February Burda of the Month: 2/2013 #133

The good things about doing my self imposed Burda challenge are that I'm actually using my Burda magazines and I'm using up stash fabric, but one of the unexpected outcomes has been that I've sewn things that I normally wouldn't because I force myself to sew at least one thing each month (and as we all know sometimes there's slim pickings in some issues!).  I don't normally sew or even wear pants, so I was pleasantly surprised at how these red panelled pants turned out, and this bomber style jacket in quilted satin was equally unexpectedly good.

Normally I go for highly fitted and structured dresses, even my casual dresses are usually simple sheath dresses (like this stripey one which is one of my faves) or sundresses with fitted bodices with full skirts (like this one, another fave).  But I thought this floaty dress looked nice on the model in the magazine (not a good measure by any means I know), so I'd thought I'd try something different.  And when you see the fabric I used you'll see how different I mean! Firstly, the pattern - 2/2013 #133:

Yeah, I know it's pretty much a standard Burda potato sack with pockets, saved only by a bit of elastic around the waist with a touch of Viking tunic with the binding around the neckline! I don't know why this one caught my eye this month, maybe because I happened to have some fabric similar to the model photo in my stash, but sadly it turned out that I didn't have enough of that fabric to make this dress.  Digging deep in to the stash to find a fabric with a reasonable amount of body for a wintery type dress but still enough drapiness, I decided to go completely ker-razy and use this umm, rather wild fabric:

Yes that would be a paisley print in orange, brown and purple shades - a vast departure from the grey, grey and more grey that I used to make my winter clothes from! This is a mystery fabric, picked up a long time ago from somewhere or other that feels like wool crepe but without the wet dog smell so maybe it's  a polyester crepe.

To go with the 70s vibe of the fabric, and taking strong cues from the styling of the magazine model, I decided to wear this with knee high boots too.  Normally I take my blog photos on my way out so what you see is actually how I wear it, but for this one I had to play dress ups because it was so hot outside that as soon as I took these photos I had to change.

I left off the bias binding strips around the neckline and around the shoulder seams because I didn't have any bias binding in a suitable colour but also because I didn't think this dress needed any more interesting element to it.  Instead I fully lined the bodice so that I could do a slit at the neckline, and also meant that I just did two rows of topstitching around the waist at the bottom of the bodice lining for a channel for the the elastic instead of having to sew on a separate strip of fabric for a casing.

The side view looks a bit hunchback, and I need to yank it down at the front because the dress looks lower at the back in this photo.  It doesn't look too bad in real life though so this is how it shall stay:

I really need to improve my posture because this back view looks all sorts of wonky, but I do like the wide neckline:

The skirt is just wide enough to drape nicely but not too full to be a wardrobe malfunction on a windy day risk:

The true test of any garment for me is in the wearing - I like to give it at least one or two wears before passing judgement on it, so this one will have to wait a while until it cools down around here before getting a road test.  But it feels comfortable, and if I tone it down with a denim jacket or a dark leather vintage jacket that I have I'll probably get quite used to wearing such a wild print too!