Color blocking dress: Burda 02-2012-117

I am Lucia, I am a fabricholic, I buy and I buy and never finish anything. Here is to changing that.

My version of the famous color blocking Burda 02-2012-117 dress

I saw the February 2012 Burda magazine in the newsstand at the train station and I bought it just for the dress on the cover (plus I was running late for the train, so no time to waste...) but once on the train, paging through the magazine I immediately fell in love with this dress. I had been itching to use my new serger so a few days later I went fabric shopping (yes I know, but...) and I found the perfect double knit fabric at De Boerenbonthal. 

 

I couldn't follow the Burda instructions, even though for this dress they are as a separate, more detailed tutorial. So I did what seemed reasonable and necessary to me, which turned out okay except that I struggled somewhat with matching some of the seams and I wonder if this could have been mostly avoided by sewing the pieces in the right order so as to make mostly straight seams... If I ever make it again I might try giving it more careful thought.

The exposed zipper at back is definitely not for me, especially if I want to wear this to work. So, I adjusted the pattern by adding 5/8" to the width on each side (thus, 1.25inch overall) to make up for the zipper width.

I am so proud of this! It is my first real "pattern alteration", beyond a simple lengthening (yes, I know, a bit pathetic but I have to start somewhere!)

Just like Melissa at Fehr Trade, I didn't bother with the pleat at the shoulder. The cap sleeves fit me just fine without it. In fact, I actually think that the pleat won't look good. Also, as she suggested I didn't make an opening with snaps at the collar and in fact I also skipped the zipper altogether. The size of the neckline and the stretchiness of the fabric are enough for me to wiggle in quite comfortably.

I do like the grey-yellow combination in the magazine but there was nothing even close to that cool yellow at the fabric shop, so I had to settle for white and wine-red to replace the yellow and beige of the original. The question then became which color to use for the larger front piece?

I found the white a bit too sharp contrast to the rest of the palette so I chose to keep it for the small piece.

I really like this dress, it is very comfortable and cool-looking, even if I used a more sedate color combination than in the magazine. Unfortunately it is still a bit too cold outside right now to wear this dress, so it'll sit in my closet for now. The advantage of that is that I have been planning to make a black spring jacket, and once that is ready it will go great with this dress!

Color blocking dress: Burda 02-2012-117