Three times lucky BurdaStyle 06-2020-103/104

 

Technical Image from BurdaStyle.com

I seem to have a habit of making several dresses from the same pattern, all in a row. Often this is because I have gone to a lot of work with the fitting, but in this case, there wasn't much fitting at all, and the more likely reaon for three different dresses from the same pattern is that I am quite lazy about tracing out new patterns lately. Here are three versions of my current go-to dress, made over the last 12 months.

First up, I made  BurdaStyle 06-2020-104 from a drapy viscose (rayon) print from Spotlight after making a FBA (full bust adjustment) and a square shoulder adjustment as I always need to do. This was my toile, as I didn't have anything plain in a drapy fabric.

 

It was quite large across the back neckline, and I found the sleeves unappealling at the pattern length, so reduced the length by more than half. As you can see, these are still quite long sleeves for a summer dress.

 

It is quite pleasing as a wear-around-the- house dress aside from one small issue. I finished the hem sleeves with a rolled hem on my overlocker and have to wrestle with my hem neatness obsession every time I put the dress on.

 

Next I made a very fancy version from sandwashed silk, shiny side out for the bodice, and matt side out for the sleeves and the skirt. These hems are all conventional machine rolled hems and I much prefer them.

I was very pleased with this frock, which I wore to a wedding, but unfortunately it is now rather oversized, as I have lost weight, so does not look any good on me in its current state. No photographs whilst being worn are available, all the ones from the wedding showing it covered up by my ancient brown velvet coat. It was a winter wedding on a farm and I should have made a dress in boiled wool and worn two pairs of stockings.

 More recently, I made this pattern again in a slightly heavier than handkerchief weight digital printed linen. This version, despite a little scaling down, was still too big, so I added two pleats across the front waistline which I found to be a satisfactory and pleasingly simple correction. I also reduced the sleeve length further. I notice that in neither version is the front bodice seam opening visible. This is quite fiddly to sew neatly, so I may leave it out in future verisons.

 

I like this pattern very much, having found it a pretty and comfortable dress in three different fabric types,  and am thinking a sleeveless version will work nicely next summer.