Oh wow oh wow – it fits!
This is my second e-pattern, this once purchased through the burdastyle website. (Click on the piccie to take you to the dress on burdastyle.com)
Technical drawing of Burdastyle 01/2010 dress
I printed out the little print-size test square they provided, found it was just fine, so printed the whole pattern. Then I went back to kindergarten, cutting and sticky-taping the whole pattern together. Big job! Even with the markings to help, it still came out wonky. Conclusion: e-patterns you print out and stick together yourself are just inevitably a bit wonky. And high humidity and ceiling fans don’t help, either.
Secondary conclusion: fortunately it doesn’t seem to matter.
Why? Because when I traced the pattern onto pattern-trace, did my paper-fitting, cut it out then sewed it up, it fit beautifully! Yay!
This pattern didn’t have seam allowances. Usually I use patterns with the seam allowance included. However with this one, knowing the exact size of the finished garment pieces made it easier to work out fitting measurements. Not that I ever found it difficult before, simply subtracting the seam allowances. But with no seam allowances, it was just … easier… to be accurate.
Another thing I really like about this pattern is it is a dream to sew up. Every piece fits neatly together with every other piece. Seams are the same length on each pattern piece, that sort of thing. Nice. Very nice.
Here is the bodice front and back. Paper-fitted, cut and sewn with no further alterations. Although the back looks too long, if the seam allowance is folded under it is fine. yes 1.5cm of extra length in my centre back really does make that much difference!
- Bodice front
Bodice back
Check out that pattern-matching on the back. Close but no cigar! It was the second time I did it and it was no better than the first. I just left it as is. I figure it is only slightly psychedelic….
And, last but not least, what colour do you think this dress is? I thought it was a duck-egg blue with a calico background. But my mother and Auntie (visiting from Canada YAY!) think it is green. What do you think?
Tropical Threads 
We think it looks green in those photos too.
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*squints* Tan-green from a distance. What color is calico?
Love the slightly psychedelic back.
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Erm, um.. the colour between the green bits?
Actually I think it is just unbleached cotton. “Natural” colour, or a buff colour
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looks green to me too, on the photo, but then colours don’t always come out right on photos. i think you might get away with calling it beryl, if the wiktionary author got that one right:
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/beryl#English
(i looked at ALL the other blues listed. none other came close to matching)
anyways, duck-egg blue would look AWFUL with the lilac IMHO. but it doesn’t look awful 🙂
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Ooooh that is exactly the colour – not the stone but the colour sample patch.
Took me a moment to work out why you were mentioning lilac. The skirt! nononono, that was just the skirt I had on at the time I was fitting the bodice of the dress. Don’t worry, my taste isn’t that uh, eccentric 😛
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Looks green to me too
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To me it looks like a brown/green, but if I were to see it in reality it might look entirely different. The pattern matches well. Well done.
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Thanks 🙂
On my monitor it looks like a good reproduction, though that mightn’t be saying much 😛
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It looks dark beige at a distance, but greenish when enlarged.
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