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*Updated 1/5/2021. Today’s post is a Burda 7/2015 #105 pattern review. This DIY maxi dress was the last of the items I made before I went off on holiday. Since my birthday was going to be away from the cold and uncertainty of Northern English weather I decided to make a tropical dress for my big day.
Jump to Burda 7/2015 #105 Pattern Review
My choice was a sweeping eye-catching dress that reminded me of the 1920s. 18 months ago I went to watch Top Hat at the Leeds Grand Theater and I was so inspired by the 20s styles I saw there. When Burda 07/2015 came out the front cover didn’t catch my eye but it was the line drawing that hooked me.
See here what I mean………
Burda Style 7/15 #105
Burda 7/2015 #105 Sewing Pattern Review
I really liked the hip yoke. It was clear to me that it had to be made from a drapey fabric to maximise the flowy-ness. I had the perfect fabric in my stash that I had bought initially to make a Giselle maxi dress. It is a large red floral on a white background that I just love. I am a sucker for large dramatic floral prints.
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The first snag was insufficient fabric. So I had to reduce the flare of the skirt insert panels by cutting and overlapping them by 4″. There are 4 skirt panels which removed 8×4 ” of hem so that reduced the hem by 32″. Yes people – this skirt has a lot of flounce and flare already but imagine if it had it all! It could have had it allllllll <rolling in the deeeeeeep>…… Alas the fabric was not available for reorder :-(. It ate up at whopping 4 m of fabric. Would have been more.
I made it up with the tie neck at first but I wasn’t very comfortable with how much back it was showing so I put it aside to think about how I could solve this pickle. Eventually I decided that a cross over strap was the best option. Straight forward straps seemed boring for this fab design. The next step was deciding what thickness I wanted for the straps. I played around with various thicknesses and was happy with an inch thick. I then just used red bias binding along the armhole, back and neck area to neaten it up. I overlocked seams and edgestitched because the fabric is a crepe which does not iron very well. For the hem I did a tiny zigzag then folded over and stitched. Its a nice narrow finish and new to me technique learnt from the Burda Magazine.
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Another thing to note is that this is a Burda Tall pattern which basically means its drafted for heights on 1.75m. I took off 9cm by distributing 3cm reductions at waist, hip and skirt length areas so as to maintain the proportions. I like to think it worked.Verdict I love love this dress. I feel very …..elegant ( a rarely felt but nice) when wearing it. Its also a fabric that stays cool. I was able to wear it quite a lot actually.
The invisible zip is my best application yet as you cant really tell except for the bit bumping up. I believe that fusing interfacing to the area made a real difference to the quality of the zip finish.
Burdastyle 7/15 #105 Review
Verdict. I love it. I feel elegant in this dress. The fabric breathes and stay cool which was a bonus on holiday. I shall make another when I come across the right fabric and I can get the 5m I would need. I could easily hack it to just make the skirt portion too which I am tempted to do. I also thought the Burda instructions on this were reasonably good.
More importantly, I have started a small new tradition for myself where I can make myself something extra special every year :-). Do you make something extra special for your birthday? I am only new to this concept but idea excites me.
Thank you so much for stopping by my little corner of the interwebs. Until next time….Happy sewing!
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*First published in 2017
