Burda Color Block

So one Saturday not long ago, I was happily sewing a Roland Mouret inspired dress. My DH yells “Mail is here!” I take a break to see if any of the vintage patterns I ordered had arrived. No patterns, but the BurdaStyle Feb. issue was there, a week earlier than normal. Since I am on a sewing break, I decide to look at the magazine. I see the color block version of dress and my SAD (Sewing Attention Deficit) kicks in.

Burda Feb 2012 #117

Roland was pushed to the side and I immediately started the process of tracing the pattern. Of course it helped that the gray and navy ponte knits I was using for the Roland dress could also be used for the Burda dress. The magazine show 4 colors used for the color blocking.  I consider using bright blue and aqua as colors 3 and 4.

4 color combination

3 color combination

but decided to use a 3 color combo.

Alternate 3 color combination

I wished I had some orange ponte knit. I really like the orange, gray, and navy color block combo.

BurdaStyle magazine pattern tracing is not my favorite activity, and tracing this pattern seemed to take longer than usual. The factors that caused this were the pattern lines being printed in red, there were lots of them, and they were irregular shapes. Red lines are hard to see through my tracing paper, especially when they cross the solid red patterns also printed on the same sheet. I also tend to look for familiar shaped pattern pieces rather than use the numbers printed along the sheet border to locate the pieces. I couldn’t get away with that on this pattern.

There is a lot of shaping in the seams of this dress. The visible bust dart is balanced by a dart incorporated in the seam on the opposite side. Waist shaping is also done in the V seam at the bottom of the front waist sections. The center back seam curves in at the waist, out over the butt and back in underneath it. Great for callipygians - those who have shapely buttocks (my dad taught me that word along time ago and I still enjoy saying it) But since I am not one, that seam got straighten from waist to hem.

Shaping in seams

I recommend tracing and adding seam allowances accurately so you don’t lose all this subtle shaping. Some of the odd shaped pattern pieces are cut out once and care had to be taken to ensure they are cut oriented correctly on the right side of the fabric. I almost ended up with a reverse image dress because I was not paying attention during the cutting out. To make assembly go faster, I laid the cut pieces out on a flat surface as they would be placed in the finished dress. There are illustrated instructions for this dress in the pattern supplement, which is helpful.

I did not install a working zipper in the back as the pattern instructions suggest. I sewed the front overlap partially shut leaving just enough room for me to pull the dress over my head. I sewed invisible, iron resistant, nylon snaps to hold the front closed after the dress was on.

Snaps

I liked the exposed zipper down the back as shown in the magazine, but for the length of my dress it had to be 41 inches, with an open bottom and either blue or gray. Not available in my local fabric stores! I special ordered a zipper from www.zippersource.com  It took two weeks to arrive. Much longer than any previous custom orders, and it is what delayed this post about the dress. I used a 1.25 wide satin ribbon to stabilize the center back seam and prevent it from stretching from the weight of the zipper. I chose a wide ribbon so it would be under the whole width of the zipper. I hand basted the ribbon over the center back seam on the inside of the dress.

back seam stabilized with ribbon

I then hand basted the zipper over the center back seam on the outside of the dress. And lastly, sewed the zipper in place with four lines of stitching. One along the outer edge of the zipper tape and one against the teeth, on both sides of the zipper.

Zipper basted in place

  I like the dress a lot. The colors make me happy. The bright blue pendant shape on top draws the eyes away for lower, wider parts. It is very comfortable. Now to get back to the neglected Roland dress.