Polkadots dress with a knot

*kliknite za tekst na srpskom

While I was making this unusual dress for a friend, my thoughts towards it changed a lot. It is a pattern from Burdastyle 12/2012, #112. At first I loved the pattern, then I thought the knot detail was adding too much bulk to waist, and when I completed the dress I was thrilled with both the dress and my execution of it. That's when I realized I wanted to make one for myself.

My initial plan was to make a muslin first and fit the dress according to my measures and body shape. However, after I traced the pattern in my size, I realized I didn't feel like doing it all over again, so I decided to take a risk and cut down the process. So I copied the alterations I did for the friend's dress to my pattern. I chose a fabric from my stash - one that I wouldn't feel sorry for if I ruined it. It was navy stretch satin with pale pink polkadots.

I have a shorter torso torso than my friend and generally speaking, we have different body shapes, so I expected some issues with the pattern. When I tried on the dress I was surprised by how differently the same model looked on me and on the friend. On me, the skirt looked less voluminous and more straight. I was almost disappointed by the dress. However, I decided to make it work, so I arranged the dress'gathers differently, so that they suited my body better. The wrap that twists into a knot on the original dress was pulled through a buckle and sewed to the dress.

Unfortunately, I have only a few pics in low resolution to show you how the dress looks on me. I admit it, it's not as pretty as the one I made for the friend, but it's still very cute and very comfortable.

Here are some better pics of the dress on my mannequin.

Related posts

• The knotted dress
• How to fit a dress Burda 12/2012 #112
• Muslin for a dress Burda 12/2012 #112
• How to hem a circle skirt
• How to sew an invisible zipper
• How to set in a sleeve

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The knotted dress

*kliknite za tekst na srpskom

It's been alsmost a year since I started working on a dress for a friend. To remind you, we worked on a very interesting pattern with a knot detail from Burda Style 12/2012 #112. We made a muslin last July and altered the pattern quite a lot in order to make it fit. The pattern is drafted for extremely tall women, so we needed to shorten it, which I described in this post.

I altered the pattern more afterwards, by adding few more pleats and removing some of the unflattering gathers. We tried to keep the original design of the dress, while making it fit the body.

With no further ado, here is how the dress looks. We used a light viscose fabric that drapes beautifully.

The knot details.

Finishing the knot was the most difficult part of sewing. I wanted the dress to be neatly sewn, both from the right and wrong sides, while easy to maintain. So I decided to slightly alter original design - instead of sewing the knot wrap to the dress (as the sewing instructions said), I made a small slit in the waist seam and pulled the knot wrap through it. The wrap is fixed to the dress from the wrong side of dress with two snaps.

Related posts

• How to fit a dress Burda 12/2012 #112
• Muslin for a dress Burda 12/2012 #112
• How to hem a circle skirt
• How to sew an invisible zipper
• How to set in a sleeve

Tied up - pattern alterations

* KLIKNITE za tekst na srpskom

In the previous post I wrote about the knotted dress I'm sewing for a friend. After I published the article we had a fitting where we altered the pattern on several places to make it fit nicely. In my opinion, the major issue this pattern has is its length, since it was drafted for extremely tall women, and the bodice panels need to be cropped to make the dress fit. The friend is 175 cm tall, but the front and back needed to be cropped on several places.

I have to add that the friend didn't think the bulky knot was an issue, so we decided to fit the pattern and make the dress.

I will describe the changes we did on the pattern, but I have to warn you not to take this tutorial as a definite user manual; I strongly advise you to make a muslin first and fit the pattern according to your body. You can use this tutorial as an idea reference.

We noticed several problems with the dress:

• the armholes were too big, the side seams stood too low at the underarm
• the friend has broad shoulders, so we had to alter the shoulder seams
• there was some extra width and length of fabric on bust, so we needed to remove the extra fabric
• there was some extra length of fabric at the waist (the bias) seam, the bodice panel was too long

We made the alterations in several phases. First we adjusted the armholes so that we could see how much and where the further alterations were required.

This is how the original pattern looks. I won't talk about the sewing process now, but I might write about it when I make the dress.

I altered the armhole and reduced some of the bodice length by cropping the bodice between the neckline and underarm. I drew two parallel lines as shown on the picture below, distanced approximately 2 cm. Then I cut the pattern along the lines and joined the upper and lower parts together, thus removing the extra length.

I applied the same alteration on the back bodice panels. I also cropped the sleeves by removing the length from the sleeve head.

Then I altered the shoulder seams. I cut the pattern at the shoulder and rotated the cut-off piece to the side, keeping the armhole curve continuous. This widened the shoulder seam while kept the armhole intact. I adjusted the shoulder seam by redrawing a line that connected the neckline with the armhole.

I made the same alteration on the back bodice panel.

Once the armholes were adjusted, the pattern looked much better. There was still some extra fabric length, but not as much on the breast as it was on the waist. A bit of the extra fabric was removed by closing the pleat on the left side of the bodice. I pinned the fabric in places where it seemed appropriate and then transferred the changes to the paper pattern. The result was as shown on the pics below - the left pleat was closed.

After this alteration you could see the dress would look great. There was some extra length of fabric left along the bias seam, so we removed it as shown on the pictures below.

Finally, here is a comparison of the pattern before and after our interventions. What you can't see on the pictures are alterations I did on the remaining pleats. I lengthened the center pleat and added a new one that goes from the right breast (left side of the pattern on the picture) towards the center of the knot gathering.

With these changes, the dress looked great and the friend was pleased. Note that we haven't altered the length of the side seams.

I am yet to sew the dress and we should have another fitting then. The friend has left to a vacation meanwhile, so I'll write the next post of this series after she's back home.

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• Tied up
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