Burda 7418, A Slip of a Thing

I mentioned in my animal print dress post that rather than line the dress I opted for a slip. The only problem was, I didn't have a slip. I have a knit half slip I made last summer that I wear all the time. I technically have a full slip. I bought it in a secondhand store 20 years ago. I don't know if slip technology has changed since then (other than the advent of Spanx; I only go there when absolutely necessary), but the slip is kind of problematical in that it has no shape. So all the extra fabric around the waist bunches up under whatever I'm wearing (I have one or two sacks, but 99% of my looks have a defined waist) defeating the smooth-line purpose of the slip. Plus, it is a sweaty nylon and a weird length. It has lace on the bottom but with the lace it's too long, but turning up the lace makes it so short it barely covers the booty when belted.

The point being, I needed a slip, and preferably two: one in batiste to wear under knit dresses in summer, and one in silk to wear with tights in winter. When Joann had their Burda sale (the first I can ever remember), I snapped up Burda 7418. Luckily, Melissa has already made it and handily put up a review on PR.

The pattern is designed for stretch satins. Melissa was trying it out for a non-stretch silk. Her muslin told her to go up a size in a non-stretch, so I cut a 36 at the bust, 38 at the waist, and 40 at the hip. I also cut the side panel (for both slips) on the bias. I think in the end I could have cut the side panel on straight grain, but I didn't want to take any chances.

I also flared out the pieces from the hips to the hem, to ensure that I would have plenty of biking mobility. I did not do this in any scientific way, I just added extra width in cutting.

I did not do any of my usual adjustments. No small bust on the batiste and no swayback. There is some swayback puddling, but surprisingly not too much.

At the bust, I found the batiste garment flared out a bit under the arms, presumably to accommodate a larger bust. For the silk, I straightened the flare at the yoke side seam, narrowing it about 3/8 inch at the top of the yoke, tapering to nothing at the bottom. The underarm is more flat/flush in the silk version.

The main challenge in sewing this pattern is the almost square bust seam. I have never executed a perfect inset corner. I see them fairly frequently in RTW and the corner is always sharp with no puckering. I wish I knew what they did. I should consult Kathleen Fasanella...

Anyway, my first piece of advice: do not get a polyester or other synthetic within 10 feet of this pattern. You need to be able to press the seam well with a lot of steam. Pressing doesn't do much to polyester except melt it.

My second piece of advice: Mark the match point on the front piece carefully. It is marked on the pattern. The front piece is shaped like a T, with the upper yoke going to the side seam and the center panel the full length of the slip. The match point is on the inner corners of the T.

Once you have marked your point, put a dot of Fray Check over your marking and let dry.

After the Fray Check is dry, clip all the way to your marking. That is the nerve wracking part. I HATE clipping to the stitching line, due to my paranoia about finishing every edge of every garment. You cannot finish an edge that has been clipped to the stitching line. Hence the Fray Check.

When sewing the front to the side panel, spread the clipped inner corners of the T so that they are a straight line. Pin your match points together. Stitch slowly. Make an offering to the sewing gods (they prefer seam rippers, in my experience).

I am afraid I have no real pictures of this process as I was holding my breath the whole time and that could only go on for so long. You can see in the photo above on the left the straight line made by spreading the front's clipped edges, zigzagged to the side's pointed seam allowance. The photo on the right shows that my seam still isn't perfect--I have some puckering--but the match point is not too bad.

I prefer to use French seams with silk, just because it's traditional (though I do cheater French seams, using the serger for the first pass). And in batiste, I love the garments Burda always does with the beautiful French seaming shining through the sheer batiste.

For this project, I did a combination. On the straight panel seams (side to back and back yoke to front) I used French seams. But for the front/side panel seams, with the above described inset corner, I used a regular seam finished with the serger. I did not even want to go there with French seams. Also, pressing is a huge part of that seam and I wanted to get it as flat as possible. I actually don't think the inside looks too bad with this mix of methods.

The second challenge with this pattern is not nearly so nerve-wracking or precision-requiring, it is more annoying. The way Burda proposes that you finish the neckline of this slip is to clip to the 5/8" seamline at the center of the V and then just turn the neckline under and stitch, leaving it completely raw and vulnerable at the V. No go.

As with the match point, I started with a dot of Fray Check on the seamline at the center of the V, then clipped when dry. Next, press the 5/8" seam allowance to the outside. It seems weird, I know. I confess I did it wrong first time around on the silk--which was the second version I made!

Once you have marked and pressed your turn down line, trim the seam allowance. The neckline will be finished with ribbon, and the seam allowance needs to be narrower than the ribbon. On both iterations I was a little too conservative in my trimming and should have gone shorter.

Once you have trimmed, zigzag the now shortened neckline edges. Here I used the zigzag rather than the serger because I needed total control and wanted to minimize bulk.

Now comes the other weird part: attach the straps, with the edges on the outside of the garment. I know I have uneven shoulders, but wow does this project show it. In order to get both bust points in approximately the same place on my bust, the straps are noticeably different lengths and the back hangs crooked. I really don't even want to know what it takes to fix that problem, because I'm pretty sure I would never do it.

To reduce the problem of strap slippage off my sloping (and uneven) shoulders, I attached the straps closer to the center back than marked.

Once the straps are tacked in place, trim the edges even with the trimmed seam allowance.

Now you are ready to neatly finish the neckline. Turn under the edge of a ribbon (I like to use Fray Check on the ends) and place it at the V, overlapping enough so that the center of the V at the turned under edge is fully covered.

Lay the ribbon over the neckline, keeping the edge exactly even with the fold. Stitch the ribbon as close as possible to the edge. I found it helpful to move my needle one click to the right.

For the batiste, I used a cheap satin ribbon from stash. I would have preferred a better quality ribbon, maybe even a silk so that it could be molded with an iron, but I didn't want to hold up the project until I could get to the fabric store. I also should have stay-stitched the neckline, as I think it stretched out a little with the ribbon application (didn't have that problem in the silk).

For the silk version, I made a self ribbon out of a 1.5 inch wide bias strip. I folded it into thirds and pressed, so the raw edges were turned to the inside and the outside showed folded edges. I stitched it on the same way.

Miter the edges at the peaks of the fronts where the shoulder straps attach.

When you get back to the center of the V, trim your ribbon with enough to fold under, fold under, and overlap over the beginning edge. It takes a little massaging to get a good overlap. Mine isn't perfect, though it improved on the second go-round in the silk version.

While my ribbon application wasn't perfect, I think it is a vast improvement over Burda's terrible idea. What were they thinking??? Another option would be a facing, though I hate facings. You could fully line the back yoke and cut the front piece as a yoke as well (straight across the top of the T). I don't know how that would look on the inside with the center front piece being full length with a shorter yoke. Might be ok.

You can also do a traditional bias binding edge on the neckline, but you run into the issue of the straps. You could attach them with ends facing up (the strap running down into the inside), then bias bind, then turn the straps up. I suppose the bulk with this method wouldn't be too bad. You could also bias bind then attach the straps to the inside, but that leaves them with a raw edge and who wants that?

My one quibble is the length. As drafted, it is knee length on me. Who wants a knee length slip or negligee? I mean, I am short, but that is going to be too long on all but the giantesses among us. I shortened it by 3 inches.

I am happy with this pattern. It is more interesting than just a plain slip and has a lot more shape to avoid that bulkiness at the waist. The design and style of it are interesting. In fact, when I was getting dressed on Saturday I came out into the front room in the silk slip to do something and the boyfriend got kind of excited about my "dress." I am just so glad to have filled the hole I have been avoiding for years! Now I don't need to fret about sewing knit prints with white in them (the white is always sheer). No need to line, I have a slip for that!

I can see myself making another one with the narrower as-drafted hemline for a negligee.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Burda 7658, Yellow Eyelet Notched Collar Shirtdress

I bought this lovely yellow eyelet fabric from Mood in NYC in 2008, using a gift certificate given to me by a friend as a thank you for sewing lessons. The eyelet was $18/yd--I would never have paid that on my own but it is gorgeous. And because it is gorgeous and expensive, I felt that I had to find the perfect pattern. It has shown up in various sewing plans over the years, but I never found the platonic ideal pattern.

But then last year I was innocently walking down the street and saw a woman in white eyelet shirtdress with cutaway shoulders and a notched collar and realized I had found my pattern. I bought a Vogue pattern (OOP 8383) but it wasn't *quite* what I was looking for. Then I randomly lucked into Burda 7658 for $1 while pawing through a huge table of patterns at G Street Fabric when they discontinued Burda and Simplicity. What luck! It was truly meant to be.

The underlining is an embroidered cotton-poly Cynthia Steffe fabric from Paron's Annex, purchased in 2009 for $4/yd. I wasn't keen on its original pale yellow color so I overdyed it with turmeric, which actually worked really well. But it's a thin fabric that would need to be lined and it read more "poly" than "designer" or "cotton." I had a pattern idea for it but wasn't enthused to sew it up any time soon. I assumed I'd underline the eyelet in white. But then, they were sitting next to each other on the fabric shelf and I had an "I wonder...." moment and put them together. LOVE. The yellow underlining works so much better than white for this project. And plus, using up two fabrics in one project? Even better than killing two birds with one stone, particularly since I am a vegetarian.

To save fabric (I ended up with a few scraps of the eyelet, but not even an inch of remaining yardage) and reduce bulk, I cut the undercollar only of the underlining. To get a good turn of cloth I trimmed the side and outer edges just a fraction. The
end result is sharp, and the undercollar does not show unless flipped up.

I finished the armscyes with bias tape cut of white cotton batiste (which is going to get gross from my sweat--at least the underlining is already yellow!) and hand-stitched the tape to the underlining.

For the back facing, I did the now usual Sunny Gal Studio clean finish facing method of sewing the interfacing right sides together with the facing along the outer edge and then flipping to the inside before fusing. I hand-stitched it down to the underlining to avoid any kind of facing flappery.

I wanted to have a similar clean finish on the self-facing for the skirt, and because I was underlining I was able to do so. First, I fused interfacing to the underlining's wrong side from the outer edge minus seam allowance to about an inch past the fold line. I zigzagged the long edges of these interfacing strips so that if the glue gives the interfacing won't start peeling off in sheets (yuck!). Next, I placed fashion fabric and underlining, underlining wrong side to fashion fabric right side along the outer vertical edges and serged. (The wrong side to right side thing is because I wanted the right side--the embroidered side--of the underlining to show through the eyelet holes.) Then I opened out the pieces and folded along the outer vertical edges (front opening edges) to enclose the serging and pressed. The serged stitch shows through the eyelet holes, but as this is the self-facing that was folded to the inside and would never be seen, that was totally fine.

It worked out very well. As with the back facing and sleeve bias finish, I hand-stitched the front facing (including skirt self-facing) to the underlining for a very tidy finish.

As mentioned, it was a very tight squeeze on the eyelet fabric and I couldn't fit two full pockets into the layout. It's common to use a different fabric for the front pocket, which is folded to the interior, so it was a no-brainer to cut one set of pockets from the underlining fabric. But the pocket is set into a yoke, and at least part of the back pocket is meant to show. I thought about it for a while and then took my inspiration from jeans. I cut the yoke part plus about 1.5" out of my eyelet, which fit into the little spot I had left, and cut a another set of full pockets of the underlining. I stitched the eyelet pocket yoke to the underlining pocket piece and treated them as one when setting in the pocket. Nobody would ever guess my secret!

Confident in my Burda fit--after all, the envelope claims it is "The Pattern that Fits!"--I cut my usual sizes: 34 at the shoulder and bust, 36 at the waist, 38 at the hip. The envelope says the dress is "Fitted" and boy was it ever. This was quite snug, much more so than I would expect a 36 to be even with my fairly bulky fabric layering. I was extremely frustrated by that. I let out the side seams from below the bust to waist, and on the underlap placket I folded the facing outward to give myself an extra quarter of an inch there (click the photo to enlarge). It fits now, with a small amount of ease. But only a small amount of ease, which is not ideal for (1) summer heat or (2) longevity of garment. Boo! Next time I sew from a Burda envelope I will look more closely at sizing.



I purchased the buttons at a Goodwill trunk show a couple of years ago and LOVED them. I couldn't get a great shot; they are resin-y with embedded white bits near the base, a deep rich color, and lots of shine. I tagged them for this dress as soon as I had my shirtdress epiphany and am so happy with how they look on it! There were seven of them, which worked out just about perfectly. I never follow the button placement guide on patterns, spacing the buttons according to my preferred neckline and their size.


Because of the bulk of the fabric, I didn't want to do a turned under hem. In hindsight, I could have used hem tape or ribbon for a neater look. For the most part, I sewed the fashion fabric and underlining as one. When sewing the side seams, I left the seam unsewn about 6 inches from the hem so the fashion fabric and underlining would be free of one another. I marked and pressed the hem on both the fashion fabric and underlining. Then I turned under and stitched a small hem on the underlining. Once it was hemmed, I finished the side seams, catching in both fashion fabric and underlining. Finally, I serged the edge of the fashion fabric about 2 inches from the fold and stitched the hem to the underlining by hand, enclosing the underlining's hem. I had shortened the hem about 1.5 inches in cutting, due to my limited fabric, and cut off another 1.5 inches after marking the hem. This is meant to have a long skirt I guess?



I did not do a perfect job on this. I should have treated the floral cutouts as stripes, but they are not lined up at all and somehow I cut the collar way off grain (doesn't affect how it lays but the floral motif makes it obvious). But it is an adorable dress and I am so happy finally to have sewn this beautiful fabric! It came out just as I had envisioned. I love that it can be worn with brown or white (and I'm sure other colors). It can also be worn without a belt on those crazy hot days such as we are having now (given that it is inappropriate to come to work in a bikini). Although I do not wear much brown, that's how I ended up styling it the first day I wore it because I really liked the touch of safari to the look.

I am trying to make this summer all about fearlessly sewing Too Good to Use. My current project is a beautiful silk impulse buy from Kashi, and I *will* get to the silk jersey I bought with the same gift certificate.

What Too Good to Use fabric are you going to sew up next???

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Burda 05-2009-123, Border Print Dress Knockoff

The Pattern Review challenge for July is Designer Knockoff, which is always one of my favorite contests of the year. It is usually my opportunity to do actually draft a pattern. This year, however, it is a two week challenge. Also, I am not necessarily low on mojo as such, but I have definitely been low on energy and time for sewing lately, so I was not up to the challenge of undertaking a huge, challenging project anyway.

I still wanted to participate, but needed to start with a pattern. After realizing that I wasn't going to be able to wear pencil skirts in 95º+ weather and that my go-to dress when it's really, really hot is my loose-fitting cotton Tracy Reese sundress I decided to concentrate on styles like that.

The fabric was a birthday gift from Karen two years ago. It's a really soft rayon in all my favorite colors. I have several border print pieces in my stash and in doing research on how RTW uses border prints I ran across this Suzi Chin Maggy Boutique border print dress. I really liked the way the border was used at the sleeves as well as the hem, and it just looked like a cool, comfortable dress.

The original dress is just a V neck, but I thought it would be a little nicer to do a surplice neckline (and honestly, they're easier than a V neck for me; I really, really hate clipping to within a thread of the V point because it makes me too nervous). Burda 05-2009-123 had the perfect upper bodice and a modifiable flutter sleeve.

I started by altering the pattern. My standard small bust adjustment for a crossover or wrap neckline is to shorten the diagonal crossover edge. I folded out my usual amount of length. Unfortunately, this turned out to still be a little gapey and I should have used more. In the end, I had to hand-stitch the overlapping parts of the right and left neckline together which I hate doing--it is admitting defeat. (More on the neckline below). I wanted to make a real effort with this project to match the print, and if you click on the bodice you can see that I traced out the flower motif so I'd get it in the same place on both sides (somebody made a Hawaiian type blouse and shared this trick, but I cannot remember who). For me, it turned out to be easier and more precise to cut out the pieces single layer, laying the first cut piece upside down on the fabric and lining up the motifs that way. Single layer, people. This is me making an effort.

For the sleeve, I needed a flat hem. If you click on the sleeve pattern you can see my tracing line of the original sleeve. I pretty much just extended the length out diagonally so it would have fullness at the hem and drew an almost flat lower edge. The resulting sleeve has a lot of volume and kind of a kimono style vibe. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect as far as how the sleeve would end up looking, but I like it, although the arrows go in opposite directions because the sleeves are mirror images, which I didn't think about. I used this sleeve as drafted for my silk wrap blouse and it is a perfect flutter sleeve.

Burda has you essentially underline the bodice of this dress, and finish the neckline with a facing. That makes sense for the dress as drafted because it is meant to be made of a chiffon. For my opaque fabric, I sewed the shoulder seams of bodice and lining, and then finished the neckline by sewing fashion and lining fabrics right sides together. I interfaced the edge of the fashion fabric to help it keep its shape. I turned, pressed, understitched, and after the neckline treated the lining as an underlining, catching it in the side seam and folding it into the pleats and darts. You might be able to see that I took a hand stitch along the right side of the neckline to try to ease it a bit--despite the interfacing it really stretched out and was gaping.

Both skirt and lining were cut 60 inches wide so there would be a lot of ease and room for whatever breeze might stir up to alleviate the heat. To line the skirt, I sandwiched the bodice between the fashion skirt and lining skirt. The fashion fabric was gathered, with the gathering concentrated at center front and center back as in the inspiration piece. I pleated the skirt lining as per usual in order to reduce bulk. The downside of a border print is that you have to know exactly how long you want the skirt before you cut. I think this could be a half inch shorter, but it's definitely not worth taking the whole thing apart.

I was able to use a short zipper at the side seam because of the width of my skirt. However, the dress is a little hard to get on and off because the bodice is fairly close fitting. I would recommend keeping the zipper in the back as drafted.

I finished the sleeves and hem with a machine blind hem. I really should improve my blind hem skills as I always take too large a bite of the outer fabric. I lined this with an Ikea Knoppa sheet. The sheets are a batiste-weight cotton-poly blend with a coarse weave that breathe well and hold their shape and are $1.99. I keep a stash of them in the sewing room at all times. For this project I was able to use the finished sheet edge as the skirt lining hem. Score!

When it was finished, it felt like there was something missing where the bodice and the skirt meet. This is a very high empire line, way too high to wear a belt as would be my normal preference. I remembered that I had bought some turquoise (plastic) sew-on jewels in Hong Kong with AllisonC. The color is not an exact match but I felt that it added what I needed to that area to give it a little oomph.

After wearing this all day yesterday, I admitted that the neckline is just too low. When standing it only just covers my bra. When sitting at my desk, it gapes open. I really didn't want to put in a modesty panel because something about this dress already feels like a Chico's Kind of Day (the high empire and skirt volume, maybe?) and I feel like the modesty panel nudges it deeper into Golden Girls territory (not that I don't love the Golden Girls). Oh well. This is probably me being insane and I will forget how much I hate the modesty panel next time I wear it.

Quibbles aside, I really like this dress. The final result is more "inspiration" than "knockoff," but I prefer my changes to the original details. It is comfortable in the heat and I'm glad I finally got the chance to make up this birthday gift fabric. Thank you, Karen! Two years isn't *too* bad, right? Between this and my giraffe print cowl top I feel like I am stashbusting all over the place.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Burda 02-2008-119 Tie Neck Blouse (and Bonus Skirt)

The project I really need to be working on right now is Simplicity 2497 to wear to a friend's wedding in two weeks. But I really enjoy Pattern Review's Stash Contest every year and have been procrastinating sewing the Simplicity dress out of new fabric to perform the traditional stash sew down. I bought this fabric at G Street in July for the purpose of muslining this blouse, Burda 02-2008-119 and actually followed through on the plan. I underlined the body of the blouse with an Ikea Knoppa sheet and used French seams for the shoulder and side seams.


To get a neat edge on the collar, Burda tells you to hand-stitch the inside collar in place. Yeah right! I followed a tip on a recent tutorial for making a nice collar (and for the life of me I can't remember who it was--if it is your tip please claim it!), which was to sew the collar in place on the inside first, and then topstitch the outside of the collar in place on the right side, rather than the other way around. So simple and so smart! These photos are of the waistband, which I did the same way.





I used the same principle on the armscyes. Rather than use a bias binding turned in and topstitched, I wrapped the armscye edge in bias tape so that it shows on the outside. I cut bias strips, folded in half the long way and pressed the crease in place. Then I lined up the raw edges of the bias strips with the edge of the armscye on the wrong side, stitched in place, serged edges, and then folded the bias strip over that seam allowance and topstitched in place. The detail is a little lost in my busy print but I like it as a nice touch.




When I first put this together I was not loving it. The neckline was way too high, almost turtleneck-y. I am not a fan of turtlenecks. And although I don't have an absurdly short neck, it is proportional to my body so it's not long either, and I felt like this was making me look like I had no neck. When the Selfish Seamstress made this recently she pointed out that the collar is kind of a cowl neck, which made me think that I could lower that high neck a little and still have a nice drapey collar effect. So I ripped everything off (remember that stitching/serging/topstitching? yeah.) and lowered the front neck two inches. I think I could have cut off even more. Although it is hard to tell with a naked eye that it is different, I feel much more comfortable with the final neckline than the original.

This is a pretty easy pattern--three pieces, no sleeves, no closure or fitting. The collar/tie is a bit of a fabric hog because it's cut on the bias, but that's not a big complaint. Although I enjoy the ease of the loose fitting pullover blouse with no closure, the silhouette is not a comfortable one for me (see also Burda 08-2009-118). It may be one of those things that I end up getting used to after a few years, like 3/4 length sleeves, but for now I like the blouse a lot, but don't love it enough to fill my closet with it.

This blouse was meant to be a muslin for the $10/yd yellow silk I bought from Kashi last June (second from left). It has a little more body than a chiffon, but is sheer with a beautiful drape like chiffon. So I don't think I'll make it into this pattern but then what???? I am slightly obsessed with Anthropologie's "On a Wing" blouse (no longer available), with the twisted poofs of airy fabric at the shoulder, but I have not the slightest idea how it was possibly made and don't want to undertake the challenge. So what do I do with this gorgeous fabric, other than let it sit in stash? ]

**edit**
Several people asked about the white skirt worn with this blouse. It is Burda 03-2009-104; I made it last year in white and blue (left off the pockets on the blue) and love it, although the white is hard to wear because, well, it's white and it always comes home with some kind of schmutz on it.

===========================

I wanted to finish off this fabric (another yard in the stash contest!) so I made a quick and easy dirndl skirt. The blouse and skirt can even be worn together as a two piece dress. I've always thought "icky" in the past about two-piece dresses, as the term calls to mind hideous knit separates in the same print. But with a wide belt concealing the waistline, I think this makes a fun dress. It can also be worn separately, of course.

This project illustrates why skirts are so dangerous! This took around two and a half hours. So quick and easy! So flirty and flowy! However, I must stop making print skirts. For the 7 or 8 years in which I didn't have time or energy to sew (law school, clerking, big firm) I made skirts almost exclusively, and my uniform was a solid colored knit top and a bright printed A line or dirndl skirt. It is a cute look, but it is literally all I wore for nearly a decade and I am really, really, REALLY over it. It's hard to wear anything but a solid tee with a print skirt. What I really need are solid colored straight or pencil skirts to go with my print tops. Solids are my goal in New York. Although it may kill me.

I cut as many blocks of fabric as I could that were the proper length and seamed them together with French seams except one. I slapped a zipper into the open seam, then gathered the top edge. I cut a rectangle of lining and pleated it in place (didn't gather to reduce bulk), then I sewed the waistband on as for the collar of the blouse (sew to inside of skirt first, turn over outside and topstitch in place). I interfaced the waistband with a lightweight interfacing, but I think I should have used a heavier weight. I didn't want to hazard a button hole into this lightweight polyester chiffon-ish, so I closed the waistband tab with a large snap. I did a serger rolled hem on the bottom and love it!

Side note: I got my serger from eBay in 2008, a White Speedylock. It is a serviceable but not great machine. I always have trouble with loops along the right needle stitch line on the underside, resulting in an unintentional flatlock on serger-constructed garments, and haven't been able to adjust the tension to fix it. While I was still getting the hang of it I serged over 3 pins, so the knives don't always cut cleanly. The shortest stitch length is not quite short enough to get a solid bead on a serger rolled hem. Ideally it should go in for service and have the knives replaced. But I'm thinking for only double that price I could buy a Brother 1034D for around $200 from Amazon. Probably not this month because I just bought my plane ticket to Montreal which is criminally expensive from DC, but soon. Maybe. People seem really happy with the Brother.

And if you don't mind, can you take a look at my back in the back view? I think my fitting issue is that band of muscle that runs along the paralell line between my armpits. I don't think it's usual to be as wide below the shoulders as in the shoulders, and I think that what may be causing problems with back tightness. Am I on base here?

OK, well I am really chatty today. If you have read this entire post I salute you. All photos are here, the blouse review is here, and the skirt review is here.

Burda 08-2009-118, Flounce Front Blouse

When I went to Philly in October, with a trip to Jomar heavily featured, I picked up two silks from the $6/yd silks section for Fall/Winter blouses and I was determined to actually make them up! I made the navy into the Burda 02-2009-123 self collar wrap blouse, and decided to make the gray into Burda 08-2009-118. Although the sleeveless version of this blouse has been quite popular, I haven't seen anyone make the version with sleeves.

I purchased 1.5 yards of this fabric. For cheaper fabrics Jomar gives quite generous cuts, but understandably in the relatively higher dollar (let's not forget it was still only $6/yd!) fabrics the cuts are closer to accurate. So I had to narrow the sleeve pattern a bit to accommodate my fabric. It is still very puffy. I also did not make it tight-tight at the bottom of the sleeve because I thought it would be too uncomfortable to have tight fabric bunching in the crook of my arm. I am definitely not wild about the sleeves. I don't like a dropped shoulder in general and combined with the overall puffiness of the blouse I think it's more shapeless than chic. I felt a little better when I wore the blouse this week and a co-worker complimented me on it.

Because it is a silk, I used French seams. I wasn't quite sure how to handle the armscye. In fact, in general I don't know how to handle the armscye when doing french seams. With a gathered sleeve cap French seams can get very bulky. This doesn't have a gathered sleeve cap but it has a drop shoulder line so the side of the blouse is cut in a straight line with just a marking for placement of the lower edge of the sleeve, rather than with a traditional armscye. I decided to French seam the sleeve onto the bodice first, and then to sew the sleeve and side seam at one go. I had a hard time getting all layers of the fabric to catch in at the underam. But for the most part the seams look nice and fancy.

I had several issues with the neckline of the blouse. The first was that I did not have enough fabric to make a bias binding for the neckline and so I was forced to use the facing. Seriously, facings are SO AWFUL. I finally got it to look decent, but it involved a lot of clipping at the curves, which always makes me nervous, especially in a delicate, lightweight fabric like this (not sure exactly what the weave is, but it's not much more substantial than a habitoi/china silk). And it's so ugly on the inside!

The second issue, which Birgitte had flagged (I swear it was her, but I can't find the actual post, only this one showing the a-mazing complete Chanel outfit for her daughter--btw, Birgitte, if your daughter is sick of it I will pay for the express postage to send it to me, heh), is the flounce placement along the neckline. The markings are really too wide, with the flounce going almost all the way to the shoulder. Not only does this widen the shoulder line in an unflattering way, it stretches the flounce too thin so that it doesn't fall as well as it could. Out was ripped the facing understitching, the facing/neckline serging, and the facing/neckline seam and the flounce was brought a couple inches closer to the center on each side and it looks much better.

The third and fourth issues are not really issues. Burda tells you to finish the flounce with a close zig zag, I used my rolled hem foot. Burda tells you to sew a button on the inside with an invisible loop to keep the neckline closed. I used a fancy button on the outside (leftover from my Cruella de Vil costume), but followed their suggestion for using a thread loop as the closure, which looks nice.

The flounce/ruffle/other embellishment trend has been strong for quite a while now and I wanted to get on the bandwagon. However, I'm not sure that this was the right choice. I just don't love how puffy it is, and I think I have the length wrong but am afraid to shorten the hem for fear it will pull out when tucked into a skirt (the length isn't an issue when it's tucked in, only when worn over the skirt with a belt). I really like how the sleeveless version has worked and may try that over the summer. In fact, maybe I should just take the sleeves off this one since I dislike them so much and am unlikely to give the blouse that much wear next Fall/Winter (I am officially declaring it Spring; it hasn't been below freezing in several weeks). I will ponder that.

It has few pieces and is quite easy to put together and has a trendy look, so if you like the pattern you should definitely give it a try. All photos are here and the pattern review is here.

Burda 12-2008-121, Faux Shirtdress with 40s Flair

During the week of the Snowmageddon I decided that I should use the bonus sewing time to sew up some stash; with the stash contest going on I decided it was a good time to get some of that fabric that's been staring at me for so long off the shelves.

I bought this stripe rayon/poly/lycra (I think that's what it is) at PR Weekend in NYC in 2006!!!! Seriously, that was a long time ago. Before I sewed the dress I had only used 3 of the 8 fabrics I bought that weekend. At least now I've sewn up half of it. I bought the fabric to make a wearable pants muslin. Three and a half years later I still haven't made any pants so I decided to release it from its theoretical servitude and make it into something I actually wear, a dress.

I looked through back issues of Burda to find a pattern that would make the most of the stripes and ran across 12-2008-121. It's designed for a plaid but I figured it would work just as well in a stripe. I only later realized this came from the same issue as the Tuxedo Jacket of Doom, so it's good to have a success from that issue.





The pattern calls for a lining but I didn't think it was necessary as the fabric has enough weight to be worn alone. To give it a nicer finished look inside I used leftover fabric from the lining of my inauguration coat to make bias binding for the edges of the facing. I should do this treatment more often; I think it looks nice.










Seriously, how does this happen? I cut them both out with the same care and hand-basted *both* sides of the invisible zipper. The front is flawless and the back looks like I did it blindfolded. After fretting about it for a minute I decided that I really don't care that much and can live with it that way. The chevron effect is still there so whatevs. I am pretty proud of the front, though. However, it looked a little weird because with the faux placket the stripes meet perfectly...but off center. I think the (nonfunctional) buttons took care of that weirdness. In fact, I'm surprised nobody on PR had put on buttons before! To keep the little front flaps folded back I hand-tacked them down from the inside. The pin is merely decorative.

The cuffs are to be cut on the bias as well. I considered skipping them but in the end I'm glad I didn't. I cut them in two pieces so the stripes would chevron at both the inner seam and the outer edge.

The back has those dewlaps again. *sigh* I don't know why my back is so hard to fit! The swayback I understand and mostly have it covered now. But the narrow shoulders/wide back thing is a mysterious pain in my @ss and now this is the second time I've had this dewlap droopy back situation. I think I need to start cutting a size larger at the front hip, as you can see some pulling on the side, but the front otherwise looks good.

I don't wear a lot of dark colors but as I wrote several months ago I don't really have a funeral dress. I think that this is both kicky enough to feel like me but sober enough to wear to a funeral in a pinch. I was really pleased with the 40s vibe it has going on. I added some small shoulder pads because all the 40s patterns I've worked with call for them and it made the dress fit a little nicer.

All photos are here and the pattern review is here.