Burda 7189

My final piece in the Wardrobe Basics SAL is done! And I accomplished a sewing goal that I have had for several years, so I'm doubly pleased.

I finally made an LBD!! The pattern I chose is Burda 7189, a shirtdress with interesting seaming, which of course you can't see in black. Erm. The fabric is a poly/rayon gabardine from FabricMart. It's quite nice and drapey, so I'm glad I bought a lot. You'll be seeing it again... This dress only took about a yard and a half.

Here is the line drawing, so you can get an idea of what the seaming looks like. Cool, eh?

I lightened a couple of photos so you could see how it turned out in real life. Sewing the back was tricky, as you can imagine. Getting all those corners to be sharp and unpuckered was no mean feat, but I thought Burda's directions were actually really good here. Instead of the Big 4 method of reinforcing, clipping and trying to pivot right at the match point, Burda has you sew the seams in 2 passes, meeting at the point. It usually takes me several attempts to get corners right, but I did these in one try. Love that!

In front, you can see the single point and the neckline and button band. The neckline is finished with a bias strip, which is topstitched down. The pattern calls for an additional 2 strips of bias cut self fabric to be inserted into the neckline seam with "irregular tucks and folds". I could see how this would make for an interesting dress, but I wanted this to be a more versatile piece, so I skipped the decorative elements. The button band is interesting as well. Burda has you stitch the buttonholes into the facing only, then fold the facing back and topstitch it down so that the buttonholes are enclosed within the facing. The point here is to allow for another tucked and folded bias strip, which I again omitted, but the method leaves you with a nice clean line in front without visible buttons. It's a bit of a pain to button though.

I really like that the vertical seams provide a sort of princess seamline to allow for fitting. (I used my usual Princess FBA method described here.) I did make a few alterations to the design as well as for fit. The most obvious is the skirt, which is slimmed from an A line to a straight, more pencil style. I also lengthened the skirt 2 inches so that it would fall below the knee. The pattern calls for the lower front edges to be topstitched together, but I left them open, both for the  more traditional shirtwaist look and also because I needed some walking ease, since I took out the width provided by the A line skirt.

I'll leave you with a little outtake from my photo shoot. I usually take my pictures when the kids are sleeping, but this time I went for it during the day. Duncan was quite the helper. Can you see the purple yoghurt all over his front? Yeah, you turn your back for half a second... Guess I'll go back to the early morning photo shoots from here on out, eh?