Burda 02-2011 #116

I finally used my Anna Sui fabric!! Are you finally happy Paulette? I turned it into this springy drawstring dress. I really like it quite a bit. It’s the perfect “throw-on” dress and I often need those in the mornings before school when I have four little lunches to make, a three-mile run to run, shower to take, snarly kindergarten hair to comb, and pig tails to create. I’m really lucky if I leave the house with my own hair combed.  

 

The only thing I would change if I made it again (and I might) are the arm bands. Next time, I’ll make them thicker. Right now they started out as two inch bias strips folded in half. I’ll make them more like four inch strips, not on the bias. Working with bias-cut fabric when doing something like this is not necessary and they stretched out like crazy. If I was using a heavy fabric, I would make them bias-cut but not if I was using something like this fabric again. They use a gabardine fabric in their model photo. I added no hem allowance and turned up a good two inch hem. I like the proportion better when the shirt is shorter.

 

Cute shoulder pleats. I made these a little bit deeper than Burda suggested. They sort of stuck out at funny angles when they had less of a pleat.

 

 

Here’s the finished grommet on the outside of the garment.

 

 

I feel like I spent a good five years of my life turning this little fucking tube and then the little shit breaks. I was very angry. After I said some bad things to the tube, I zigzagged it together again.

 

 

Instead of using self-fabric for the casing on the inside, I used a piece of dark gray double knit from my stash. This fabric is too ravel-prone..

 

 

I have an industrial snap press that I love. It also installs grommets if you get the correct dies. Here it is before I used the press on it.

Here it is after the press. You can see the lip is curled down and out.

 

Here is the finished grommet from the RS. You can see I pulled a thread.

 

I was thinking this would be cute if I color-blocked it. After seeing this photo, I’m not sure. I think it would be dynamite to make it in a solid color and add topstitching to the front and back yoke, hem, and waist casing. I might do that instead. Or, it’s ripe for tone-on-tome embroidery on that skirt.

 

Did you guys see how much snow has melted in the last week or so!! Wow! I have a deck again!! We had record snowfall this year. As of the 8th of April, we had 133.6 inches of snow this year. Ask me if I’m tired of shoveling. Sheesh.