Geometric print dress

So here is my October Burda Challenge! I actually made this at the beginning of November, but didn't get around to taking photos for a while (it's very hard to motivate myself for photos at the moment: I want to use the daylight for doing more sewing! Or housework I suppose). Anyway, I wore this on Friday night to go and see the Taiwan National Philharmonic Orchestra (they were superb), so managed to get some photos of me wearing it when I got back home (although I need to train my photographer, the photos are rather grainy). You can't see the colours super well, but I paired it with the same belt as in the Wilma photos, magenta tights, a mustard clutch bag, bottle green shoes, and grass green earrings. Subtle as ever. Here you can see me hangin' with Vicky R (although I'm not sure if she is amused...) - the concert hall in Geneva was funded by an Englishman, and is called Victoria Hall. Yes, that is its "French" name.

Pattern description

BurdaStyle magazine 10/2013/124b: Jersey dress with pleats at front waist, square neckline, and extra-long sleeves cut in one with back yoke.

Pattern sizing

36-44. I cut the 42 at shoulders and graded out to 44 at waist and hips.

Fabric used

Poly ITY jersey from Fabric.com. I discovered there were some faults in the print (and a small hole in the fabric), but I managed mostly to cut around these - the only place where it isn't hidden in the seam allowance is in one armpit as I figured no one would be looking too closely there!

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope when you were done?

Yes, fairly similar.

Were the instructions easy to follow?

The instructions are fairly dense and need a couple of slow read-throughs in order to fully understand, but they do make sense if you just follow step by step. Most of the construction is fairly straightforward, but the sleeves and back yoke are very unusual, so you definitely need to follow the instructions for those.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?

Like: the neckline is super flattering, and the construction is really interesting, so it's fun to sew. The pleats in the skirt are really nicely drafted, giving it a slightly tulip shape, and making it very forgiving over the stomach.

Dislike: The finishing of the neckline means there's some raw edges visible at the shoulder pleats, and it looks pretty ugly inside after twin needle topstitching (Burda's recommended finishing method). I'm sure there's a neater way of doing this, but I couldn't quite work it out. The bodice parts are self lined. This is fine at the back, but because of the pleats at the front, there are quite a lot of layers in parts of the waist seam. (although this isn't too problematic with my lightweight fabric - and Burda recommend lightweight jerseys).

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made

I made a small FBA, mostly by doing a bunch of fudges to various pattern pieces... I did a bit of slash and spreading on the front bodice piece to add length and width, with the extra fullness absorbed equally into the pleats. After comparison with my stretch block, I added a little more at the side seam, adjusting the yoke/sleeve pieces to match (I actually needn't have added this extra). I also added a little at the hips so that it wasn't too tight over my derrière. I got rid of the darts on the back bodice as they seemed a bit extraneous for a stretch fabric, and the seam detail that mirrors the skirt darts wouldn't be seen on my fabric. I did keep the darts in the back skirt, as this meant I didn't need a CB seam.

I omitted the zip (who the hell puts a zip into a stretch dress? Even with the topstitching they give at the front, I can't imagine it would be necessary - and it would be a bloody nightmare to sew it neatly in lightweight jersey. Crazy). I also omitted the topstitching at the front waist, as I intend to wear it with a belt.

The neck is very wide as drafted, meaning it's not super bra friendly, I ended up taking in the seam at the front corner of the neckline by about 1.5cm each side, tapering to the drafted seam at the underarm.

I cut the sleeves at the drafted length. They are crazy crazy long - it notes in the instructions that they are 7cm longer than regular length. Normally I wouldn't mind extra long sleeves, but here the weight of my slippery fabric and the lack of shoulder seam meant that the sleeves just slid down my arm and distorted the shoulder and neckline, making it look like I'd made a dress for a giant. I chopped off 22cm to give 3/4 length sleeves, which look much smarter. The hem is at the marked length, which on me hits at quite a nice point, just at the bottom of my knee - longer than I'd normally wear, but it suits this dress. Bear in mind that I'm quite tall though (5' 9.5" / 177cm), so I would imagine that most people might want to shorten it a little.

Construction details

Although the print was AWESOME, this fabric was a bit of a pain to work with. Despite being very lightweight in terms of thickness, it's surprisingly heavy and very slippery, so everything had to be carefully supported when cutting and sewing. Because of the slipperiness, "bounciness" and stretch, there was a lot of hand basting done... The neck edge, shoulder pleats, markings for the pleats on the bodice, folded pleats on bodice and skirt, raw sides of bodice and lining (front and back), sleeves, hem...

The seams were sewn on my overlocker, with the neckline, sleeves and hem finished with twin needle topstitching. I'm not a bit fan of twin needles, it never looks nice on the wrong side, and on light fabrics it's a bit of a pain to get the right tension balance. I used tissue paper strips again to try and reduce "tunnelling" (although with the tearing direction running along the length of the strip so that it was easy to remove from the straight lines of stitching).

I think the waist seam could really benefit from stabilising with elastic as my fabric is very thin but very heavy, so wants to pull straight down, rather than hugging the body at the waist. I haven't put this in yet as I'm considering how best to do it neatly. The easiest way would be to cut a strip the right length and join it into a circle, then topstitch it on at the waist with a three-step zig-zag, but this would be very visible on the outside. I plan to wear this dress with a belt, so that wouldn't be a problem in terms of looks, but I want to keep the dress looking as neat as possible. I think I'll consider it a little longer.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?

I doubt I'll sew this again in the near future. Even though in principle it's a simple pattern, the care needed in sewing the lightweight fabric needed to make this design work means that it's not a quick make. I think I would recommend this, it's an interesting pattern, that isn't too tricky to put together, and gives a flattering and modern looking dress. I think it's interesting to note that am a very different shape to the model in the magazine, but I think it suits both of us (I had been a bit worried that the pleats at the front might look weird on larger boobs, but they're actually fine with the belt to control the fullness the pleats add).

Conclusion

I am super super pleased with this dress (although, having looked at these photos, I don't think I'll ever wear that bra again - good god, talk about saggy...). I absolutely adore the print of the fabric, and I think the shape of the dress matches it well. The dress is comfortable to wear, and will look good as smart day wear with boots and a long necklace, or, as here, dressed up for evenings.

Another drape-front cardie

I wanted a quick break from my Burda makes (plus I needed to pre-wash the fabric I wanted to use next), so thought I would make a cardie - I need a few more cardies, as most of my favourites are looking rather tired now. I remembered I already had this pattern drafted from aaaaaages ago, and it only needed minor tweaks.

You may recognise this from the first version I made back in April last year, and wore in Me-Made-May '12. I will confess: I never wore it again... Eek! It was just such an awful fabric, and there were problems with the fit of the shoulders and the sleeves annoyed me. Oh, and I didn't like the length.

The original draft mostly followed Lauriana's tutorial on the BurdaStyle website. For this version, I made the following changes:

• Added 10cm to the length.
• Altered the shape of the lower front so that the drape wasn't so long at CF.
• Narrowed the back at the hips and at the waist.
• Added 1cm each side to the length of the collar at the top edge at CB.
• Shortened the sleeves to three-quarter length.

I used a rayon-poly blend sweater knit from Fabric.com, and this time stabilised both the back neckline and shoulder seams with fusible tape (and an extra line of stitching at the back neckline). This has helped minimise the stretching that caused the first version to fall off my shoulders. I also stabilised the corner on the front pieces between the collar and shoulder to stop it fraying when it was clipped during construction.

I used a 4cm hem on the sleeves, and a 1cm hem around the main body and collar. Both of these were stitched using a three-step zig-zag. The wrong side shows on the drape when worn, so this gives a fairly neat finish. We will not mention the balls-up I made when I was sewing in the label and made a hole at the back neckline. No, we won't.

I'm much happier with this version, it looks like a proper cardie, rather than some weird shiny droopy thing. I think it could still do with a tweak to narrow the shoulders a little, but I know it will be worn lots this winter.

Batwing sleeve dress

Straight onto my next Burda Challenge - and I'm nearly up to date... There's actually a few patterns from this issue that I'd like to make. I wasn't particularly enamoured with this issue when I first saw it, but I always like to have a look at what's been sewn up the the users on the Russian BurdaStyle website. The creations of the talented and speedy women there inspired me with several choices, but I settled on this dress after seeing this version of the similar pattern number 108, with the dress more fitted.

Pattern description

BurdaStyle Magazine 09/2013/107: Loose fitting dress with draped batwing sleeves and slash neckline. I altered it heavily so that it was a fitted dress, and didn't add the star.

Pattern sizing

34-44. I cut my usual 42 on top and 44 on the bottom.

Fabric used

Teal/petrol RPL doubleknit and leopard print poly ITY, both from Fabric.com.

Did it look like the photo/drawing on the pattern envelope when you were done?

Not really, as I altered the fit quite substantially.

Were the instructions easy to follow?

To be honest, I didn't actually look at the instructions. The changes I'd made to the pattern meant that the construction didn't really apply, plus it's basically three pattern pieces with some facings.

What did you particularly like or dislike about the pattern?

I really really like the sleeves in this pattern. To be honest, I made so many changes to the main dress pieces that I can't really comment on those. From what I'd seen on other makes (have a look at the versions on the Russian Burda website), the main dress is really, well, sack-like. Although, to be fair, I didn't adjust the fit on the skirt below the hipline, and this is drafted really nicely, with just the right amount of shaping to flatter.

The sleeves on the other hand are awesome. The draping is just the right amount to add movement and interest but without completely swamping the silhouette.

Pattern alterations or any design changes you made

Well...

Most of the changes I made were in the fit of the main part of the dress. I compared the pattern pieces to my stretch block, and made the adjustments widthwise according to that, allowing for a little more ease than I normally draft as I wanted the dress semi-fitted, not skin-tight (plus I was using a doubleknit for the dress, which has less stretch than the jersey the block was drafted for). I know that the back darts in Burda patterns fit me quite well, so I left those exactly as is, but added a CB seam.

The neckline as drafted is effectively a very high cowl on both front and back. I wanted just a plain, high, slash neckline, so redrafted as such, and drafted appropriate facings.

I added small bust darts to try and keep the dress fairly fitted.

The sleeves I left almost unchanged, just narrowed at the wrist so they were closer fitting, and adjusted so that the armscye seams were the same length as the dress pieces. Even though I was using jersey rather than a woven I cut the sleeves on the bias so that they were as drapey as possible.

Construction details

I stabilised the neckline and shoulder seams with bias tape, and "staystitched" the armscyes so I didn't stretch them out during construction (it wasn't true staystitching as I removed it after attaching the sleeves). All seams were sewn with my serger, except the facing-neckline seam. The sleeve hems were sewn with a three-step zig-zag on my regular machine (over tissue paper again), and the skirt hem was sewn by hand to keep a clean look.

My modified order of construction:

• Sew back darts, front darts and centre back seam.
• Sew shoulder seams.
• Sew CB and shoulder seams of neckline facing.
• Sew facing to neckline, clip, turn and understitch.
• Sew side seams and shoulder seams of sleeves.
• Set in sleeves.
• Hem sleeves and skirt.

I actually did an awful lot of hand basting with this dress. Although it adds time, I've realised it's much less time (and MUCH less frustrating) than everything going wonky and having to be unpicked and re-sewn. It was also fairly essential here as the leopard jersey was super slippery so needed many pins, which are always a bit risky when using a serger.

Would you sew it again? Would you recommend it to others?

I'm not sure I'll sew this exact same pattern again, although I do really really like the fit, and the drape of the sleeves. Hmm, maybe! I might try and incorporate these features into other garments.

I would definitely recommend this to others, although I would also recommend redrafting the dress to be a closer fit, I think it is much more flattering like this.

Conclusion

This dress was actually a bit out my comfort zone: I redrafted it so that it was fitted, but not as tight as I normally like, and found it was actually quite flattering (not to mention super comfortable to wear). I'd originally intended to wear it with a belt, but it looked terrible, it made me look even bigger. It's rather liberating to have a little looseness around my waist! I wore this on Saturday night to a friend's leaving party (If I look a little dishevelled in the photos, they were taken at 4am...), and can confirm it is ridiculously comfortable to wear and very suitable for dancing!

Mostly photos

Hello! A brief post with some pictures of me wearing my August Burda Challenge scarfy top.

Having worn it for a full day, there's a few tweaks I'd make if I sew this again (lowering the front neckline a little more and moving the shoulder seams forward more), but it's comfortable to wear and makes me happy, and the poly content of the fabric means it washes pretty well too.

I wore it to see the Miró exhibition at Fondation de l'Hermitage in Lausanne - which was absolutely wonderful. There were more works than I thought there would be (it's a deceptively large exhibition space), and a fascinating short film of Miró in his studio in the later years of his life (although I found it really hard to understand his French as he spoke with a strong Spanish accent!). It was really interesting to see his working process - I always get the impression of speed and energetic brushstrokes with his paintings, but in reality everything is slow and careful and considered. I loved that after working on a painting, he'd prop it up against a trestle table and sit in his rocking chair to contemplate it.

I finished my September Burda Challenge this evening! I plan to wear it either tomorrow night or Saturday night, so hopefully I can get some photos and I'll post about it soon. In the meantime, here's a sneak peek...