Tuesday, January 31, 2012

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.




48 comments:

  1. Wow! Audrey I like this on you soooooo much! You've definitely inspired me to try my hand at making my own version. I'm glad you experienced SAD because it resulted in an absolutely fabulous dress!

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  2. It's fantastic. I'm inspired. thanks for showing us your dress.

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  3. Wow! You look stunning in this amazing dress.

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  4. It's awesome Audrey! I'm excited to see this one made up, think I will have to order some ponte knit. I really like the 3 colour option too.

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  5. Amazing dress - so modern and shapely - was very impressed that you waited 2 weeks for the zipper that was just for show! I'm too impatient for that - I would have worn it anyway, and when the zipper turned up, would never have got around to attaching it, since it wasn't strictly necessary anyway!

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  6. I like your dress a lot! I just found your blog and enjoy reading it, mostly because you sew clothes that I like too and because of tutorials!

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  7. This is such an inspiration! Such a lovely dress!

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  8. Beautiful! Love the colors and the way you handled the zipper.

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  9. Oh its fabulous! I'm planning the skirt version in black :-)

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  10. Great job! This dress is actually very flattering! I have to admit I was a bit suspicious of it, but you look great. Your version is bound to encourage a few of us to give this one a go, so thanks for the tips, too.

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  11. This is a spectacular dress. I really like how you choose the colors, it allow the design to shine and it looks nice and coherent. It's also a very, very flattering dress, both color and fit look amazing on you.

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  12. Oh! It's an astonishing dress, you look simply fabulous in it. I love the colour combination, it bears enough colour but very elegant and these hues are very flattering for your colour type.

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  13. Wow. You look terrific, and what an excellent analysis of the darts and fitting. Thanks!
    My February Burda arrived today. I feel some SAD of my own kicking in.

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  14. Wow - love the new dress. Sometimes things just jump to the front of the line.

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  15. WOW! Audrey you look great in that! I love it ... I agree that the orange and blue and grey look fantastic together too. I love that dress and the zip looks great.

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  16. Your dress is very stylish and it looks great on you.

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  17. This is gorgeous! I love your color choices, and it looks a lot more wearable, for some reason, on you than on the model.

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  18. I really like how your dress turned out. The shape really suits you.

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  19. A beautiful dress, Audrey! The way you've organized the colors is very flattering.

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  20. Wow, what a fantastic dress. I love your color combo and that you used three instead of four colours. Awesome!

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  21. Audrey, that is gorgeous! Really gorgeous!

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  22. That's a super dress. Color blocking is not easily achieved, but you did a nice job coordinating the blocks. The exposed zip is perfect, and very stylish and up to date.

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  23. Oooh it's gorgeous! I fell in love with it when the first blogmentions of the Feb burda showed up and already had my crayons out to color...
    I like your suggestion re the zipper, very clever.
    Great job!

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  24. That dress is fabulous!!! That is my favorite dress from this issue of Burda Style. I definitely plan to make it.

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  25. This dress looks absolutely amazing!

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  26. It looks amazing. I've got this one traced out too but I'm making mine in boring black. Thanks for the idea about stabilizing the zip. I am a bit worried mine is going to bubble, so if I can get it over my head without the zip I will do what you did.

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  27. Wow! I mean, just wow! You look so FABULOUS! Also yours is the first I've seen made up of this pattern. I cancelled my Burda subscription so now I'll have to wait until maybe March or April until it comes into the magazine store here but I so want to make this dress as well. Love how you visualised the colours on the diagram first, I do that too, it's fun huh? Always make me more excited to get on with it. Great job xx

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  28. Stunning dress and thank you so much for all the information it will come in very handy.

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  29. It is FABULOUS! Audrey, you are my hero!

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  30. Very, very flattering. That zip is va va voom! Thanks for sharing how you went about it.

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  31. This is a really good looking dress, i love the color blocks.

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  32. This dress is fantastic and so are you!!! Can't wait to see the Mouret

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  33. Gorgeous dress and you look fabulous.

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  34. Wow! This is fabulous! I want to try it with orange somewhere...my favorite color. Your is too cool!

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  35. This is a real winner! Love your SAD definition--true for many of us who sew!

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  36. FABulous!!!! I love your choice of black and gray with only one accent color, I think it makes it more chic and everyday wearable. Must...stay...away...from this pattern (will not suit my figure).

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  37. Fantastic dress! The color blocking is great and I love that you found a great solution for the zipper. Looks great!

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  38. I love this dress! I think I saw your Flickr photos of it before reading this. I think the 3 color combo looks best. I of course had to buy this issue of Burda because of this dress and a couple of other garments in this issue that caught my attention.

    Thanks for reference to the zipper source as I don't think I will be finding a zipper that long in my area.

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  39. What a stunning dress and it looks wonderful on you. The colour combination is terrific and love the zip.

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  40. I agree. Stunning dress and great instructions. Thank you.

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  41. hi, your dress is stunning and fab on, i've made the orginal colour scheme and it turned out well apart from i forgot to add my seam allowance so its tight lol.i loved how you made the zip a feature rather than functional!! i'd unpicked to the point of madness on mine.i'm going to make one for to-morrow night, larger of course and different colour blocks, i'm just useing a band down the back instead of the zip as this looks good as well, great job xxx

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  42. Shame on you. I just subscribed to their magazine because of this dress. I *love* it. Great job. Wish I had a copy of this issue to make my own!!

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  43. Thank you so much for posting a little image of the pattern layout! After seeing this wonderful dress in so many places but Burda being entirely unwilling to sell me the pattern online or let me order a back issue of the issue this pattern came in (it isn't even 12 months old yet!) you have made a stranger very, very happy! (Sew happy? hehe) Have a wonderful new year!

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