My First Burda

Burda’s got a bit of a reputation, eh?

The instructions! The complexity! The lack of seam allowances!

But it was the only place I could find a nice dress pattern I could adjust to fit my daughter, that would work with the kind of knit we’d already bought for her holiday dress (a shiny panne velour, in a bright cobalt/navy blue). So I decided to gird my loins and enter the battle of Burda.

And found myself strolling through a park. Dear Readers, it was not hard. It was a dress pattern. Yes, I had to add 5/8″ seam allowances, but other than that … you know … sew the yoke to the bodice, join the shoulders, the sides, make up the sleeves, add the sleeves, gather the skirt, sew it on, hem. I hardly even had to look at the instructions.

The bias trim in velour on the neckline and sleeve hems turned out to be a bit tricky, but not that bad.

The adjustments didn’t work out quite as well as her last dress, but purely my fault; I added girth to the front, but no length, so the front waist seam is not level on her. I also had to make up two sets of sleeves, as the first was too narrow. But it was an easy fix and we had lots of extra fabric, and this happens with all the woven shirts I make for her. She also asked me to make it ankle-length, which I was happy to do and which used up all of the extra velour.

I even decided to make it a bit more difficult by using lace binding on the hem to ease the excess in, so it’s all catch-stitched. There’s no wonky top-stitching on the velour, and there’s no weird bubbling from excess fullness, so it worked out. Again, not so bad.

It’s a nice dress that fits her well and falls well within her preferred grey-and-blue colour scheme. But of course, she had Christmas at her dad’s and didn’t wear it there and then forgot to bring it home so couldn’t wear it here … so it’s still waiting for its perfect debut opportunity.

In the meantime: Burda! Not as terrifying as previously reported. I will definitely try their patterns again.