Burda Style 05/2010 - 105 Modified Dress

I'm back from Tuscany, what a beautiful place.  We were visiting with a couple who were celebrating their 50th birthdays and their 21st wedding anniversary with a small group of their friends and family.  We stayed in Florence and visited lots of the local area and my husband & I also squeezed in a day trip to Rome which is around 1.5 hours away by high speed train.  I had an amazing time, except for a couple of days when I was sick.  Of all the dodgy places I have visited and I get ill in Italy, it's ridiculous.  On the positive side it did mean I was more restrained than I could have been surrounded by all the amazing food and wine!  A couple of my wardrobe pieces didn't get worn in the end, I will start with the ones that did.

This black dress I made last summer has been worn over and over again.  In fact when I went back over some recent photos I was embarrassed by how often I wore it, you'd think I had nothing else in my wardrobe.

Clearly in was time to make another one and this time I made it in Pantone colour of the year, emerald, just before it becomes Pantone colour of last year!  The pattern is from Burda May 2010, dress 105 and like the black dress I extended the shoulder for a bit more coverage, an easy adjustment to the front & back bodice as you can see from the pattern piece below (it's sideways, the fold is along the bottom of the picture).  I also cut the skirt - which is just two rectangles - a bit wider, I really like the look of the original pattern with it's loose top and narrow skirt, but it wouldn't like me!

For this version I added some waist ties in the side seams.  I didn't really think this through very well as the dress has a blousing effect from the longer top so it takes a bit of fiddling to get it to look right, but once it is tied it doesn't move so I can deal with that.  Looks a bit odd on my skinny hipped dressform and the colour is not quite right here either.

Here I am wearing the dress in the grounds of the hotel we stayed in, just outside Florence before heading out for dinner.  Even with it's brighter colour I expect this will go into heavy rotation like it's sister.