Burda Style For people who sew

If you don’t always have the time (or the patience) to make a garment from start to finish, another great way to exercise your sewing capabilities is by giving the clothes you already own a little make over. In this edition of the nationally syndicated sewing show It’s Sew Easy, Tricia Waddell and Katrina Loving from Stitch magazine show you how to give a basic sweater a new edge with just a few snips and stitches. Check out their fun and easy project and get inspired to search your closet and let the make over begin!

We have an amazing Terms section, filled with a huge selection of key sewing and craft words. We want to spruce this section up a bit, and would love your help!

A few months ago, Jamie and I headed a couple blocks down from our Midtown office to spend the afternoon immersed in one of the most amazing textile archives in the city. Dimitrios Apostolou has been collecting vintage textiles, swatches, paintings and garments from estate sales, auctions and private collectors for over 40 years. His collection boasts nearly 4 million pieces from all around the world including a hand embroidered shawl from 13th century China as well as an entire collection of swatches from the house of Chanel. Check out some of the amazing things we found in Dimitrios’ collection after the jump!

The holidays are right around the corner and our friends at Krrb (a great website where you can buy, sell, trade, borrow or give to your neighbors — locally and in-person) are getting in the spirit with their 12 Days of Gifting Give Away! Everyday from December 6-22, Krrb will be giving lucky winners the chance to score great prizes including The BurdaStyle Sewing Handbook , specially made accessories from Lamia Designs, a gift pack from Sprout Wellness, a $250 cash prize and much more!

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Ever gone shopping for jeans only to leave empty-handed and frustrated, wishing you could go home and make your own made-to-measure pair? You’re in luck because designer Angela Wolf has been honing her jean crafting skills for years and shares a few of her trade secrets on the national sewing series It’s Sew Easy. Follow along with Angela as she shows you a few tricks of the denim crafting trade and get inspired to try your hand at sewing jeans.

Hey BurdaStylers,

It has been about a year and a half since I joined the BurdaStyle team as Project Manager of The BurdaStyle Handbook and then stepped into the role of Community Manager. Today is my last day at BurdaStyle. It is a bittersweet occasion for me as I leave this amazing role to attend graduate school and further my education.

One of our favorite holidays, Halloween, is upon us and we’re sure your weekend is going to be filled with costumes, candy and loads of other haunted happenings. What are you doing to celebrate? If you’re anything like me you’ve left your costume until the last minute and have already eaten your way through half the candy you were supposed to be passing out to trick-or-treaters….

Whether you’re going out or staying, I pulled together a few inspiration boards to get you in the spooky spirit.

[Updated – 12/14/2011] – Our technical team is currently investigating a site issue that may be related to our payment system. As a result, they have very temporarily restricted access to this portion of the site. We sincerely apologize for this inconvenience, and hope to have everything up and running again soon.

Niamh O’Connor, Art Director for the offbeat embroidery website Urban Threads, paired up with the design duo from KMKostumes to create a one-of-a-kind dress project to help facilitate the revitalization of machine embroidery. No longer relegated to quilts and crafty wall hangings, Urban Threads aims to push traditional machine embroidery out from it’s dusty past and bring it to a new generation of fashion savvy designers and crafters (sounds a little like the beginnings of BurdaStyle, huh?).

Belgian artist Isabelle de Borchgrave has taken the marriage of art and fashion to the next level with her amazing paper dress creations. At first glance her work looks like intricate ensembles from bygone eras or period costumes from a museum archive, but in fact each piece of “clothing” is crafted entirely out of pattern paper. De Borchgrave, a painter and teacher, was initially inspired to create her paper dresses by a trip to a Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York in 1994. Her first collection, Papiers à la Mode, was de Borchgrave’s take on the history of fashion with inspiration ranging from Marie Antoinette and Turkish sultans to pieces from Chanel and Dior.

A very clever marketing tool from the folks behind Westfield Stratford City, a massive “urban shopping center” which just opened last month in East London. From flappers and fedoras to punk rockers and b-boys, this video covers the last 100 years of fashion in swinging London. Loads of history and inspiration has been squeezed into just under 2 minutes – not to mention that these two have some serious moves!

We were so excited to be a part of the new national sewing television show It’s Sew Easy and we were even more excited that our own BurdaStyle Ambassador Gretchen Hirsch was invited to host a segment using our Linda Skirt as her on-air project! Watch Gretchen to get great tips for creating your own vintage-inspired skirt, including how to use a horsehair hem for a super-femme, full skirted effect.

Last week in St. Paul, Minnesota we ventured out to The Creative Connection, a 3-day conference celebrating women and entrepreneurs. We met with some of our favorite bloggers like Alicia Dirago of Dismount Creative, Mena Trott of the Sew Weekly and vintage style maven Gretchen Hirsch of Gertie’s New Blog for Better Sewing taught our BurdaStyle classes. Singer® enabled our activation at The Creative Connection, click through for more pics after the jump!