BurdaStyle 02/2013 - 103 & 104 Halter Dress

My dress is a hybrid of these two versions of the same pattern.

BurdaStyle 02/2013 - 103 or 104 (same pdf pattern)

This is another one of my China fabric purchases, a bold panel print in what is allegedly a silk linen blend.  You have to take some of these descriptions with a pinch of salt, but it seems like it could be right, it feels like a softer, slubbed silk organza.  In any case it was the print I fell for, it reminds me of a blown up digitised flower, but who knows?

Here is one panel of the print, it's big, I had to stand on a chair to capture it!

I originally intended to make a sheer kimono type jacket, but I couldn't find a pattern that was just right.  Instead I rediscovered this simple halter dress I've long admired that would show off the print without breaking it up.  I made the version with the front slit, but used the full width of the fabric as the length which ended up being a long midi.

Being sheer fabric I lined it with an off white silk satin and I used french seams in both layers.  After sewing the arm and neck bindings, I hand finished it on the inside by just catching the bindings to the lining so no stitching is visible on the outside of the dress, except for the hem where I just did a narrow machine hem.

This is an easy dress to sew, but fitting the bodice gave me a lot of trouble.  Something I've noticed before is that I am shorter from the bust to the shoulder than Burda's sloper.  Burda has some famously low necklines anyway and I alter those almost as a matter of course, but for most styles it doesn't matter.  It did for this one.  My dress form was a godsend here - before I attached the neck binding I pinned and altered until it fit. I ended up taking around 2cm off the top of the front bodice pieces. and gathering it more than suggested.

Of course the dress form is great, but it doesn't move and I am finding there is still a bit of gaping above the bust when I am not standing like a soldier!  In a moment of experimentation I tried it on backwards and it seems to be much better which makes absolutely no sense at all, but whatever works!  

Maybe I got confused while making it and cut the slit in the back as for view 103 rather than in the front?  It's definitely possible, I'm sure I messed up the length of the neckline binding as it's much too short and there is no way I can tie it in a bow like the line drawing.  Another good reason to wear the dress "backwards"!

You can see where I still have a bit of a gaping issue on my left side here.

I decided not to do the shirring only because I thought with the lining it wouldn't work very we'll, instead I will wear it with a belt.  

Despite the fitting problems, I have to say I love the finished dress, it's quite a different style for me, although really the print is doing all the work. 

And here it is on backwards!  Or the right way, I'm really not sure anymore.

Burda Style 02/2013 - 115 Maxi dress

I'm thrilled to hear lots of you are planning to visit Hong Kong, I think I have contacted you all already, but just to extend the offer if anyone is ever here and fancies a meet up or fabric shopping tour please do drop me a note.

Not only have I been sewing a lot recently, I've also just got around to photos so lets catch up on some projects that are in the blog queue.

Back in September last year I first made this maxi dress from the 02/2013 issue of BurdaStyle.

Here's the original Burda pattern :

On my original post I mentioned that I might make it again as a shorter dress.  Usually stating stuff like that on my blog means it will never happen, but this time it did.

Sort of.

I tried this as a shorter dress using some blue snakeprint jersey, it was around knee length before I pinned the hem and looked great  until I tried it on!  It just looked awful, very frumpy and unflattering.  I can't claim to really understand why, but the proportions just did not work - on me at least, I expect if you have amazing legs and washboard abs it would look good, but let's face it anything would!

I still really like the top of the dress and didn't want to waste it so using the leftover strips of fabric I turned it back into a maxi by adding a ruffle cut on the cross grain so that the pattern mismatch didn't look too odd.





There are a couple of other small changes I made - I left off the shoulder gathering to get a bit of shoulder coverage and also left off the waist ties which I thought would not work on a shorter dress.  I would quite like to have them on this longer version, but no fabric so it will stay as it is.

Despite some disappointment along the way I like how this turned out and while I don't need a ton of maxi dresses in my life at least now this one looks a bit different to it's predecessor.

Burda Style Magazine 02/2013 - 115 Maxi Dress

The fabric I used for this dress is a classic example of the "go online, ooh pretty fabric, must have it, omg what on earth can I do with it" variety.

It's a stripy jersey with what I thought was a butterfly border pattern.  It turned out that the butterflies were across the middle of the fabric and were huge.  So the fabric sat in my stash while I pondered how I could use it, I always had in my head a maxi dress, but definitely wanted to avoid having a giant butterfly planted smack in the middle of my body.

Finally I just took the plunge and placed the pattern pieces so that the butterflies kind of came in from the side seams, you can hardly see them now which is a bit of a shame, but I really like how the dress came out and am glad that I've managed to use the fabric.

I used this great maxi dress pattern from Burda Style magazine 02/2013 - 115.  I love the above waist twist detail.

This is the sewing course pattern from this issue so there are diagrams which help a lot as the pattern pieces - at least the upper front piece - is unusual.  I got a bit confused because the diagrams mark seamlines (dots), foldlines (big dashes) and stitching lines (small dashes), obviously you only want to stitch the bits marked with stitching lines.  Once your upper front looks like diagram #6 the worst is over!

I made a straight size 38 and apart from raising the neckline just by stitching it up a bit higher and shortening it a bit at the end I didn't have to make any alterations.

Here is the back view, the method of finishing the back v neckline with 2 strips of fabric was new to me, I liked it, simple to do and looks good.

I really like how this turned out and might make it again in a shorter version.  The waist detail does sit slightly above the waist which takes it into potential maternity territory (although not on my very flat bellied dressform!).  Actually I expect it would make a great maternity dress - indeed, the same detail turned up on the Duchess of Cambridge's dress that she wore recently for the first baby photoshoot, the sleeves could easily be modified to get the same look at this now sold out dress.

BurdaStyle 02/2013 - 126 Knit Top

I like to give my posts simple boring titles so I can easily go back and find what I want - an added bonus is that the spambots seem to be less likely to find it.  Anyway a more complete title for this post would be:

BurdaStyle 02/2013 - 126 Knit Top + Print Fabric Binge + Reader Testing Update + Award

but that would be silly.

So, first the top - this is proving to be a very popular make from February's BurdaStyle magazine, and with good reason.  It's quick and easy to make and has just a bit more interest that your average t shirt with it's gathered raglan sleeves, a simple but effective detail.

I used up a leftover piece of knit in my stash which always feels good.  I made a straight size 38 which fits well, but I found it to be really long so chopped a good few inches off the hem - you can see above that the garment looks a lot longer than the line drawing.  After wearing I can also say I should have pulled the neck binding in a bit tighter, but I can live with it.  Other than that there is not a lot to say about the construction, I definitely recommend giving this pattern a try, I'm sure I am going to make it again.  

Sleeve detail, the neckline is bound with self made binding.

Fabric binge
Do you remember last time I went to the fabric market in Sham Shui Po I bought sensible solid pieces.  Perhaps that wasn't a good idea because I went print mad this time.  But you never know what you are going to find so you just have to snap these pieces up when you can.  That's my story and I am sticking to it!

Love this collageit application, clockwise from top left we have:

• the whole pile - I plan on using these next so they can stay out
• bird prints (a bit 2 seasons ago, but I don't care!), really love the cotton on the right
• slinky jerseys, the one on the left is now almost a dress, the middle a top
• grey/black/white, I really like the digital printed pansy silk in the middle, actually what am I saying I love them all!
• my favourite, if you took a photo of a parrotfish, blew it up (the photo not the fish) and printed it on silk this is what you end up with
• a bit more up to date - this season's emerald colour leopard chiffon and a mint cotton lace

Reader experiments
It was great to get all your feedback on the last post and I'm also getting lots of information on other blogs.  I am currently using Feedly which now I have worked out where the menu and preference settings are (3 little lines on the left and wheely thing on the right respectively) am finding it OK.  At the moment - but not after 1 July obviously - it grabs data from and syncs 2 ways with google reader.  Unfortunately I hadn't fully grasped this in my early experiments and inadvertently marked as read a bunch of posts I had saved to comment on later and of course now I can't recall whose they were.  So now I am just sticking with feedly for the time being.  Gail, I will try and add a subscription thingy to my blog.

Award
Last but by no means least I was lucky enough to get a Lovely Blogger award from Sewing in Athens.  Thank you!  These awards are always such a great way of finding new blogs and this one is no exception, I love her tagline "How many dresses are too many", a question I should probably ask myself more often.  Go check out her blog here, the latest post is for a gorgeous Patrones pussy bow blouse.