Burda Style For people who sew

Description

This pattern is very straight forward, which shoulder to hem princess seams which makes a custom fit only a matter of patience and time. I originally cut a muslin in a size 44. When I tried it on, I noticed that the armholes where huge and the upper back was too big. I had chosen the size based on my full bust rather than my upper bust (and I’m a D cup) so I re-cut the pattern blending the 44 hip on front and back pieces, to the 42 upper back and front. I also extended the front bust curve a little bit to give my chest some more room. Then, even though I was terrified of cutting the fabric without a second muslin, I went ahead and did it… I decided to get over my fear of failure and disappointment in favor of learning from experience. Also, I knew that my first fit was close enough that it was unlikely to be too much of a disaster if it didn’t go perfectly.

I took my time sewing, pressed the seams out and checked the fit before pinking my seams (I don’t have a serger) and then I hit a mental block when I got to the stand up collar. I had built up in my head the fiddly-ness of sewing in collars and so I set it aside until I could devote time and attention to it. That took a month – most of December. When I finally bit the bullet and faced the “hard part” I realized that the burdastyle instructions, while vague, did prescribe a simple method of finishing the collar – topstitching; no hand stitching! It was easy and fast and that gave me the get to it I needed to hurry up and finish the rest. I even had fun making the button holes (practice on scrap makes pretty perfect). Alas, my button hole thread doesn’t match my top stitching thread, but at least the colors work with the fabric.

ETA: The way that this pattern is nested makes it very hard to blend between sizes. I advise tracing this one onto fresh paper.

Material Notes

Marc Jacobs shirting remnant Mother of Pearl buttons

Categories

For

Women

Garment Type

Shirts

Style

Business, Casual, Classic, Grunge, Preppy

Material

Cotton, Shirting