Another Burda pattern–dress from the January 2017 issue

Most of you who have been reading my blog for a long time know that sometimes I get so enthousiastic about a pattern that I want to sew it immediately and often do that as well. This dress was in the enthousiastic category, but was not made immediately.

The main attraction for me was in the upper part of the dress. What a lovely neckline and raglan sleeves are something different too. As stated earlier, when I showed the first in progress photos, pleats on the hips and a point emphasizing that part on the back are not for me.

These are pictures from the BurdaStyle website.

I made my version in a fabric with a stretch very similar to a ponte knit. I bought it at the Utrecht fabric market. Two friends bought exactly the same fabric, I’m looking forward to see their versions. Very difficult to make good pictures, the colours are black and very dark navy. The sun made these photos brighter.

The fit is not too bad, as always the wrinkles are showing more when you’re standing still and in real life it doesn’t look that bad. I lengthened the body a bit too much this time, the waistline could be slightly higher and the back a bit narrower. Note to self: next time draft it from my sloper. Sometimes it’s just easy to trace a pattern ;).

I want to wear it with a small belt, but have none in my possession that suited this dress.

In the back I opted for a zipper that doesn’t go to the neckline completely. Not necessary to get my head into it and at the same time making the step of sewing it accurately so that there’s no unevenness at the end of the zipper unneccessary. I need the zipper for the waist.

I changed the pattern and construction of the neckline facing. For those interested, these are my changes.

I made a neckline facing for the back and sleeve togehter. There’s a little extra fabric as the sleeve parts do not exactly match, but I considered it not enough to add a dart.

For the front I made a separate facing too. Sewed the facing to the front first and then sewn both the sleeve and the back facing in one pass. I hope you can see it in the next photo, it’s very hard to explain and photograph. The bottom layer is the back with the sleeve attached, then you see the front (with facing side up) and on top is the back neck facing. After you turn this it has a nice and crisp corner. No fiddling with points to clip in.

To conclude the skirt part. For this I used my skirt block, but any pencil skirt pattern that fits would do. Usually you will have one dart in the front and in the back pattern (I use two but that’s not too important here). I moved the darts so that they started at the same point from center front and back as the top of the dress. Then I just cut down to make a seam in the same line as the princess seam from the top and made sure the waistlines matched. I could have sewn the dart only, that’s just a design option/choice.

Describing all this makes it seem like a lot of work, but it’s not that complicated. It’s a dress I will wear a lot this winter.

A blouse with dots

I showed pictures of my work in progress last week. All three projects are finished, my daughters dress has already left the house (in the form of her wearing it before I had a chance to take photos).

Let’s focus on the blouse for this post. It’s a nice pattern, Burda 6632. To my surprise it was very long and very wide, I took off a bit while normally I have to add length. I didn’t change the length of the sleeves either.

A more major change was made to the placket. The pattern has only buttons as decoration element, they’re not functional and there’s a seam at center front, no overlap. I wanted to have a placket which overlaps and using buttonholes. Not very difficult, but somehow it took me a while to grasp what and where I had to change.

The fabric was, as I said already, very difficult to work with and I used starch to keep it from slipping away continuously. I was asked what I use and it’s a spray starch that’s sold here in the supermarket. On the bottle it says it’s to make ironing easier and giving it a bit more stability (the starch). For me this little amount of starch was enough to help me in construction.

The photos of me wearing the blouse. As so often, Burda’s neckline is deep, this blouse requires a camisole.

A top with lots of drape

Having done a proper review of this top, I almost forgot to post about it on the blog. Thanks Nancy for reminding me through your comment.

The top has a lot of drape and because of that I don’t know yet whether this will be a favorite or not. I’m used to more fitting clothes. Still I was attracted to this pattern and “had” to make it. It’s from the January 2017 issue of Burda.

Again I compared to my sloper but have to remember it’s different for knit fabrics. I could have used a size smaller. Being so wide it’s not a real problem.

I found this fiddly to make with the double shoulder parts and the binding at the neckline. At the point where the shoulder pieces and neckline meet, there are a lot of fabric layers creating a bump.

With the experience I have now I would have done it differently and have made the back with a cut on facing. Also I would serge the shoulder pieces on the inside, thus eliminating another layer. Burda’s instructions tell you to fold the seams on the inside and then stitch.

A plus to this pattern was the added camisole. Burda realized this time that the neckline was too deep for being comfortable in day to day life and solved this by adding a pattern for a camisole. I made my own bias tape for the top from the same fabric and used a lingerie elastic at the bottom. Not an exact match in colour, but well, no one will see this.

A final note on the fabric needed: the measurement given in the magazine is 2.2 meters, using a fabric that is 1.35 meter wide. This is not a normal width in most knit fabrics. My fabric was 1.6 meter wide and I could cut both the top and the camisole from only 1.7 meter of fabric.

Burda dress

Hope you all had a lovely Christmas if you celebrate it. If not hope you had a lovely weekend.

I finished my dress before Christmas and wore it to the Christmas dinner with my family. It was a rather quick project. A friend mentioned a Downton Abbey vibe to it and though I can see it I think (hope) it’s a bit more modern.

 

The pattern is from BurdaStyle January 2016, nr 117. Mine looks pretty much like the photo for once, as I made it from a dark navy fabric. Don’t remember where I bought it and think it’s a cotton/linen blend with perhaps some silk in it, as it has a lovely shine. A bit cool for a winter dress (I wore it with a shawl for dinner), but I found out that most fabrics in my fabric collection are not dress length, certainly not when the dress has a flared skirt and sleeves. And one of my goals for the next few months is also to use more of the fabrics I have. Not committing to anything, just thinking that as I have some really nice pieces it might be good to use them.

The sleeves are cut on the bias and are comfortable in wearing. I do remember reading somewhere that there might be a problem with sleeves cut on the bias, but for this fabric/pattern it was no problem. 

The pleats are a separate pattern piece that is cut off-grain. This helps the pleats to curve around the body.

All I changed to the pattern was adding 7-8 centimeters to the center front and adding 3 cm to the length of the bodice, which is what I usually do with Burda patterns. I checked the pattern pieces to my sloper and it was quite close to that.

Two pictures of me wearing the dress. These were intended as trial ones but the camera battery went down and I don’t feel like doing it again later.

 

A few dressform pictures of details.

Have a lovely new year’s evening all and a joyful start in the new year. Till next year!

Burda challenge - organizing

Planning to do the one Burda pattern a month challenge has already resulted in a garment and some organizing. I made a dress from the January 2016 issue for which only the hemming still needs to be done. Should manage that before Christmas, don't you think? 

During the two house moves my magazines had gotten a bit disorganized and I wanted to have them by month together. I took out all that I could find and made a little pile per month. 

Then I counted and while I thought there would be about 50, there are 92! that's only Burda, not Knip mode, Ottobre or Patrones. I have quite a few of those as well. Some issues are well used but it is certainly a good idea to use them more.