Mixed Success Burda Midi Dress 109 (August 2019 issue)

I'm back on the blog! I'm experimenting with taking pictures of myself using my phone as a remote so pics are of assorted quality, but at least I have some! Sewing-wise I've been on a bit of a Burda kick this past year but need to get around to posting about it. I love getting the magazines each month and flicking through over and over for inspiration. Yes, the tracing is a nightmare and the instructions are sparse but there are usually a couple of real winners in each issue. This dress however I'm on the fence about!

I planned to make this Burda dress 109 from the August 2019 issue for Christmas but didn’t quite finish in time! It’s made in a viscose twill I believe – it was a precut length of approx 3 metres from the remnants table at Rolls and Rems and cost me £10. It's got a gorgeous hand to it and I love the slightly fawn-esque colour and dot pattern. I bought it the weekend of Halloween (which I remember as it was extremely busy in the shop with everyone getting their orange and black costume fabrics together) so I think it’s one of the fastest fabric to garment transformations I’ve done in a while!

I like the style of the finished dress – I finally got to make a midi with bishop sleeves like all the dresses I’ve been lurking on Instagram for probably over a year – but this pattern had some needless challenges! I’ll start off with the basics. The pattern is from the tall size range so I had to do some modifications off the bat for my 5'6" stature. I shortened the bodice and sleeves by 1.5 cm at the lower lengthen/ shorten lines. I chose size 42 and did a 1 inch FBA – I used this FBA tutorial from Seamwork BUT I find that this tutorial adds width to the waist, so I shaved off a chunk at the side seams to bring the pattern back to its original width so it would match with the skirt seam. It’s a bit weird that Seamwork doesn’t have this step – did they overlook it? 

The skirt dart (if you can spot it) is now at a wild angle but at least it matches the bodice dart at the waist seam!

Anyway, so far so basic – here’s where my unanticipated issues came in. I thought this would be quite an easy make as it’s a fairly basic dress style – but annoyingly there were a lot of problems with notches that didn’t match up, and they were so far off that it can’t just be user error! First off, my back skirt and back bodice darts did not match at the waistline at all. I ended up doing an on the fix fly of re-angling my darts so that the apex remained in the same place but the legs go off at a jauntier angle to meet the back waist darts. I think I managed to keep the dart uptake the same and it’s not too noticeable in this fabric, but is a pretty basic drafting error!

I also found that the notches on the sleeves didn’t align with those in the armscye at all, and there weren’t any notches on the end of the sleeve or cuff to help you distribute the fullness. I winged it on my first cuff then made measurements so that the other would be the same and hoped it would hang well! I basically lined up the seamline approx halfway along with cuff when gathering and this seemed to work ok. The instructions for binding the sleeve slit where a bit sparse too – they mention to ‘mitre binding on inside at top of vent (like a small dart)’ but without a visual I wasn’t sure what this was supposed to look like, so I just did a basic binding and figured I could make that dart later if I found out what it was supposed to be. As it turns out it doesn’t show anyway as my cuffs have quite a bit of overlap (my fault this time; my pattern master only makes 1cm seam allowances so I traced the pattern with those, but for the cuff pieces you cut rectangles directly out of the fabric with the measurements including a 1.5cm seam allowance and I just forgot and sewed as 1cm).

My final gripe is that the shoulders are way too wide for me, and again I think there’s a mistake somewhere with the pattern. On the photo page the description says ‘inlaid pleats along the shoulder’ but there are no markings or instructions for that when making it up. The line drawing doesn’t show any pleats – although confusingly the layout diagrams do seem to show a gathering line at the shoulder. The model is doing some kind of artistically awkward pose in the photos so the shoulders are all creased and anything could be going on, so who can tell whether the shoulders are meant to be plain, pleated or gathered! I think next time I’d shave a bit of width off (maybe 3cm?) and make the sleeves longer to compensate, as they’re a good length with a nice amount of blousing as is.

To be honest, what with having the manipulate the back skirt darts and mess around with the shoulders I’m not sure I would make this pattern again, but I am am quite pleased with how it turned out even if it’s not perfect and it was a bit of a hassle to get there. I left the skirt at the tall length and am enjoying its floatiness in this fabric, and the dress skims rather than clings which is ok with me.

Can you spot my side seam zip?

I also made things slightly more challenging for myself my deciding to fully line the bodice rather than use facings – better to use up that scrap fabric for a sturdier garment than have an annoying length of fabric left over to taunt me! I’ve never made a dress with a side seam zip before so I didn’t work out the neatest way to have all the seams neatly enclosed with this version – I just attached at the neckline, did a burrito-style attachment for the lower bodice and skirt seams, and then basted the armscyes, shoulder and side seams together to be treated as one, which means they’re just overlocked as a double thickness and press open. It worked but it means I need to do a couple of hand stitches at the shoulder seams to keep the pressed open seam allowances neatly hidden away. No pretty guts for sure this time, so no pics! I’m not sure why the shoulder seams are sewn together so late in the instructions, as if I’d done these earlier it would have made for a neater finish there, but maybe it’s to make it easier to insert the side zip.

If you've made it this far, thanks for sticking with me! For all its faults this dress has already got a lot of wear. I'd think twice before making the pattern again though, and I do still feel like I should do something about those shoulders... Let me know in the comments if you have any ideas! One friend suggested I add small shoulder pads, yay or nay?!

Until next time,

NorseOtter xx