I made no secret of my total love and adoration of Burda’s September issue last year. In my opinion (and many of you!) this was the standout, stellar issue in an otherwise mediocre year for the magazine. I’m slowly working my way through everything I wanted to sew from that issue (some good and some bad!) but now it was the time for the cover dress, #122.
I showed you the pattern alterations I made to “un-petite” this pattern, though I reckon I could have even added a bit more to the middle of piece 2 as my pointiroma has less lengthwise stretch as my muslin knit, making the underbust seam just barely under my bust. The horizontal seam between pieces 3 and 4 hits me right at my natural waist on the sides, which I think is just great. I also took 6 inches off the hem of pieces 7 and 8 so that this is above the knee rather than below.
Here you can really see the front seaming:
I really love the way this dress curves and enhances my figure (no, really, I swear to you I don’t normally look this svelte!). In a lot of ways, wearing this reminds me of my olive green twist dress.
Look ma, no side seams!
This pattern calls for pontiroma jersey, and I just happened to have been given 2m of purple pontiroma jersey from Ditto as a Christmas gift from my inlaws! This was too good an opportunity to pass up, and as you’d expect, this nice, stable knit is utterly perfect for this pattern. Seriously, this is just about the nicest polyester I’ve ever felt. Snap it up (and their luscious bamboo jerseys, which I bought at the weekend) while it’s still in stock, peoples!
When I was making my muslin out of a much flimsier and stretchier jersey, I noticed that I had inadvertently been stretching the seams to make the curves match, which resulted in some unslighlty, bubbly seams. So on the final dress I reinforced all the curved seams with vilene bias tape. It was just enough to stop them stretching out while I overlocked/serged, but not so much that it interferes with getting the dress on and off.
I don’t normally like facings on knits, but the neckline is wide enough here that these stay in place pretty well while it’s worn. I understitched the facing to the tiny serged seam allowances, which seems to be enough, in conjunction with stitching-in-the-ditch at the shoulder seams. But I didn’t really want topstitching on the neckline, so that’s the price I paid.
Here’s the back view so you can see the nice upper back yoke and the long centre back panel:
I love love love this dress – the seams are inventive, the fit is both foxy and flattering, and I feel like a million bucks in it. I’m so happy I already decided to make this again in pale pink and grey lace for Spring! I added the long sleeves here (which I talked about in my pattern alteration post) but I think I’ll either make this short-sleeved or sleeveless for my Spring version. In case you’d forgotten, here’s those fabrics together:
Since I’ve got the pattern sorted now, I could get these cut out at any point and start hand basting all that lace to the pink jersey, around all the edges of all those pieces… In small doses, it may not even feel like a chore! We’re headed on a roadtrip through France at the end of April, and it might be nice to wear my lace back in Paris as a homecoming for it (or come to think of it, all that car time might be better suited to all the hand basting!).
Next up: I’ve traced off both KnipMode trousers and the Travel Trio Three turtleneck, plus I’ve got the new February KnipMode to show off…