Burda Magazine Pattern

Last summer my sister and I had an impromptu vacation in Los Angeles. She was travelling through LA on her way to Switzerland from Australia. It seemed like a perfect spot to meet up, since she was on the same continent as me. I have never been to LA, and was excited to visit the fabric district, of course. We actually stayed close to Malibu, but made a special trip to see Justine of  Sew Country Chic and fabric shop. She was such a gracious host and spent a whole day with us! She took as to the scholarship  store at FIDM and it was the best place ever! All the clothes and fabric is donated and the profis go towards scholarships. We found red boiled wool there for $2.00 per yard and I promised my sister to make a dress for her.

The pattern came from Burda Style Magazine that I bought on my trip to Ukraine last fall. It's so cheap there, about $1.50 per magazine!!! The pattern came from an 9/2015 edition. The dress cost me less than $10.00. Pretty cool, ha.

I had to make a few adjustments, but overall the dress runs true to size. My sister is an athlete, a volleyball player, and has broad shoulders. I also raised the neckline a bit, both in front and in the back. But the biggest changes had to be done to the sleeve. It was very tight when I made a muslin, with almost no ease in the cap. I had to readjust the sleeve for bigger bicep muscles and also add more ease to the sleeve cap. It also came in 3/4 length, so I lengthened it as well.

I wish I can say that sewing was all smooth sailing. Nope, it was opposite of that. It started that I made a muslin in non-stretchy fabric. The boiled wool has a bit of stretch and I had to do quite a few new adjustments to make it fit. Then, I  put in a non-stretchy lining. Duh! That was not a good plan. I had to rip it out and start anew. I also didn't interface the neckline (Just do it!) so by the time I ripped out the lining the neckline was stretched out really badly. Ugh. The zipper didn't lay flat on top and  the neckline was sticking out. Yikes. At that point I was so DONE with it. I wanted to burn it. lol. In my despair, I compalined to my friend Mie of Sewing Like Mad. (On a side not, if you want to improve your sewing, do follow her, the woman is a pro!). Mie calmly listened to me and then told me to rip the zipper out, interface the neckline and add a facing to the lining, so it doesn't peek out around the neckline. And then pointed me towards a tutorial on her blog on how to add lining. I was amazed! It's nothing I ever heard of and I still can't quite wrap my head around it. But it works magic. She said it's some sort of Ninja method. No kidding! Look at that zipper! That's a 100% improvement from what it was before! Night and day. Do check it out, your lined dresses/skirts with invisible zipper will thank you!

The dress has a little "flip" at the bottom. I like it. The sleeves are bell shaped with slits. The pattern instructions were clear but sparse, which is expected of a magazine. I didn't have any trouble until the slits in the sleeves. The corners are mitered and I had to google how to do it, mostly because by the time I was ready to hem the sleeves, I was pretty brain dead.

 My sister is happy with the dress and received compliments when she wore it. I think she looks gorgeous in it!