Burda maxi dress Mark II

We're having a super long hot spell in Perth and the hotter it is, the less sewing is happening.   You can see everyone getting more tired and grumpy and at least another week more to go.  Bring on that cooler weather! 

I've managed to drag myself off the sofa for long enough make my sister another Burda 6/2010 maxi dress.   If you've done all the tracing and made your first effort I figure you may as well go the whole hog and make a second and it usually turns out better.

If anyone sees a dress like this in Hawaii in the next couple of weeks please say hello to the wearer - it may well be she.  

The fabric is from Textile Traders in Balcatta in Perth- they have a lot of not so nice stuff but unexpectedly they often have terrific silks.  This is a paint spatter print silk charmeuse.

Not sure if they have Textile Traders in other States or if they are just in Western Australia, but they have a number of shops and are very like Spotlight and Lincraft.  Lots of curtaining and unappealing tshirt material but Textile Traders often has really nice silks. And it frequently has a 3rd free offer for everything - free 3rd metre of fabric, 3rd thread, 3rd zip etc etc, so is good value.  I stocked up on threads.

This is a much quicker and easier to make dress when it is unlined. The Burda instructions are quite understandable and there are no surprises.

For anyone thinking of making this - the recommended fabrics are fairly fragile - voile or a thin silk, but the bodice is fitted around the upper back; so make sure there is enough ease so that there is no stress on the seams. I was a bit scared they could rip.

I had problems with the invisible zip in the first version.   This time I tried an excellent method I read about on Things Be.  Ironing the invisible zip works like a dream (make sure you have a cover over the iron though).

And for the next project I've been making a dress for a wedding I'm going to in a couple of weeks.  This is a  danger pattern for me - nothing to do with the pattern itself but my earlier efforts were rather disastrous.  I'm crossing my fingers.  Third time lucky? 

Burda maxi dress 6-2010 Model 101

And the winner of the Vogue skirt pattern is..... drum roll.... Gail! 

Thanks to everyone who entered.  Your emails were so nice I feel rather bad that I don't have 6 to give away. 

Now on to a review of the Burda maxi-dress, which I've finished and delivered to its new owner.

Does anyone have any tips for matching patterns on things like this, where there are quite a few non-straight seams? I've never worked much with patterned fabrics before but I'm really liking some of the fabrics around at the moment.  I agonised about pattern matching on this dress with mixed success.  I'm guessing that the following rules apply:

• make full pattern pieces to layout rather than cutting on the fold.
• match the pattern at the focal points - which I assume would be top centre back / centre front.

Any others you can think of?

Pattern Description: "Long chiffon dress with wide yoke, witty trim along the scooped neckline and narrow tucks in front".   It also has an invisible zip under one arm.  This version doesn't have the 'witty trim' a la Burda and I've added a lining.

Fabric Used: Cotton/silk voile, and lined with a light silk.

Pattern Sizing: 17-21. This a petite/half size pattern, although given the style, it looks like it would be fine for non petites. 9cm was taken off the length for my 5ft 2ish sister.

Pattern alterations:
I must remember not to make pronouncements like 'it is dead easy to make' on the basis of the muslin. It always comes back to haunt me.  It wasn't half so easy when filmy patterned fabric, invisible zip and lining were added into the mix!

A lining was added which is exactly the same as the outer dress and sewn to the yoke.  The yoke has 3 layers - fashion fabric, lining in lieu of interfacing, and fashion fabric. 

The final yoke piece was then sewn to the shoulders and handstitched to the seam above.   In retrospect it would be easier to make the lining all in one and just sew around the neck and turn right side out. 

I deviated from the Burda method for the neckline.  The neckline was gaping a little so on my version it is entirely finished with self bias binding.  It looked ok on the dressform but I noticed it pouches out a little in one place on my sister so I've told her that if it doesn't sit properly after washing, I'll redo the binding.

Were the instructions easy to follow? Quite good for Burda. I like the fact that it gives you a template to show how big the pleated area needs to be.

Oh, those pleats - what a pain! They just refused to fit.   The seam unpicker got a thorough work-out.

I figured out what the problem with the number of front pleats was - Me!  The pleats are like pintucks so the line on the pattern is actually the foldline for each pleat.  I had erroneously assumed the lines were sewing lines not the fold lines. 

My sister seems to really like the dress - so keeping to the recent trend of making 2 of everything I'm making another one for her - this time in a very pretty silk charmeuse from Textile Traders.   Much easier this time - no lining required - yeah!  I'm going to try tweaking the fit of the yoke a little this time too.

Burda June maxi-dress Pt 1

I've been doing quite a bit of sewing in the evenings this week - or more precisely, tracing and making muslins, with mixed success - 3 skirts (one rejected for now, one iffy and one that cross my fingers may be nice), 1 dress (looking good so far) and a top (how quickly can I hide it in the bin?).  

The dress is a maxi dress for my sister.  She's off to Hawaii for a holiday soon and this looks like the perfect attire for sipping mai tais by the beach. 

The pattern is from June 2010 Burda.   

The muslin is looking promising (the stripes are a bit distracting but the fit is nice).  She tried it on this morning and it looks good and just needs a centimetre taken in on the sides and the shoulder seams. 

It's dead easy to make.  The only issue is the front tucks.  When I traced out the pattern I marked in the tuck marks I saw - 10 of them, each of which ended up being about 1.5 cm wide to fit them to the yoke.  But looking at the photo (it is clearest in the pic of the top version) there are meant to be far more tucks (18?)and they are thinner.  Weird - I'll have to go back to the pattern and locate the missing lines. 

The fabric my sister picked out from the stash is this silk/cotton voile.  There isn't anything wrong with your eyes - it is a combination of being doubled over and the smudgy pattern.  It's very pretty in real life!

I've never worn a maxi dress although I love the look of them on other people.  I tried this muslin on myself and can see why they are so popular.  Wow, how comfortable and you feel so glamorous.  Maybe after finishing this one for my sister I'll try one for me.  It would certainly improve on my normal scruffy 'at home' wear.   This one from the same Burda is particularly nice.