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