Burda Style 07/2011 - 110 Dress

Yikes I didn't realise it had been so long since my last post : I've had a succession of visitors hogging my sewing room, flu, 2 overseas trips and I guess my usual loss of sewing mojo that always seems to happen as the seasons are changing.

One of my trips was to Devon in the UK for a family wedding and I really wanted to make something new to wear.  I found some gorgeous silk crepe and planned to make the Matthew Williamson designer dress from Burda Style 09/2012 - 134 that has been on my list for ages and even (gasp!) made a muslin which turned out to be a good move as I realised I would prefer it with a lower v neckline.  I started to look at other patterns to modify it and realised I had already made a very similar dress - Burda Style 07/2011 - 110 so I dug that out instead.

Plan A and Plan B respectively

You can see the previous version here, this time around I left off the pockets and tried to give the fabric the treatment it deserved by underlining it with silk organza and lining in silk.  The end result feels incredibly luxurious to wear, but I won't lie it took an age to do - and the dress still wrinkled after sitting  although it fared pretty well being pulled straight out of a suitcase the night before.  I also switched the zip to the centre back to make it easier to fine tune the fit not to mention getting the dress on and off without messing up hair and makeup!

I wore it at the wedding with nude suede shoes and some gold jewellery.  The wedding was on Easter Saturday and luckily it was sunny, I did have to borrow my husbands jacket for champagne and canapés which were served outside while millions of official photographs were taken, but otherwise the dress did its job well.

Not that I had options where I bought the fabric, but my colour choice wasn't the smartest.  I have another wedding to attend here in Hong Kong this month and while I don't think it will be a traditional chinese wedding, I still feel it's a bit of a no no to wear red - rather like a guest wearing white to a western wedding.  So I will have a rummage through my wardrobe and decide if I want to make something new or not.  This may mean I have to go fabric shopping again, how terrible!!!

Burda Style 07/2011 - 110 Dress - On Me

Well it's Friday and I have some make up on so here as promised are some photos of the dress on me.

Having already bumped into the tripod Barney also wanted to be in the shot.

I am going to have an urge to stick my hands in my pockets all the time while wearing this dress, I love them!

This is me mucking about trying to recreate the photo from the magazine.  I'm sure Burda will be calling me any day now!

Here you can see that the pockets and pleats stick out when viewed from the side, this is down to the design and is unavoidable, but I can live with it - don't make this if you can't!

Burda Style 07/2011 - 110 Dress

My sewing has been a little haphazard lately with lots of things being traced and started, but for one reason or another nothing was getting finished.  Before my sewing room filled up with UFOs I decided to get my head down and finish this dress - it's from the July issue of Burda Style, #110.  

This is actually sized for petites, but the measurement chart is very helpful so I compared the petite and regular measurements and just added back what I needed in the bodice pieces by slashing them and inserting extra paper.  Strictly I should have added some both above and below the bust, but from my measurements I just adjusted by 1.5cm just above the height of the front inserts so that I didn't have to mess with them, as there is some shaping built into those seams.  

Other than that I followed the instructions - this is the illustrated pattern for the month - and I found them pretty good.  The pattern is really well drafted and everything matches and meets where it is supposed to.  For once I even included the pockets and love them!  Naturally with the pleats and the pockets there is a bit of "pouffyness" going on at the front, which would normally put me off trying a style like this, but it just goes to show you need to step out of your comfort zone and try new things sometimes.  The wide shoulders also help to balance the look as do the contrast front panels.

Here is a close up of the front panels, I just used the reverse side of the fabric on the cross grain, or maybe it was the right side of the fabric, I'm not sure - anyway the other side!  The fabric is like a cotton twill but has quite a different texture on each side, one side sort of basket weave (I used this side as my main fabric) and the other side has a striped effect.  I decided not to add the additional stitching around the panels and pocket edges and in keeping with this handstitched the hem so no stitching is visible on the outside of the dress.

The armholes are very high, I don't know if this is due to the petite sizing but is something to look out for, it's just on the right side of comfortable for me.

 The back view is fairly plain and in dire need of a final pressing!

I'll get some photos of me wearing it in a separate post soon, I feel very Roland Mouret-ish wearing it!