Skip to main content

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....
Labels:

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

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latch Hook Rug Update

A little under a month ago I received all of my supplies to take on one of the biggest long-term projects I have ever taken on - a self-designed latch hook rug. I don't know why, but I am clearly nuts. So beginning today I am posting photos each month, (preferably on the 1st of each month) progress of this gigantic shag rug. See how I started it here (scroll down past posting of my $10 dress).  This is a photo of it today:  Yes, I used the candelabra for scale. Haha.   This rug is really soft and is fun to run your fingers through.  It doesn't look like much was accomplished, but though the number of packages we have gone through of pre-cut latch hook rug yarn already I have calculated that  we've used over 2500 strands for this ie.) 8 packages. I also just ordered 10 more packages of lime green since that's what I ran out of first and 6 more packages of straw yellow. There is still quite a bit to go, but you see the blue row squares? Each of th
18 comments
Read more

DIY Trapeze Dress

I'm a pretty big fan of tent dresses (or trapeze dresses - call it what you want). They're simple, easy-to-make and you can have many variations of them. These are a fun style to wear for spring and summer!  See this DIY from a Good Housekeeping Crafts book from 1971 - photos at the end of my own trapeze top from a while ago! (Bear with me on the photos here - this book is quite cumbersome and hard to scan.)  Applique patterns, in case you wanted the dress to look EXACTLY like the photo. (But why?)  How to cut the fabric efficiently. (This is actually pretty important cost-wise for you - especially with something this big.)  Using pattern instructions from my patternmaking book from college, I created this swingy trapeze top a bit ago. I used sweater fabric from a thrift store find for the collar of this top.   I also opened up the back on the pattern to have a diamond shape.   It can easily be belted like in this photo fo
Post a Comment
Read more

Shingo Sato and the Art of Transformational Reconstruction

So I got really excited on my break at work today when I got an email from Burda about a webinar they're doing on a pattern technique called "Transformational Reconstruction" developed by Japanese designer Shingo Sato. I hadn't even heard of Shingo Sato until today let alone his design technique but oddly, it's sort of the path I'm going down with my designs anyway as seen with the Sunrise Panel dress as well as the Petra Dress and the pattern making involved in those designs. What I did there is perhaps a "light" version of Sato's where the darts and shaping are hidden in the seam lines. If you've been reading this blog long enough, you know that my design aesthetic focuses largely on color blocking, unusual seam lines, and a love of anything psychedelic. Note: All photos stolen from the internet. Sorry! I'm super-excited. Let me know if it's yours and I'll take it down.  Shingo Sato teaching.  More designs using
3 comments
Read more