Where are you from and/or where do you live?

I'm from Denmark and right now I live in Copenhagen. But I've lived all my life with my parents in a farm in the middle of nowhere.

What was the 1st thing you made? How did you start sewing?

The first thing I made...that's a looong time ago. I think it must have been some knitted christmas present for my parents. I spent most of my childhood in my grandma's house where she tought me how to sew, knit and all that kind of stuff. In the Danish school you have lessons of sewing when you are about 10 years old. So that's when I learned how to sew on a sewing machine...though one day I sewed into my finger and that scared me from touching a sewing machine for some years :P

What role does sewing play in your life?

I love making things...I love to draw, to sew, to knit, to play the piano, to make bracelets...almost anything that I can make with my hands.

What is your favorite and what is your least favorite thing about sewing?

My favorite thing is to see my ideas take shape...at the same time that's what I hate the most. . . when I have these great ideas in my head of what I want do and then it just doesn't work.

If you could make something for anyone who would it be and what would you make?

Don't really know. . . I love to make things for people. It makes me really happy! It also makes me feel good when people ask me to make this and that for them. . .a lways nice when people like your work.

What are you looking for on our site? What do you think should be improved and what do you really like?

I look at other peoples creations, at the patterns and at the how tos. I like to get inspired and get feedback on my things. I never use patterns but it would be fun to try some day.

What is your motto?

No motto...and I don't want to make one up just to have one :P hehe!

If you want to learn more about Lifje, check out her awesome member profile

UPDATE: We are giving away 3 pairs of free tickets for STITCH Austin! Write us to answers@burdastyle.com, the first three are the winners!

The coming weekend - Saturday, November 10th - we will be at the most exciting DIY fashion show STITCH AUSTIN, in Texas. We are sponsoring the event and would be happy to see you there. Please comment or send us and email to answers@burdastyle.com so we can meet up! Hoping to see you there...

Halloween is over, Thanks giving almost here. No doubt, we are approaching the HOLIDAY SEASON!! For that matter we wanted to urgently announce our winners of our Halloween challenge: Winners are..

Cherylfrances with her cute little pumpkin puppy, Elinorawen with her fudgy appearance at the Visitor service, Booboobear, even though she represents the Easter bunny, won for her dedication as a teacher, who dressed up in a furry bunny costume at over 100 degrees, Stacysews because she created the cutest and most charming little zombie bride , Mirela wins, because her and her friends brought us one afternoon full of laughter with her funny horn creations, Sunnyb64 wins for the fact that she really managed to look like a beautiful fairy and isn’t that something all of us girls would like to look like, at least once in our lifes, makelikeatree wins because she’s got AWESOME style, even as a dinosaur, Howlymowly’s cutest Link from Zelda wins, no explanation needed, go see for yourself, Redemily wins bringing the white rabbit and the entire crew from Alice in Wonderland to life and last but certainly not least Elainemay, because she found an incredibly adorable way to do some recycling with her bubblewrap tutu .

Thanks so much to all of you for participating. For the ten lucky winners, keep your eyes peeled for some BurdaStyle Mail!

Finally!

As I said last weekI had a problem with my Shari dress once the zipper was sewn in, the fabric was bunching up at the back above my bum. Thanks to those of you that commented with suggestions to fix this, in particular Theoreticgal. Theoreticgal’s suggestion was that I have a swayback problem and to fix this I needed to take out some fabric across the back above my waist. Lucky for me I already know her through blogging and our local knitting group (yes, I can knit…slowly) and she offered to come over and help me make the alteration. So Monday was spent trying on, pinning and altering my Shari dress and now I have a dress that fits! I do have a seam running across the back of the dress now but I’d rather that than having to scrap the whole thing. Oh how I wish I had been more patient and made a muslin! Never mind, I’ve learned the hard way that we are not all shaped the same way, even when I’m not pregnant. I now know that if I want my clothing to fit MY body I need to take my time, measure, make a muslin, make my alterations and only then should I cut into my beautiful fabrics. Do you make a muslin of everything you make? I’m going to start buying old sheets from my local thrift shops for this purpose so I can draw alterations and notes onto them. I trimmed the hem of the dress so it slopes slightly at the front to accommodate my bump which will lift it as it gets bigger. I had some help doing this as you can see in the photo. I also tacked down anything on the inside that needed it since I’m not adding a lining.
I will be making this pattern again, I have altered the back pattern piece so I won’t have the same problem again and I may add a little extra width to the alteration i made for the front. I want to use up some two metre lengths of fabric from my stash so my next Shari will be shortened into a top. This week I’ll be starting work on the new pattern Liz. I have made up a drawing of how I will alter it. I plan to widen the front middle pattern pieces slightly and in between the seams I will insert inverted pleatswhich will lie to the sides of my bump. I will also lengthen the top quite a bit. What do you think? Do you think it will work? Is there anything different you would suggest? Please leave a comment. The Shari sewalong has now ended. If you took part please upload images of your finished garment in the creations section, on your homepage or in the forum and let us know your thoughts about making this dress. Did you make any alterations? What fabric did you use? Did you encounter any problems? What would you do different if you decide to make another?
Our next sewalong will be the Lydia pattern. I will be taking part in this sewalong since I am becoming desperate for clothes that fit and this pattern is perfect, it’s so simple and can be altered in so many ways. I also want to learn more about sewing knits so this is the perfect opportunity. Are you going to sew along with us? There’s a new thread in the forum where you can let us know your plans for making this top and also show us a photo of the fabric you plan to use. I think I’ll be fabric shopping for this one.

UPDATE: Everything can be uploaded now, but sometimes the site is slow.... Please be patient and continue to upload all your beautiful creations!

Dear dear BurdaStyle Members!

We appreciate nothing more than having all of you on our site! We love seeing new creations in the morning and nothing is more special then seeing members helping each other in the forum.

That makes it even worse, that we have been having so many problems with the site lately! It has been unreasonably slow, uploading creations/how tos etc. was not possible, we were not able to post any new patterns and posting in the forums was so slow that it basically was pointless. We feel horrible!. But believe us, we are working hard, together with our programming team, to clean up this mess.

Originally, this blog post was supposed to be about all the new little features that we just implemented. It was supposed to be one happy post, but essentially that is what caused the trouble.

Nevertheless here a couple of the new features:

-Right under Just Signed Up, you can see now, how many total members we are and how many members currently are online.

-The member list shows now only the members with the beautiful avatars to present especially the ones of you that are working hard on our site.

• We finally are able to manipulate the tiles and the text on the home page ourselves, which means we can constantly update them and bring you plenty more fun news at all times!

• We implemented a favicon. It may not be visible in all browsers yet, but it certainly is there!

• We changed the menu bar around a bit, to concentrate it to the most important stuff.

• The menu item that you are currently viewing is switching colors in the menu bar, so that you always know where you are!

Those are only a few of the little things that we worked on , there is a lot more little stuff, that is supposed to make your life easier, without you even noticing.

We are working already on the next badge of quick fixes, which are supposed to be released in a couple of weeks and include some nice features. More about that, once we
FIXED THIS MESS!

xoxo The BurdaStyle Team

Hello Beloved Members! We cannot begin to express how grateful we are for your patience these past few days! We ran into a catch-22 because the site crashed due to heavy traffic our server couldn't handle, and while we were glad to have so many visits, we were totally overwrought by the problems that came with our popularity! Thankfully, we've got the most awesome members ever, who, though disappointed by the crash, stuck with us! We're glad to see everyone uploading their creations again, and hope you will continue to do that as the site gets better and better!

We also want to share with you the new designs that will be featured in our Alice in Workingland Spring/Summer 08 Collections, designed by BurdaStyle Members! These submissions have successfully adapted current and future trends into clothing that fits in with BurdaStyle and the Alice in Workingland theme! Kasia26 has taken a creative approach to her submissions, by making small-scaled versions of her designs modeled by a Bratz doll! The jacket is beautiful and innovative, and the skirt flattering and trendy! Snaggletooth, had a very well thought out and beautifully illustrated submission. The top we chose for its intricacy and style. We are happy to have received all the submissions, and look forward to the next deadline, when we are sure to have even more beautiful and thoughtful submissions like these!

Am I glad I took my own advice from last week and made a muslin of Liz?!! According to my measurements a size 42 is the best size for me to make at the moment which is what my Shari dress was. So naturally I went ahead and cut out the size 42 pattern for the Liz blouse. I’m thinking this was a big mistake, it’s HUGE!! How can one pattern be so different from another? Anyway, the muslin sort of fits around my bump but is just too big across the bust. I’m going to need to make a smaller size and go with the alteration I suggested last week, this size is just no good at all. Not only did I sew up a huge blouse but I sewed some of the pieces on upside down twice and needed to unpick and sew again. My brain seems to be in slow motion this week, I’m blaming the dreadful cold and cough I’m suffering from, I need to blame something right? Ugh. Do you have any advice for making this blouse?
I’ve worn my Shari dress a few times this past week and have received numerous compliments both in person and on my blog. I’m really pleased with how it turned out and I have decided (when I have worked out how to add an extra 4 hours to the day) that I’ll be making more. I have added to my how-to. I have seen a number of other Shari’s here on the site made for the Shari. I’m amazed at how different each one is from the other considering they come from the same pattern. Isn’t it wonderful to be able to put your own spin on something and make it your own? Who wants to buy the latest trend from the high street when we can sew up our own clothes and alter them to suit our shapes and individual styles?! Check out Kallers 75c Shari, a true Refashionista if I ever saw one and she shares some modification tips too. Lacheen has made some changes to her fabulous polka dot Shari by changing the sleeves and adding ribbon and lace, so girly and romantic yet I think there’s a little rock chick going on there too! And Juliamomo has given her version a classy look by using black silk fabric. A nice take on the ‘little black dress’ I think. Are you taking part in the Lydia Sewalong? I’m hoping to take part and will most probably make the top as it is but with a bump alteration. Then once i know how it fits this way I may move onto making more from the same pattern but with different modifications. Now, where is that measuring tape?

Its Turkey time!! Time to go home and spend some quality time with the fam, but more importantly time to enjoy some nice home cooked food! Who is not excited about that. We certainly are and we wanted to share that with you, by presenting you our mini cooking collection!

The BurdaStyle apron makes you look like a cooking champ, but more importantly it will keep your other pretty clothes clean, while the mittens save your hands from burns (sometimes I feel, there should be mittens to iron looking at my messed up hands). We would love to see, how you look when you cook, if you do! If you are like me, you rather hang out in the kitchen, watching others preparing wonderful dishes, but even then you may want to consider wearing an apron, all the trying may get you just as dirty as the cook!

Menswear-inspired dressing has a lot of fashion traction lately, and nowhere is the trend is friendlier to femmes than in the plaids and checks making the rounds for this season, and next. Opening Ceremony’s oversize red and black gingham check cardigan has already blown out of its stores in New York and L.A. Banana Republic, enjoying an unusually directional collection for Fall/Winter, is printing cash on the back of its natty houndstooth coats. Traditional Scot plaids are virtually everywhere; smart shoppers can pick up Urban Outfitter’s high-waist pencil skirt in a blood-toned print and get two current trends for the (reasonable) price of one. But the freshest takes on check come in back-to-basics black and white. One of the standout looks at Danish designer Camilla Staerk’s Spring/Summer ’08 show paired a graphic, gingham print blouse with a neon yellow short; the must-have dress at Yigal Azrouel show was a X-strapped sheath in a blown-out check. Glen plaids make a subtler statement, and may stick around longer; look for a boxy, too-bit blazer with black lapels, or shop the thrift for a pair of baggy, high-waist trousers you can cut off at the thigh and roll at the hem. Together with a tee in Spring favorite tangerine or poppy, it’s an easy recipe for testosterone style with a side of girl.

The passing of Halloween can mean only one thing: Candy canes, Christmas trees, tinny versions of “Little Drummer Boy” on the drugstore P.A. system. The holiday season is here, and with it comes the annual delivery of sparkle and shine to dress departments throughout the land. This season stands to be even more sparkly and shiny than usual, inasmuch as the key look from now until New Year’s is flapper-inspired and as decadent as the roaring ‘20s themselves. The trend has its origin in last year’s Poiret exhibit at the Met’s Costume Institute, and got its legs at the Fall/Winter shows, with their unapologetic Poiret debt. Proenza channeled the master best - their opulent cocoon coats and cloche hats were pure Dorothy Parker and basically to-die-for - but it’s at Kate Moss’s for Topshop that you’ll find the pithiest expression of the Gatsby mood. Spotty until now, Moss’s line is finally living up to its notoriety with this Holiday collection. Think: Dropwaist dresses chandeliered with beads, lace boleros, reflective patent leather accessories, gold and silver lame. And, like Moss herself, think simple: At last month’s Fashion Rocks outing in London, Moss’s flapper look was stripped down; she’d modernized the aesthetic by simplifying it. Needless to say, she was a roaring success.