WE HAVE WINNERS!

Thank you readers for the lovely comments and good wishes.  I love hearing from you all and look forward to an even better second year.
Now to the winners of my Hot Patterns drawing.  Yes, I did find a random number generator and it has chosen:
The tuxedo blouse to Stash
The jacket goes to Lady Jenn
The Riviera top to Ruthie
Please e mail me with your mailing address and I'll get these out asap.

SEWING NEWS
I have been toying with entering the mini wardrobe contest on Pattern Review that starts on
March 16 I believe.  The requirements are 4 pieces that together make 4 different looks.
Here's what I've come up with.
Black cotton jacket.
Black and white knit t shirt.  This is a copy of a Celine top done in silk, but hey, I don't need a silk t shirt
Either black pants or tan linen pants.  I don't know if I want to have a matching suit though.
Black linen and silk dress that will have Burda 127 2/110 as the base and will have a blue silk charmeuse yoke.  It will be a copy of this Celine dress. Which actually looks like its blue with a shiny blue yoke not the black I thought it was.  Maybe I'll just make it black with a shiny black yoke.  Or would this be called a placket?  What do you think?  Black with blue, or black on black? This is where having a blog is so great.  Oh, and Alex, an opinion please?  I'm planning to wear this to your grandmother's 90th birthday party.  Longer on me though.

This is the top I am copying.
My 4 looks:
Dress
pants and top
pants, top and jacket
dress and jacket
Here's my sketch of the wardrobe worked over a copy of my croquis.  With notes, of course.

Even if I don't manage to make this in a month, it's a good start for my spring sewing that I can build on.  The only fabrics I need are the blue silk and some black silk organza to underline the dress with.  I could of course use the white I have in my stash, and I may well do that.  I also need  buttons for the jacket. I am using the same silk that I lined Alex's jacket to line mine.  I think that I have enough left over. 

JACKET

 Originally I thought I'd make a facsimile of the Cavalli jacket I showed a few posts ago, but the Patrones pattern I found had some drafting issues, so I went with a slightly different look.   I have altered Burda 102 4/05  where I feel more comfortable anyway.  Minus the belt.
The front has a dart that ends in the welt pocket.  I've never made a peaked lapel and I've avoided this type of dart and welt before, not having seen  good instructions.  But there are at least  minimal instructions with the Burda and I'm going to make a sample in the muslin.  Samples are good.  I've shortened the jacket and lowered the whole pocket dart ensemble to fit my gravity lowered bust and my low front waist.  The back is an armhole princess.  It's not fitted, but it's is shaped and at least the tissue fitting looks good.  I also decided that since I am a 1/4" larger in the upper bust than the size 40 bust measurement  that the size 42 I've been making is too big.  what I did do is cut a 40 in the neck and shoulders (very narrow here!)  and then I blended out to a 42 at the underarm and added to the size 44 hips to about a 46. I   didn't want to add a side dart or to increase the front dart as it doesn't fit the pocket opening if I do that.  ( I tried this before on something I didn't end up making) so I used Sandra Betzina's method for adding an fba when there is a dart and you don't want to increase it.

You can just about see it in the pattern, try clicking and enlarging the picture.
I still had to narrow the front shoulder, but it seems to line up much better with my cross front measurement. The back shoulder I left alone and added a dart to take care of my slightly rounded shoulders.   This really seems to have worked.  There is no bulge at the back armscye, which is indicative of a rounded shoulder.  Gee, you can have a flat back and rounded shoulders!  I also took my usual tuck at the upper center back for said flat back. 
The sleeve needs some biceps room in this size, so I did that adjustment.  I like the slash and spread the interior method since I never want to add to the sleeve cap ease.  In fact I removed some of the ease because cotton won't ease as well as wool.  I want  a strong shoulder, so even though this calls for a shoulder pad, and  Burda never tells you how big, I added a bit to the outside shoulder curving up to it in an attempt to get that interesting shoulder I've seen.  I added back the sleeve height that  got lowered in the alteration process.
The other thing I did was to increase the center front to the front edge of the jacket to accommodate  a larger button.  Burda never gives you a button size either and generally tends to draft for a 5/8" button.  You can figure this out by measuring from the cf to the edge of the jacket.  Ideally this distance should equal the diameter of the button you'll be using.  I don't know what buttons I will be using, but I do know that I'll want a button larger than 5/8", so I increased it a bit.
Next step is to make a muslin.