BurdaStyle 08/2011 - 126 Dress (or not...)

Delving into Burda's archives here while I wait for 2015 issues to be more to my taste or for me to catch up with fashion.....

08/2011 - 126

This is one of those dresses that looks like a skirt and top, which after cutting out I decided to make into a skirt and top anyway!  Bit bonkers I know, but as I was putting it together two thoughts kept nagging away at me:

• I never wear pencil skirts with the top tucked in
• The skirt fabric I chose had such a great collection of colours that it seemed a shame to commit it to one top forever

I always maintain that you should try new things now and then so I did go so far as tacking it together and trying it on before confirming my gut feeling that my fabrics would be better off as separates.  Luckily this was an easy fix after unpicking the waist seam.  The top just needed a yoke band added onto the hem.  I had already raised the neckline by a massive 13.5cm, even Burda styled this with a cami underneath!

The recommended fabrics for the bodice are softly draping fabrics and the pattern has a side button fastening so it can be used with a woven, although both of Burda's versions and also mine use a knit - so I omitted the fastening.  You can see from the dressform side and back photos that there is quite a pronounced blousing effect.

I liked this top so much I immediately made another one from some leftover knit in my stash, I love clearing out those little pieces!  I cut the yoke band on the bias so I didn't have to worry about pattern matching (and, due to the bias I suppose, I see that I need to take it in a bit at the sideseams).  I did match the pattern down the centre front seam though.  I'm interested in trying it in a woven too.

The skirt is a basic pencil skirt, you could use any one.  I made a couple of changes from the pattern.  My skirt fabric had quite a large repeat and I didn't have enough to be able to match across a centre back seam so I eliminated that and shortened it a bit so that I could walk in it without needing a slit.  The zip is collapsing in on itself in the hanger photo below - it is a normal, symmetrical shape with a body in it!

I did a very lazy finish on the waist, I just added a strip of interfacing, folded it down and topstitched in place.  We'll see how robust it proves to be, hopefully it won't stretch out, I do like how completely unbulky it is.

I did quite a deep hem and planned it so that the machined hem almost disappears into the black part of the fabric.

As I mentioned above the colours in the skirt make this piece a great jumping off point for a mini wardrobe - black, navy, cobalt, cream, light blue and bronze.  I already have black and navy tops, need to work on the rest.....