A solid-color version of Burda 02-2012-117

Here's another dress I've been wearing for a while now but hadn't blogged about.

Ever since I made my color-blocked version of the wonderfully geometric Burda 02-2012-117 I've wanted to make one in a solid color. Catherine Daze's version in particular looked wonderful in that daaaark shade of blue.

So I bought a heavy, super dark navy ponte knit and set about chasing my visions of solid sophistication.

What do you think?

If you thought "OMG, that is too much undifferentiated darkness!" I have to say I agree with you. :-)

I really must laugh at how I am constantly improving my sewing skills, constantly getting better at this or that technique, and still I find a way to make new mistakes! LOL!

In this case, the mistake was my deciding to topstitch all the seams. I usually love the definition that topstitching brings which is why I thought it would be a great idea for this dress. And if I may say so myself I did a pretty good job keeping this topstitching straight. But what I didn't expect is that in ponte knit the topstitching actually makes the seams less visible instead of more.

What I've now figured out is that seams in ponte knits are quite visible because the fabric doesn't lay perfectly flat. The shadows that are thus created are what make the seams so apparent. But of course, what the topstitching does is flatten the seams hence making them less visible. Why didn't I figure that out first? Oh, well!

As you can see, I added long sleeves so that I could wear it in winter. I used the sleeves from my TNT t-shirt pattern (which I will blog about one of these days) and modified the dress's armholes to fit the sleeves.

I still love the dress, I have to say. It is incredibly comfortable and in real life the seams are not really that invisible, really! :-) It's been in constant rotation as part of my work wardrobe.

Plus, I've figured out that it is the perfect background for my so-ugly-it-is-beautiful-again bat pin.

Well, what do you think?

Don't worry, you don't have to answer that one. LOL! :-)

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