Lovin' Lace and Eyelet!Burda World Of Fashion, Feb. 2009 #124 Dress
I love this lacy, Dart-o-licious dress!
This is my first version of this dart-a-licious dress from the February Burda magazine. It's part of my entry in the One Pattern, Multiple Looks contest.
Pattern Description: From the magazine: 'Received a dinner-party invitation? This shift dress with an attractively raised waist seam, slim shape and extended shoulders will always be just right for the occasion.'
Pattern Sizing: Burda sizing 38-46. I made a 40 in the shoulders, quickly tapering to a 42 from the lower edge fo the armscye on down. From there, I tinkered (see below). :)
Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope once you were done sewing with it? Um... well, yeah! My next few versions will vary either the neckline or the amount of dart-o-liciousness, but this one was pretty on the money.
Were the instructions easy to follow? Well, it's Burda... but having said that, yes-- they were easy to follow. I did a little variation detailed below.
What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?LIKES:
1. Some of you remember my Superhero name, 'Dart Girl.' I *love* darts. I also *need* darts, because I'm curvy. Furthermore, many of my curves have, um, 'shifted around', so I've gotta work it with the darts to make stuff look right sometimes. This pattern has these awesome, long front darts that essentially start just below the bust and extend down through the hip area. LOTS of room for shaping!
Dart-o-licious long darts!2. I also like that this pattern is *not* a princess style, yet has the shaping described above. I've set aside some tricky fabrics to make this up in-- fabrics where you want to use as few seams as possible. The eyelet of this example is one; others include beaded lace and this crazy tattered silk.
3. Love the empire waist! I can't get enough of this style. It's a good look for short-waisted me.
Empire Bodice 4. Love that it's very basic and easy. You need that when you're fabrics are not basic and not easy.
DISLIKES:
1. Oh, Burda... again with the facings? I omitted them. It seems odd to me to make a garment that is completely lined, but to treat the lining as an underlining in the bodice and then add facings-- then treat that same material as a classic lining in the skirt. I treated the lining as a lining in both the top and the bottom, and omitted the facings. In future versions of this dress, I'll do the same; if I find that I need to underline for strength and structure, I'd probably do well to line as well. PLUS... since I'm varying the ease in future versions, it's nice to make the lining and use it to assess the shaping I've done for that particular version.
2. (Both pro and con:) This dress has these cool dolman-type 'mini-sleeves'. You can barely tell, looking at the pattern, that they will look like sleeves! But they do. Unfortunately, they create a little redundancy in the bust area. It works in lightweight fabrics, but you wouldn't want to make this in something heavy or stiff. I plan to do a couple of versions of this as a sleeveless dress, omitting the dolman extension. We'll see how that looks.
Fabric Used: Oh, wow. Can you believe the color?!? This superb coral cotton eyelet from Mulberry Silks in Carrboro, NC.
Coral Eyelet The lining is a pale pink cotton broadcloth from the same store. Eyelet: $18 per yard x 1.75 yards of 56 inch fabric. Broadcloth: $8 a yard x 2.25 yards of 45 inch fabric A good one to make a muslin for (...and somewhere in Missouri, Marji is thinking, 'FINALLY!').
Pattern Alterations or any design changes you made: THE FITTING PROCESS: I made this my project to work on during my two day Sandra Betzina Sewing Workshop in Carrboro, NC this week! I really, *really*, REALLY want to work on fit and detailing this year. With that in mind, I picked this basic fitted dress pattern (I've drooled over this picture so much my magazine is still wet!), made a 'best guess' muslin, and took it to the workshop. Based on my measurements, my Burda experience, and the fact that I'm working with a woven, I made up a quick-and-dirty muslin in very attractive Pepto Pink.
Pepto Pink Muslin I started with a size 42 except in the shoulders, where I tapered in to a 40 from the lower armscye on up.
It turned out to have a decent basic shape, but be sort of too big throughout, and far too short in the bodice.
So I wore it in to see Sandra, who was just wonderful with teaching me fitting! We started out by lengthening the bust by 1, then two, inches. PHEW! That was better. We also removed 2/8 to 3/58 inch in the shoulder height immediately. That really improved the bodice fit and decreased the 'fall-off factor' tremendously. Then we took in the side seams by about 5/8 to 6/8 inch on each side.
At this point, we started what I called 'round two' of fitting changes. The dress fit *much* better, but was narrow in the back and a little shapeless in the waist area. We broadened the back by 1/2 inch at the shoulder area on each side, tapering to nothing at the top of the bodice. We deepened the front dart by about 1/4 inch in the front, tapering all the way down, and then removed a bit of that at the hip area.
Lastly, we pegged the skirt by tapering the skirt width from below the hip to the bottom by a total of 1 inch at each side seam.
NOW, the muslin looked pretty good! It also looked hacked to bits. I'm tellin' ya, we wrung every bit of education that could be wrung from that poor thing. And by the end, with muslin-colored pieces added to Pepto Pink, we had the dress you see HERE. It cracks me up! I think I'm gonna wear it next Halloween with a diner hat and rollerskates, and go as Flo the Skating Waitress.
Flo the Tweaked Muslin. CONSTRUCTION: From this point, construction really wasn't bad at all! I created the lining first to be *sure* I liked all the changes I had made. It was a teeny bit snug in the hips, but otherwise good. I then constructed the dress in Eyelet, carefully keeping the skirt at my pre-determined 24.5 inches to make use of the scalloped border.
Skirt with Scalloped BorderOnce the dress was constructed, rather than hemming the sleeve I added a 1 inch strip of scalloped border to the sleeve edge.
Scalloped edge on Sleeve.Next, I attached the lining to the eyelet at the neck, clipped, understitched, and flipped the lining to the inside. I hemmed the lining hem and sleeves to be shorter than the eyelet by 1 inch at the arm, 2 inches at the skirt.
Next came the invisible zip. Can I please share with you how great Sandra was at teaching an invisible zip installation? This has baffled me for years now, but just
CHECK OUT the zip on this dress. Hooray! I only hope I can do it again when she's not around. I stitched the lining to the zip, and called it done. :)
Dress On Me.Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others? Yes. I tweaked the heck out of this pattern for a reason! It's now my TNT pattern for A-line dresses. Just vary the neckline or the amount of ease n the darts, and you can make it be whatever you want it to be. At least that's the plan. For others, I'd say that yes, this is quite worth doing.
Conclusion: Great dress! A nice easy, basic pattern-- which is good, since perfect fitting of said pattern can be a trick.
