A dress to wear to a wedding, Burda Style 10- 2012-118, or is it BurdaStyle 02-2021-119?

 I am making a Maid of Honour dress for my older daughter. In this modern relaxed Australian wedding each female member of the wedding party is given guidelines by the bride,  rather than detailed instructions or a particular dress to buy/have made. This is very exciting, as I was able to look at hundreds of beautiful fabrics and elegant patterns with the excuse of research to present to my daughter. We just have a colour palette, and the length of the dress as a framework.

 

This dress here is not the Maid of Honour dress, but it is a stage in the process, and I did make it for my daughter.

Before making the above dress there was some delightful mutual and individual time wasting perusal of many fabrics  and dress photographs on the internet. Eventually I had to stop doing this as my daughter showed me a photograph of a dress that she fancies as a starting point. She apologised that is not the fabric she wants, not in the right colour palette and not the right length for the wedding, and that she didn't want a seam across the front bodice.. This was not displeasing, as my daughter kept saying things like " If I find the right dress I'll just buy it". which is not what a person whom has hardly sewn party clothes for about 2 and 1/2 years now wants to hear.

We thought that we could reproduce the salient aspects with some judicious pattern alteration of  this pattern for a woven knee length dress from Burda Style  10-2012-118, which I have made previously for myself as both a dress and a top.

 The brief from my daughter is to modify the pattern for an extended shoulder, and to make the dress floor length for the wedding, and to possibly  make a bolero.

I was a tiny bit worried that I was being hopelessly out of date here, this being a 10 year old pattern, but  Audrey of SewTawdry posted not so long ago that this pattern is very similar to a 2021 offering, with identical line drawings, so if Burda thinks it is up to date (ish), I am happy. (Audrey's top in plaid is amazing)

Naturally I needed to make a trial version before we cut into precious pricey fabric. Naturally my daughter felt that if I was going to all the trouble of making a trial version, she might as well wear the trial version when she was to attend the wedding of a close friend, as a guest, not in the bridal party.

So here is version 1, in a cocktail wedding guest length, in situ at her friend's wedding.

 

The fabric is from a sari that I  bought in Sri Lanka several years ago, to wear to a family friend's wedding there. I really enjoyed having the opportunity to wear a sari. The little blouse was made by a  seamstress in Columbo from one end of the sari that is woven with the blouse in mind. It was interesting to see how the seamstress drew the pattern straight on the fabric after taking a few measurements.

I am equally pleased to be able to use the sari to make a pretty dress.

 You can see that my daughter and Ihave chosen the reverse side of the sari to be the outer side of the dress. We thought that the fabric was silk, and it is certainly silky, but after I managed to melt a lot of the warp fibres in ironing, we now feel that it is a poly silk blend. Once I had removed the highly embellished borders from the sari, it was quite narrow, and I used most of the fabric of the sari to cut out the knee length dress. As it frayed immoderately, and is a very thin fabric, I chose to underline with enclosed seams, using a poly cotton imperial batiste, and unfortunately had not already cut extra wide seam allowances to allow for the turn of fabric, so I was quite nervous that I might have made the dress too small, not having enough fabric left to cut out another full dress length panel.

Fortunately this was not the case and I did not even have to let out the seam allowances at the final (and only) fitting. My daughter lives about two and a half thousand kilometres away from me, but was coming to Brisbane ( a mere few hundred kilometres away) the day before the wedding. I was to hem it in Brisbane, so it was just as well that I was planning to do this by hand, as I didn't fancy lugging my machine to the flat shared by our other offspring. 

It may have been finished just before she dashed off to the wedding, sans photographs, which is why you should forgive me for the slightly blurry phone shot taken by another of my daughter's friends who may have been drinking bubbly. I have delayed writing this post until a later visit, when the dress was modelled for sewing blog purposes.

Notes to myself: Add lingerie straps to assist in holding the cowl neckline, and an internal and external stay for the waistline pleats.

Poinsietta frock from a sari. Vogue 1152

I had a lovely time making this frock. As the gardeners amongst you can tell from the photographs, I made this a little while ago - for a New Year's Eve party in fact. (My neighbours' Poinsietta was especially beautiful this summer)

For me, it hits all the buttons for sewing satisfaction.

1. I adore the fabric.

This fabric is another souvenir from my trip to Sri Lanka. The fabric was woven on a hand loom from fine cotton, and is very slightly translucent. It's a weight somewhere between a lawn and a shirting cotton. Originally it was 6 or so metres of a bright sari, it was essentially colourblocked, in shot orange/red with a purple border, but also had a lime/dark blue-green shot "blouse" section and a blue/yellow/green striped "scarf" section.  The shot orange section came to about 4 metres length of 85cm width, which was ample for my sundress version.
2. I had a tried and true, previously fitted pattern to use

Vogue 1152. I've made this twice before. (You can read about my construction changes in the earlier post if you are interested). I wear both the earlier versions frequently, more so the pure cotton version than the silk/cotton batiste, as the lawn is so cool to wear.
I love a shiny new pattern, and trying new patterns is a great joy to me, but there is a great benefit in getting straight to cutting out without all that pesky fitting and the absence of any concern that the finished garment just won't suit me
3. There was ample opportunity for my own twist to the pattern

These are simple changes, but I feel that this dress is unique, and personalised. I've piped the neckline, in addition to the piping of the front waist sections called for by the pattern. I also gave a nod to the original use of this fabric by including the sari's purple border. I applied a modified neckline facing (I drafted the back facing and reshaped the front neckline) to the outside of the garment, which did require some piecing of the border.
4. I took my time and the inside of the dress looks very tidy.
I realise that this is a reflection of my own slightly pathological tendency to obsess over details, but I find it very pleasurable to observe wearer-only elements such as tiny, tidy french seams whilst I'm getting dressed.  This is a very afordable luxury!
The finishing instructions provided in the pattern are unusually good, and I enjoyed watching a movie with my son whilst I did the hand sewing for this project.
5. The dress is a hard working addition to my wardrobe
 The finished garment is comfortable to wear, I feel good in it, and I've already worn it frequently.
Next up, a new-to-me pattern that reminds me that sewing is a constant learning experience.