It's been a Burda year: Dress pattern Burda 6853 in wool and ponte

It seems only fitting that my last post and garment of 2015 was made using a Burda pattern. I'm planning to do a year end wrap up but for now I will predict that one theme will be my discovery of Burda patterns. I will always find something to sew among Vogue patterns but now I add Burda to my list of possibilities. However  - either Burda envelope patterns or PDF downloads. I just can't deal with tracing from the magazine.
Onward to this dress, Burda 6853 envelope pattern. A Burda young pattern :) I don't know what it says about me but I find a lot of the ones I like are in the young category. Anyway - I saw a review of this pattern on Pattern Review and it looked like a great winter dress, plus I could envision using up an odd piece of fabric that was too small to make anything substantial but too much to be a scrap that I would toss out.



A quick picture right before Christmas Dinner. I think I can hear someone telling me to come back in the house as dinner was almost ready!



I thought looking at the pattern thinking that it was separate pieces in version C, but actually it is the same as the top of version A and what is shown as lace in the pattern photo is an overlay. And it is only in the front. I thought about revising the pattern to make separate upper bodice pieces for front and back, but discarded that idea as too much work. So I just made the pattern as designed, and put the red part as an overlay in the front only. For the grey part I had a remnant of fabric from this dress I made last year for Heather. It's a really nice wool boucle so it made for a warm winter dress which is just what I was looking for.



The cranberry red ponte is leftover from this dress. I left out the zipper as the wool knit is quite stretchy and the neck opening was large enough to get my head through. I did lower the neckline a bit in the front, it was really high, like a crew neck t-shirt which is not comfortable in a dress.




A few fit notes.  It has princess seams so I took it in and shaped the side seams a bit. I used the Burda size 38 with some increase at the hips. You can see the difference from the pattern, my skirt portion starts higher than their version. I cut out the upper portions of the dress and sewed them together, then played around with a piece of the red fabric while wearing the upper portion to decide where to attach the skirt. I'm glad I did because the bottom band hit me at an odd spot and made me look short. (shorter).



I didn't line the dress but made a facing that mimics the front yoke, using a knit lining fabric.
Note that this pattern is not designed for knits, although it worked perfectly. But it does have an elbow dart in the sleeve - which is kind of noticeable on the dress form and not something you see in a knit sleeve. It bugs me a little bit that the upper back is all grey. But it doesn't bug me too much as I have worn this dress quite a few times in the last two weeks!




Christmas flew by and now the new year is almost here. I hope everyone had a great holiday and I wish you a Happy New Year. I have already started on my newest project and am thinking about taking a sewing moratorium in January - if I can exercise some self control. Just to get a bunch of other project done around here. We shall see.
Or not. and then start on all the other ideas rolling around in my head.

Either way - Happy Sewing to all and here's to a great 2016 in every corner of your life!

Beth