Burda patterns may become my downfall

Well, the Burda dress is almost done, but I've learned not to count my chickens before they're hatched. Luckily there was one review on pattern review that really did help me.


The directions say to fold down the upper corner (singular corner, not corners) on the lower portion of the dress. Well corner, to me, means corner. But then there would be 2 corners on the skirt, right? There would be a left corner and a right corner and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why they would need to be folded down. So on my muslin, I chose to ignore that advise.


Marching onward to pattern review, I found out, thanks to Seamingly Simple that Burda meant to fold down the upper center point of the lower skirt (I'm sorry, to me that's not a corner!). I can't seem to link her Flickr photo here, but if you look at her review and click on transition point, her excellent photo shows exactly what Burda meant.


So I folded down my center front and then added the drape and then attempted to attach the upper bodice.


I said attempted.


Because something was wrong!


After attaching the upper bodice to the lower skirt, you're supposed to then fold the facings of the bodice inwards. Looking at Seamingly Simple's photos I knew exactly how mine should look. But mine looked Simply Wrong.


For some reason, once the facings were folded inwards, the bodice top gaped horribly, and twisted into itself in an odd way. (I did NOT take a picture of that! Do you think I'm nuts?).


Now c'mon! This shouldn't be difficult! For God's sake, this dress is really pretty basic and somehow I've managed to take yet one more wrong turn!


But I think I know what happened.


I don't seem to interpret things properly. I made pleats in the bodice top as called for, but I think I pressed them in the wrong direction.


I think if I'd pressed them in the opposite direction, the facing fold would fall at a different angle.


But, I've already stitched the bodice to the skirt (along with the drape) and I refuse to rip it out!


I put the dress on and monkeyed around with the transition point, pinned it as best as I could, took it off and hand stitched it in place.


Someone else would fix it properly, but I find that life is short, this dress is for me, and as long as it looks good from the outside that's all I care about at this time.


I also removed the inner-lining from the front drape pieces and they hang a lot better than before.





Sally Stitch loves her pearls.

This is the center point that's turned down and pressed.

For now, the dress is pinned at the side and back seams. I still have to put in the zipper but that will happen next week, as once again I head to the Big City tomorrow after work. We take turns on Saturday mornings at my job and tomorrow is my turn.

Blogger spell check is broken! Please don't be too critical of any errors you find, I'm very sensitive!