Burdastyle Shift Dress

I'm the lamest sewing blogger ever. I've had TWO different opportunities to photograph my latest dress and have failed miserably both times. Time One was when I was in Los Angeles with Qui and Jessi for the party at Sew LA. You'd think that I would have thought, "hey, maybe I should ask Qui if she could take some photos of me in my new dress." NOPE. My mind must have been so high on stuck on fabric that I forgot to ask. Time Two was at dinner last weekend with my husband Luke. I felt so clever remembering to ask him to take a couple of photos, but then the memory card in my camera died after one picture. The good news is that I now have a new memory card, so future projects aren't in danger :)

This is the one picture I have of myself wearing the dress :(


The pattern is from the latest Burda book, Sewing Vintage Modern, and it is the shift dress pattern. I used a mystery fabric from the Michael Levine Loft in downtown Los Angeles. It's stretchy, thick, and appears to be good quality. Since the fabric has stretch I decided to omit the zipper because if I can get around sewing a zipper I will.


I only made one other adjustment and that was to remove some bagginess from the neckline. It was very appropriate that I learned how to do this from Gertie's book and I got to meet her the day I wore my dress for the first time. Something I should have done was try and match the pattern on the fabric at the side seams. Learning how to match fabric is on my to do list for the year, but I didn't do it for this project :( However, I did take my time with the construction and the inside is finished really nicely.


This was my first time sewing a Burda pattern and I'm not sure if it will be my last or not... The directions were great, but tracing the pattern and then adding seam allowances was a lot of work. I would have to really like a pattern to want to do that again. Does anyone else feel this way or am I just super lazy? hahah