From very slow top to fast dress.

After rather a lot of slow sewing the speed of this dress from purchase of magazine to finished garment was, um, a bit of a contrast.

I bought the magazine (Burda 03/12) on Thursday and finished sewing the dress on Sunday.  The only reason it took that long was because I had to wait till Saturday to get to Spotlight for thread and a zip. (Btw, I'm wearing a black cardigan over it today which goes better with the black tights than the pale green merino thermal on it's own - only took the cardy off for the photo!)

For the record, it's #108 from that issue, and I have been itching to get my hands on it since I saw it online three months ago (that's how long it takes for the issues to arrive in New Zealand).  It's a size 76, which is the tall size 38.  Normally I would probably have to do the petite alteration to bring the bodice length back to regular, but this dress has a raised waistline anyway so I figured that if I didn't do anything it'd be fine.  There was a risk of the front being too low (always a risk with Burda anyway!) but I intend to layer it most of the time anyway, and if I wear it without anything under it I will just pin it closed.

I made no alterations to the fit, but I raised the armholes 1.5cm after comparing the pattern to a size 38 sleeveless dress pattern.  It would have been fine to leave them, but I hate low armholes.  I also brought in the neck by 2cm as I wanted wider straps.  Wider straps meant that I could sew the back and fronts together at the shoulders and join with their facings and then pull the fronts right side out through the shoulders to have a cleaner finish than the pattern directions would have produced.

The fabric has narrow stripes of elastane woven in which makes it crinkle up.  I pressed most of the crinkle out before I made the dress, and I'm interested to see what happens during wear.  I'm not sure to what extent it will crinkle up and hence shorten.  On a taller woman this is supposed to hit at around knee length.  On me (5'6") it's just below, so I hope it doesn't get much shorter!  I also omitted lining and interfacing to keep it as soft and drapey as possible.  The front neckline is cut almost on the lengthwise grain to make it as stable as possible without tape stays or anything else needed.

So, there you have it - a new dress in double quick time.  There are at lest two more patterns from this issue which I NEED to make, and I want this dress again too....