The fabric made me do it
Just before Christmas, I broke my five-year zero waste sewing streak with a Burda pattern.
I wanted to make my older teen a Christmas dress, as a surprise, using a spectacular wax print fabric that I already had.
However, the print had a huge repeat of 80cm and really needed to be positioned symmetrically on the dress. There wasn’t very much fabric to work with, only about 175cm x 109 wide.
What could I use for a pattern? These large-scale wax prints need the right garment to display their magnificence.
By chance, my teen happened to be looking through some baby photos when it was her birthday, and this one popped up:
She asked me if I still had the dress I was wearing in the photo AND I did AND I happened to come across it lately while wardrobe tidying. So she tried it on and it was OK-ish, and I would have gladly given it to her, but it would have been better one size bigger and unfortunately the fabric is 100% plasticy sweatbox polyester, which is not a great fabric for a sweaty teen.
The pattern was from Burda 2/2001, in a “fashion tour” spread on Tokyo.
Then I spent a long time deciding how to cut it.
In the end, it turned out to be a minimal waste dress.
I cut the dress across the fabric, with no side seams – partly to save fabric but it turned out the best way with this fabric design. I did this by lapping the front and back at the side seam, then creating a dart under the arm.
The collar was cut in four pieces and seamed (you can’t tell).
I also graded the dress up one size as I cut it out (how did I do this? Hang on for another year – I’m writing a grading book). If I did it again, I would try to make the wrap a bit wider, but I didn’t have enough fabric.
The hem is the selvedge, turned under once. Do you like to keep the selvedge in the garment? I do if it’s got the artist’s name or other writing.
There weren’t many offcuts, considering. I put them into the “maybe one day” patchwork quilt bag.
It turned out great, much better than I thought it would. The fabric looks soooo different in a garment.
You can see how important symmetry is with this fabric print.
If you look closely, you can see the patch pockets on each side, which by happy coincidence matched pattern-wise.
She loved it! (whew!) and has worn it since.
Cheers! Liz
What a wonderful dress you made. Stunning.
Thanks Barb 🙂 It made me very happy that she liked it.
Hello Liz! What a wonderful wonderful story – I love the dress and a terrific pattern is born. I am very much looking forward to the grading book too. best, Giuls
Thank you Giuls – it was a perfect marriage of fabric and pattern. Sometimes if you hold onto a fabric long enough the right moment comes along!
Oh this definitely needs to be a new pattern. It’s glorious fabric.
Agree, it’s a fabulous print and so thrilled with how it turned out.
What a clever girl you are ! and such a great result . Daughter look good in it.
Thanks Margaret. Very happy with how it turned out, and it will probably fit me if she ever changes her mind 🙂
Just gorgeous, Liz. Selvages are too useful to discard. A seam you don’t need to finish.
Thank you Kez – in this case it was all about maximizing fabric use!
The dress is spectacular! You are very creative – the use of the fabric and cutting the dress in one piece is genius. I can see your daughter wearing this often. The pattern is perfect for the fabric. Must spend more time reading your Zero Waste Sewing book. Thank you.
Thanks Caroline, I think she will wear it quite a bit.
Many thanks for getting my book 🙂
What a great print! I see what you mean about backgammon but in the flat shot it also reminds me of feathers. Lucky daughter!
Thanks Catherine 🙂 As prints go it’s a beauty. I only saw the backgammon when it was finished but no-one else noticed.
I know you’re a Burda user: this magazine was so old it had recipes and needlecraft in the back!
What a special fabric! I also like thinking through print placement carefully. Your limited quantity added an extra dimension to the challenge here and I liked seeing how you plan it out.
It’s a bit of a “wow” fabric, isn’t it? Nothing like a few design restrictions to make you think hard. Many thanks Cindy.
I feel playing with wax is always a gamble: either the pattern gets magnified by the garment, or you end up with targets on your bottom or anywhere else you definitely didn’t intended to put them… and you definitely did an impressive work there! The pocket matching is the little thing that makes it even more gratifying to look at 😉
I didn’t have time to react to your last post but I’m really impressed by all you manage to do with your few hours of “useful time” because of your long covid. I wish this year will see you gain more energy.
I think this might be my first time using a wax print, although I’ve used other fabrics with big repeats before. Spent more time thinking about it than actually sewing it. You are right: it’s an all-or-nothing gamble with the print.
Many thanks for your well-wishes.
I loved the dress!!!
And it turned out that I saw a bit of my own fabric cutting “adventures” on the posting… I NEVER cut as said by the pattern (unless it’s a zero wast) cause I’m always trying to save fabric (and this happens since I’ve first started sewing, several years before I ever learn it was such a great thing as ZW).
Once more, thanks for brightening our mondays with your postings <3
Thanks Joana. Think how much fabric and $ you’ve saved over the years….and had cutting adventures at the same time 🙂
That is one great design wonderful to see too. Way to go mom perfect blend of your skills to accomplish the perfect dress. Thanks for the inspiration makes one want to go get the tape measure and ones fabric…
Thank you Sandra. #mumforthewin haha!
Liz – you never cease to amaze me! What a beautiful garment, so cleverly created. I often get the jitters about wanting to sew a ‘traditional’ or favourite pattern which isn’t zero waste – but you’ve inspired me to think more about how waste could be minimised, and for showing such a clever trick to cut on the fold. The fabric pattern is everything, and you’ve made sure it’s stayed that way – 100% brilliant. Thanks for sharing xx
Thanks Donna 🙂 Sometimes little things like adding (or subtracting, in this case) a seam gives a tighter layout.
Well done Liz with Lillian’s Christmas dress. Clever you getting it to look so spectacular with sooo little fabric. The dress looks fabulous on Lillian!
Much love Anthea
Thank you Anthea, that is high praise! She liked it very much, and put it on straight away.
Stunning fabric – and she wears it well!
It really shouldn’t be a surprise that a simple timeless style can be made minimal waste but pattern companies and their layouts have encouraged the thought that each piece needs its own space. Obviously not.
It will forever be the ‘backgammon dress’ now .
Thank you, I think she does too, and she was very happy with it. I didn’t say anything about the backgammon (and I know no-one in this household reads this blog, to their loss) so for her I’m happy for it to remain the “Christmas dress”.
“100% plasticky sweatbox polyester.” Yup. That exactly describes the blaze orange-and-white polyester doubleknit one-piece zip-front gym-suits imposed on teen-aged females in the mid-1970s.
The beauty of polyester is that it never decays. The horror of polyester is that it never decays, yet retains every odor to which it has ever been exposed.
The horror of the zip-front gym-suit is that those of us with long torsos and/or deep rises still have nightmares about the torture those garments inflicted.
And now I have used up my allotment of hyphens for the week.
The horror lives on, Lynn, I’m sorry to report. The local high school uniforms here are almost 100% synthetic (and when the school re-branded they updated to same-but-slightly-tweaked almost 100% synthetic uniforms, leaving 1500+ redundant uniforms to go…where?).
You did an amazing job! Your daughter looks fabulous in it.
Many thanks Julie. I think she looks great too 🙂
I love this! This dress looks perfect on your daughter!!
Thanks Deb; she really likes it too.