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Burda's Princess Dress

And now, time for a new dress!


This one is Burda's Princess Dress - #124B. I actually didn't make any changes to the pattern and cut the smallest size. I had this floral quilting fabric hanging around and wanted to use it up! The green is leftover yardage from the Tanith Arrow Dress.

This dress whipped up pretty quickly! And I did a super-successful invisible zip. I typically don't use them because the fabric store I go to rarely sells them. If they do, I don't know where the hell they are!

 Lately, I have been doing a lot of riding around on my bike, due to working for a very bike-friendly company. I'm still adjusting to riding a bit (I still feel a little like my whole body is vibrating after I stop if I ride for a consistent length of time) but I have been occasionally riding part of the way to work, 6 out of 12 miles roundtrip. I may never ride 12 miles roundtrip each day, but that's not the point for me.


I also needed everyone to know that my ol' bike has spoke beads. I'll be looking for some more soon. I just wrapped my handlebars for the first time and had to have seafoam green. Now my bike looks like an Easter egg!

I found this bike about 4-5 years ago in a thrift store for $50 - my favorite thrift store in Uptown! It needs some slight work like new tires and the headset gets a little flippy/mis-aligned sometimes but I prefer beaters in life. My reasoning is that most people won't try to steal beaters (though yes, people will try to steal anything) but I'm also not afraid to use it and beat it up a little.


 This dress is actually really comfortable. It only has bust darts which makes the top a little more roomy (not that I need that) and I opted to make mine sleeveless. I love dresses with sleeves, but I didn't have enough fabric for it. Plus, I just made a shirtdress not too long ago with sleeves. 

So I made a classic all-in-one facing pattern for this dress.



 I also put these fun wooden buttons I just had hanging around for almost a year. They matched perfectly! I also placed them on my left shoulder since I am a lefty bag-wearer. They won't get in the way when a messenger bag strap is on your right shoulder.


Overall, it was nice to sew a dress that I didn't make the pattern for once. I get caught up sometimes in making everything myself instead of just enjoying the sewing process and that's what this was for me: enjoying the sewing process. I can make patterns relatively quickly now for almost anything which is totally awesome, but sometimes I need to take a break.

I beat myself up mercilessly when something I have tested in a muslin somehow still doesn't turn out 100%. But nothing in life is 100% and sometimes you create a bad design. It just happens! How many retail stores have you been in and tried something on and even though it looked great, it just was off? We're all human.

This on the other hand.... if it didn't turn out well, I could just blame Burda. Looks like I didn't have to on this!

I also am failing hardcore at Me Made May '14. I signed up with a pledge of 3 handmade garments a week, but we've been moving around a lot of dirty stuff at work and t-shirts/jeans work best in that situation. I'm also still figuring out exactly what is appropriate to wear to work, so I've been playing it safe for a bit!

Until next time....
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Comments

  1. Helen Le CaplainMay 13, 2014 at 6:07 AM

    Lovely dress! Love the fabric and those buttons are so cute.

    And yes - I'm the same re beating myself up about things that don't go to plan, but it's how we learn I guess.... :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. TanithMay 13, 2014 at 7:57 PM

    Fabulous dress! I love the little buttons! (Also - wheel spokes!!!)

    ReplyDelete
  3. BrittanyMay 13, 2014 at 11:20 PM

    okay, you're absolutely adorable!! As usual, the quality of construction and your fabric choice blow me away! If I sound too enthusiastic, blame it one the glass of wine I've had, lol. Love seeing what you're up to! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. CatherineMay 25, 2014 at 6:21 AM

    Gorgeous dress! I love that floral. I used to ride me bike to work all the time along with catching the train. but that's when i wore casual clothes and travelled at non peak times.

    ReplyDelete

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