Emergency Dress!

Today was the most important day of the school year, because it's the one day of the year we get to wear fancy clothes to school!!!

Our schoolwide celebration of Founder's Day is the one time we get to ditch our boring uniforms for dresses and suits! (Some of you might remember it from last year when I made a pair of sparkly separates.) Clearly, such an event warrants a new outfit!

This year, I intended to wear my new winter-white coat. Except that I had absolutely nothing to wear underneath it. (As in, true confession, I am actually wearing biker shorts underneath it in the pictures I took for my blog.) 

So it was time to whet my needle, thread up, and rise to the challenge of putting together a dress in time for the event!

(Let it be known, that this is the first time in three years of Founder's Days that I have not been up late frantically sewing the night before. Mission accomplished.)

A Quick Post for a Quickie Top: Burda 130c

I took an inventory of my wardrobe recently, with disconcerting results: I have no clothes.

Ok, so maybe that's an overstatement. (I do write a sewing blog, after all ;) )

What I should say is that I have I have a lot of eveningwear, a lot of jeans and pajamas, and a bunch of school uniforms. But I'm missing interesting, casual garments for wearing around on a daily basis, which is problematic, since I'm going to college next year and that's all I'm going to be wearing.

So I'm making shirts!

This is the first time I've used a Burda pattern, and overall it was a pretty good experience. The actual pattern was easier to put together than the Lekala one I just tried. The instructions weren't as detailed as a Vogue pattern, but the shirt was simple enough that I didn't have trouble putting it together.

 

The pattern is #130c from the Burdastyle website published on 02/2014, "Long Sleeved Keyhole Top". (I'm not quite sure how to refer to Burda patterns by number. Do I use the edition date or the number next to it? Is there a convention?)

The fabric is a stretch jersey from the stash. It was originally navy blue, but my mom and dyed it (and by dying, I mean throwing it in a tub full of purple water and salt, crossing our fingers, and being delighted to realize it came out slightly purpler than it went in!).

The only alteration I made was on the strap (the piece that is attached to the back neckline and threads through the front piece). The pattern called for it to be gathered to 4 inches, but I gathered it down to 2-3 inches so that it would connect to the neckline farther to the back of the garment, making the cool neck detail more obvious. Oh, and the sleeves were WAY too long, but I decided to gather the bottom section instead of lopping them off.

So for about 2 half-days of sewing, I have a new shirt. Not too shabby!