sleeve Dress, Skirt with Flounce, Pencil Skirt

This collection has three views that all use variations on the same skirt pattern. There's a long-sleeved dress, a skirt with a flounce, and a plain pencil skirt (which I'm not including a photo of because...it's a pencil skirt and we all know what that looks like).

11-2015: #127: Long sleeved dress

11-2015 #126: Pencil skirt with ruffle

11-2105: #124 Long Pea Coat

Finally, we have a coat and jacket pattern that uses the same base pattern. I'm not a huge fan of the lack of shaping here, but I do think that it's a sharp-looking coat and jacket, and it has nice details. The coat has an optional removable fur collar.

11-2015: #124: Long pea coat

11-2015 #122: Belted jacket

Colette Patterns: Wren Dress

We finally have our latest non-Seamwork release from Colette Patterns, and it's a knit surplice/faux-wrap dress. It's a pretty enough dress, but I'm a little wrap dress'ed out at the moment. The gathered front bands are a nice detail, and I like that it comes with two different choices of skirts. As far as whether I'd purchase it, though, I think I'll wait to see some reviews and how it looks on a curvy figure first.

Colette - Wren dress

Pauline-Alice: Rosari Skirt

OMG, this is such a cute skirt!  Love the 70's vibe and the different length and pocket options. Yes, you could find a similar skirt in a vintage pattern, but this one has a decent (not great) size range, and the PDF is only 8,00€.

Pauline Alice - Rosari skirt

Peekaboo Patterns: Bristol Button-up

I haven't typically included Peekaboo patterns in these roundups because the early women's designs in this line all had similar alternative patterns that were available many other places (e.g. a raglan tee), the samples appeared to have fit issues, and they lacked line drawings. They still lack line drawings, but to give credit where it's due, Amy released a cute hoodie with an asymmetrical zipper a little while back that's been getting rave reviews, and now she's released a shirt-jacket that's a fun 90's callback: the Bristol Button-up.

Peekaboo - Bristol button-up

Remember those flannel shirts with the knit hood? That's what this is. I had a neighbor in the dorms who used to wear one of these all the time. The main things that I remember about him were that shirt and the fact that he used to play Wolfenstein at all hours, blasting the sound over the speakers from his IBM 386. ("Guten Tag!") This pattern comes in sizes from an XXS-XXXL and is fairly reasonably priced for an indie. (And if you question whether these are actually coming back in style, there's a kids' version of this shirt in the December Burda preview.)

StyleArc: Louisa Dress/Top

I'm either in an unusually good mood, or there have been some really cool patterns released this week. The latest from StyleArc also falls into the "want" category.

StyleArc - Louisa top/Dress

I love the seaming/darts and how they open up into pleats to make a full-skirted dress. On the other hand, I know that that neckline (when zipped) isn't going to work for me, so I'll wait to see a review or two on this one to make sure that the zipper can be worn semi-open to give more of a v-neck-style neckline.

 

Final Thoughts

 

What were your favorites out of this week? Mine are actually the Burda Plus shirtdress (no surprise there) and the new Peekaboo Bristol (I'm wearing Doc Martens while I type that, BTW) AND I really like the Pauline Alice skirt. I quite like the StyleArc dress, too, but think I'll need to see it made up a few times first.