Little girl's dress - Burda 9420

I made a child's garment for the first time.

Burda 9420.  This pattern was easy to make:

I made version B because I didn't have enough of the blue fabric for version A (longer, without the ruffle).  I would have liked to angle the pockets inwards a touch more and would do that if I did this with two pockets again.

The top of the pocket folds in.  Depending on what the revers of a fabric looks like, I could also fold this out and under a little, and sew across before attaching to the dress. It is fine like this though.

I started out with two even sides along the back slit. By the time I was done, the left-hand side was a touch longer.  This has happened to me before and I don't quite understand it.  Perhaps I did slightly different seam allowances on either side when attaching the facing? Otherwise this is very odd indeed.

The little black button is perhaps not a little girl colour but I like the pretty texture of it. It was also the size I was looking for. I made the loop on the left-hand side with embroidery thread in its full six strands. That came together very quickly which I really appreciated. The button is just sewed to the side of the vent so it sits nicely centred when closed.

I sewed the ruffle down with suitably pink yarn.  That was not in the instructions but I thought it would make it hang nicely. Don't know if sewing this down is a good thing once this gets washed and needs to be pressed. I'll ask the little girl's mum to tell me so I'll know for next time.

I enjoyed making this a lot and think that it will make a great repeat pattern. I might use the binding on the armholes next time - I didn't have enough of the blue fabric so I went for a baby hem which unfortunately twists outwards a bit in the tightest under-arm area.

I will keep an eye out for a fun, bright and colourful 'kids' fabric for the next one. I can't remember if I heard mum say that her daughter doesn't like pink? Hopefully this shade is okay but that's something to keep in mind too.

I'm already wondering if I can use up some fat quarters and colour block it: use a fabric for the "bodice" part and at least one other fabric for the "skirt" part. And if a fat quarter isn't wide enough then maybe in pieced vertical stripes with a third fabric?

It would also be nice if I could draw sleeves for this. Short ones would be enough. I should be able to Frankenpattern this from somewhere else - the downside is that I wasn't exactly planning on starting a stash of kids patterns! Oh well, it might help me use up fabrics.

A great project and I can recommend the pattern!  You don't have to do a zip so this would be suitable for slightly more advanced beginners than complete new-to-sewing starters. If you are looking for a small and first project: do a gathered skirt made from two rectangles like Simplicity 9938.

Using stay tape at the waist

I blogged about bias tape last time.

I've since come across a technique that re-inforces the waistline to keep it from distorting. Using tape at the waist looks very interesting and it isn't complicated at all. In short it's the sort of thing I really like!

Re-inforcing any area with tape (or ribbon) makes use of said tape as something referred to as 'stay tape'.  The area "stays" in shape, so I suppse it's easy to remember.

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Good old Sewaholics put me onto the concept:

A Different Kind of Waist Stay

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Gertie from her Blog for Better Sewing has more about the whole thing:

The Wild World of Stay Tape

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It even turns out that Claire Shaeffer describes it as a couture technique in her book of the same name, I even think I have this book:

Couture Sewing

Sewing the tape onto a foundation layer is a whole different kettle of fish that I want to explore at some future point.


Have you used either bias or stay tape?  How did it go?  Please post some photos of your projects, either as works in progress (yes please!) or completed projects, in the appropriate photo album on the Meetup site.

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Can I make a Dress in a Day? Part 1- Tracing a pattern from Burda Style Magazine

Of course, I am addicted to reading Dressmaking Blogs and am always amazed when the blogger says how little time it took to make a garment.  I was prompted to try and make a dress in a day after reading of a top with interesting seaming and a peplum that took only 40 minutes to make.  I had a whole day when I thought I had nothing to do so decided to give it a go.
There was a dress that I wanted to make that appeared to be straight-forward with only 4 pieces - Back, front, sleeves and a facing strip.  It was designed for stretch fabric and needed no closures or fastenings.  It was a pattern in a Burda Style Magazines.  If you are not familiar with these magazines, issued monthly, they appear to offer Dressmaker's Heaven, that is a large number of patterns for a small monetary outlay: for example 17 patterns for £4.75.  However, you might not like all the patterns in an issue plus you have to trace the individual pattern from sheets inside the magazine.  This is when Heaven may turn into Hell so I am going to show how I do it.
Each garment is given a number (106 in my case).  On turning to the instruction in the magazine for that particular number you will see a box that tells you which Pattern sheet you want  and what colour the outline of the pieces will be.  It also shows you the pieces and the number that they are allocated on the sheet .  Below you see the information for my chosen garment (plus some pencil notes of simple lengthening amendments I intended to make to the pattern).

So I need to locate pattern sheet B, with a red pattern line, pieces 21 to 23 for style 106 with the type of line marking used for size 36.  Below is the confusion with which you will be faced (this is sheet B and the pieces shaded completely in pink are the ones for a featured garment in the magazine, unfortunately not the one I chose).
But persevere.  Once the pieces have been located I use highlighter to go over the lines of the size that I want and to highlight any pattern markings, such as grainline, notches etc.  You can see the outline of the first piece for my dress highlighted in pink  across the bottom of sheet B.

Here in the picture below  the pattern markings are highlighted.  You can see I am highlighting piece 22.  Should you decide to make another garment using the same pattern sheet make sure you use a different colour highlighter to highlight that pattern.

I highlight each piece one at a time and then trace it before going on to highlight the next piece.  To trace I use ordinary greaseproof paper, cheap and easily obtainable from supermarkets.  The drawback is the limited width but you can always tape a bit on if  the width is insufficient.  When tracing I find it useful to put something solid on which I can rest my tracing hand, this both helps to stop my hand from shifting the paper and provides an extra weight to keep the paper and pattern in place.  My grader's set square is ideal for this, see the picture below.

Below is the traced pattern on which I have marked details such as fold line, gathering points etc. and size, model number and which issue of the magazine it came from as I shall add it to my file of traced patterns in case I wish to use it again.

Patterns in the Burda Style magazine do not have seam allowances included so you have to add them yourself where necessary.  This does mean that you can choose the seam allowance you want, narrower or wider than the standard 1.5 cm for seams and the depth of hem allowance you require.  I use the grader's set square to mark the seam allowance for any straight lines and a seam gauge,as below, to mark the allowance on curves.

Then, at last, I have my pattern pieces complete and ready to cut out with paper scissors before laying on my fabric.  All this took one and three quarter hours, although that does include stopping to take even more photographs of the process than you see here.  And then I went for a tea break, as I am about to do now.  Part 2 to follow later.