March Burda of the Month: 3-2013-#110

Thank God it's Monday! I know, it's not usual to sing the praises of a Monday but for me Monday is a daycare day so I finally get a few hours of peace and quiet, plus my husband is finally home from his boys weekend away.  We had an unusually busy weekend too, which made it doubly hard since it was just me ferrying the kids instead of hiding out at home.  I did have a nice dinner out at the fancy schmancy Doyles at Watsons Bay on Saturday night with some friends (and the kids), which was made all the better when out of the blue a lovely lady came over to our table to say hello and that she loved reading my blog.  Hi Suzanna - it was great to meet you and my dining companions were suitably impressed at my fame!

So, my March Burda project.  Both wearable and finished in the actual month of March.  Actually I finished sewing it about 2 weeks ago now, but only sewed on the trim last week after deliberating for quite a while on what colour ribbon to go with.  In the end I was heavily influenced by the colours chosen by Burda, what can I say sometimes I'm a sheep.  Baa! I decided to make the ribbon dress, 03/2013 #110, which is only a simple a-line skirt dress with a wide scooped neck bodice but I think the ribbon detailing lifts out of the ordinary:

From deep within the stash I found a lovely fabric that I've been waiting a long time for the right fabric: a rather heavy textured cotton in a colour that is somewhere between peacock blue and teal blue.  I was planning on using some navy blue grosgrain ribbon for the trim but I could not find any in the skinny widths in several fabric stores I went to so I chose to go with a silvery-brown colour instead (officially colour is platinum) just like Burda did.

There's not much to be said about the dress itself, being just a simple fitted bodice and gently flared a-line skirt, but I like the angled darts which are a little different to the usual.  At first I wasn't going to add the ribbon trim thinking it would be more versatile just to add a belt but the dress looked a little blah without so I went with the pattern as designed.

Although, looking at these photos I think I may have sewn the ribbon on too high - it would probably look best starting beneath the bust point, not on or above it as I seem to have done.

I made a size 34 for the bodice, grading out to a size 36 for the hips and I am pleased with the fit.  I don't know if my swayback has disappeared after giving birth to Toby the giant baby (can that happen?) but I am finding that the dresses I've been making lately fit the small of my back really well without needing a sway back adjustment. 

I did have to put some darts in the back neckline though because it was gaping a little, something I would have discovered if I had made a muslin first but as usual I didn't bother.  It doesn't look too bad though, and from what I've seen a lot of vintage dress patterns have darts in that spot anyway.

The main annoyance for me came from sewing on the grosgrain ribbon - it puckered the neckline and made it jut out because it was sitting flat before I sewed it on.  But now I realise that's because I used grosgrain ribbon instead of petersham, I think petersham ribbon can be steamed into shape better and probably would sit flatter.  I might sew some bra clips into the shoulder seams though to make sure my bra straps don't slip out because the necklines is very wide, but not low cut unusually for Burda.

I still have quite a bit of this fabric left over and I'm fighting the urge to make a matching jacket.  I'm trying to break out of my matchy matchy ways and try new combinations, but I've been watching Season 5 of Mad Men and am loving the sharp 60s suits so it is tempting to make something like this:

image from www.slate.com here