Monday, March 30, 2015

Just in time for spring?

While it's still cold and the S word still appears in the weather forecast with depressing regularity, The Sewing Lawyer has made a dress in a very spring-y colour and it has short (actually cap) sleeves.

I hear it looks good with 2 accordions...
The detail is a bit hard to photograph in late afternoon.

But the seams are really lovely, if I do say so myself.

I plunged ahead with this project without making a muslin.  I never used to make muslins and now I feel a bit nervous if I skip this step.  But I've learned that Burda patterns are very reliable both in terms of fit and in delivering exactly the garment illustrated. Many's the time I've made a muslin only to realize ... huh, no adjustments required!

The fit is not 100% perfect but definitely good enough. Only the back waist is a bit sloppy on me.

This was a fun sew, technically speaking (all those curved seams!) that took me out of my comfort zone, style-wise.  I waffled on whether to make the flounce or godet or whatever it is, or leave it off, whether to do the hi-low hem or level the whole thing.  In the end I took a deep breath and made it more or less as BurdaStyle intended.  The back is not as interesting as the front, and the hi-lo hem only looks good from the front (in my opinion) but I like it well enough.



Lining - power 
The fabric is wool crepe with lots of lycra; very unusual (stash, origins lost in time, it came to me via the Fabric Flea Market many years ago). The dress is supposed to be lined to the hip only but that made no sense to me.  I puzzled over what to use for lining given the stretch, and came up with more power stretch.  Why not?  I still have lots.  I cut the power stretch to the hip and used the lower dress pieces to make a lower lining from Bemberg.

Sleeve opening/side seam
The finished dress is super comfortable.  I really like the cap sleeves.  The seams come together below the arm in a really interesting way. There is enough room so the sleeves don't bind, but they don't wing out either. Very nicely drafted!

The only sewing change I made was to make the neck opening a tiny bit less deep than Burda wanted - I just sewed a smaller seam allowance at the bottom of the neckline.  I made a facing-shaped piece for the front and back neck, and stabilized the neckline with a light fusible interfacing to limit the potential for a stretched out opening.

My other little sewing secret in this dress is that I didn't sew the hem - I fused it!  I have miles of this fusible web tape that doesn't seem to change the hand of the fabric you fuse it to, holds very securely, and doesn't inhibit stretch.  I have no idea what it is - something like Stitch Witchery I think.

I thought, when I started this project, that the dress would look great with my new jacket.  As it turns out, however, I don't think they look all that wonderful together even though the blue of the dress is close to the blue in the Prada wool fabric.  The colour of the dress just makes the grey suiting look dingy.

So I went exploring in my closet, and found this jacket that I made many years ago - almost 10 years ago, to be exact (Vogue 2865, long OOP).  It has been a bit of an orphan recently but the fabric (a really interesting multi-coloured and loosely woven wool bouclé) is so lovely that I wouldn't dream of getting rid of it, and it looks pretty darned good with my new dress, if I do say so myself.

I wonder what I should make next?

21 comments:

  1. The dress is absolutely beautiful!

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  2. Stunning dress! The fabric is very elegant and shows off those unusual seam lines perfectly. Another winner!

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  3. Lovely dress and the seams are so different! Well done.

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  4. Lovely dress and the seams are so different! Well done.

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  5. Your fabric choice is perfect for this dress

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  6. Lovely dress, Kay! The jacket is a perfect accompaniment. You do such beautiful work.

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  7. Love that seaming, and the wool crepe is perfect. Elle

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  8. What a fun dress! Very interesting upper back view with the sleeves as part of the bodice too. And what a lucky accident that your older jacket works so well with the dress.

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  9. Great lines in this dress and great with the jacket.

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  10. What a lovely dress! All those seam lines add so much interest to the design.

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  11. Super cute and lovely colour on you!!

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  12. I love the dress it's just stunning on you! Great that it works with an older orphan jacket too!

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  13. After some suspense, I was wondering how it came out and to be honest, I love it; it looks great.

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  14. Lovely is just the word for the dress and the dress on you. Love the seams.

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  15. Your version is great. I agree that the lining pattern made no sense and did the same as you. I noticed that you didn't join the upper front and back pieces with the sleeve cap for the lining as directed by the pattern instructions. I didn't like the sleeve drafting - so am going back to check my pattern so make sure I didn't trace it in incorrectly.

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  16. Beautiful dress. What great interesting seams! Nice. I don't, however, like the jacket with it. I don't think I would like any structured jacket with it. Not that I think the jacket is bad. It is just that the dress itself is so different and beautiful by itself.....to cover it with a jacket is just not right, IMHO!

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  17. I really like the finished result! Which of the Bursa patterns was this?

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  18. Gorgeous dress!
    Love the jacket with it too, I have that pattern, but have YET to make it up. Now I remember how much I loved the style. It's good you didn't have to make too many adjustments to the dress, might have been a lot of work with all those seamlines.
    Enjoy your new, lovely spring dress.

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  19. This dress is absolutely beautiful. The seam detailing on the bodice is sublime and so well made, as all your garments are.

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