Burda Maxi Dress 06/2019 #121

Lulled into a reasonable false sense of security I decided to tackle the Maxi dress from the June 2019 magazine. It was a labour of love I nearly quit after the first stage. Well, before the first stage. But being a stubborn person I persevered with it.  This was not one where I could do most stages, this was one that I had to read, re-read, and then re-read again before I could even think about doing what the instructions roughly spoke about. This took me near on 4 weeks to complete, with a bit of dipping in and out some days not doing anything, some days doing a couple of hours. One nice thing about the finished dress is that it doesn't need a bra to go on underneath it because of the stabilising bodice pieces. I was very pleased when I spotted that :)

Although I had an over locker the only time I needed to use it was for joining up the skirt pieces. 

What went wrong?

1. The bodice was very short, so it sat a little higher than the bottom of my bust line. I really should have added an inch to the bodice, but this was the first time I had this issue with a BurdaStyle pattern. 
2. The waist band was  nightmare to get straight (again - I really need to do more waist bands so I can do them better)
3. The cross over - because of all the layers involved and actually getting it in the right position across the boobs I ended up unpicking the baste stitches and it all kept getting caught up or edges missed. It was very frustrating

What would I do next time?

1. Try and do a FBA or add an inch to the front bodice pieces...possibly the back too, although that seemed to drop down so not sure it needs it.
2. more line drawings on the waistline and use the interfacing to support where the stitching should be for the waist
3. Use the lining to position the cross over not the front pieces, make sure that the front pieces are gathered enough and not too baggy when creating the cross over.

How I did it.

First steps as always, iron the material before drawing out the pattern, don't forget to add a seam allowance (and draw that on the material too) and also to add the pattern markings.

Next I sewed together the front bodice pieces (22 & 21) where the tip of 22 lines up against the line mark for 1 on piece 21.These two pieces are the base of the cross over. (This is where I should have had the FBA - or added the inch about midway down as I did for the jumpsuit). 

Creating the bodice stabiliser piece

You then need to get piece 24, the drapee pieces. we are now creating the gathers at the top of the shoulders, and under the breast. To do this run a basting stitch across the top of the piece (2) and also across the bottom of the piece, from the * towards the point).  Pull the threads in each place to make the edges fit the front panel pieces. Make sure it is even - this is important for how it looks when finished.

Pin the drapee piece to the front panel piece, where the wrong side of the drapee piece is facing the right side of the panel piece. Baste around all the edges, this is now "one piece".

Adding the drapee to the stablising bodice piece

With the 2 spare panel front pieces these will be your lining pieces, sew them to the back pieces at the side seam - you now have your lining all ready to go.

Sew the side seams for the front piece and the back piece too. 

The top drapee attached to the bodice stabiliser piece, with the back piece on too.

At this point I did a little check of the top by pinning the shoulders together and putting it on my body form.I was happy (I totally forgot about needing a seam allowance under the breast - on the bodyform here you can sort of see that the top stops right on the breastline, so was always going to be too short. Live and learn.

In the bliss of ignorance I carried on and put the lining in as instructed in step 4 - sewing together the font neckline and the back v edges. These edges needed to be edge stitched as close to the seam as possible, I sewed this right side facing so I could make sure I hadn't caught the material as I went (which I did the first time around :)) 

I used the body form to pin the font two pieces together, I then checked it by trying it on (with pins still in the shoulder and to hold the arm holes inline. This also helped with pinning the back together before basting. 

checking the fit after adding lining

Creating the shoulder seam you need to lay out the full width of the shoulder, so in the picture above the front and lining is folded over at the neckline, you need to lay it out totally (as below) to do the seam.So right side of back is against right side of the front.

Stitching the shoulder seams

Once the seam is done trim down the edges to fold back in neatly. I had to do a little v cut on the edge by the fold. I would recommend at this point to do a "stitch the ditch" across the shoulder seams to make sure that the lining stays on the lining side. 

At this point you also need to baste across the bottom of the arm holes, between markings for 10 and 11 and make the cuts to the seam line at those points. I didn't pin back the lining at this point, as it didn't really need it.

The armhole with the basting and the snips at each end.

The sleeves were easy, again you needed to cut at the two points (10 & 11) on the sleeve piece and then hem all around the sleeve except between those points.

Sleeve hem and the section not sewn

You then need to join the sleeve to the arm hole so the hems of the sleeve match up to the cuts on the armhole on the front pieces only. 

Sleeve sewn on up to the bottom  (basted) part of the arm hole.

Once this is done you need to connect the lining. I decided to turn the armhole around as much as I could so I could sew the lining in place so it would be hidden, with the small gap at the top of the arm hole that I couldn't quite get to hand stitched (although to be honest it could have been done via the stitch the ditch method - which I think is what the instructions are trying to say).

This is when you add the bias tape to the bottom of the arm hole.I stuffed up here and sewed the bias tape to the inside of the arm hole. Don't do what I did, for the first bit sew the bias tape to the outside of the arm hole. Then fold it over the seam line and stitch the other side by  hand to the lining only so the stitching can't be seen from the front.

Adding the bias tape to the arm hole.

At this point I had a quick cuppa and then got on with the waist band. Apart from needing practice getting it straight this bit was the easiest, and it carried on being easy, I just followed the instructions for the rest of the make!