Endless combinations... piece one ... Burdastyle 06-2011-139 dress

I had hoped and am still hoping I might get an entry into the Endless Combinations Contest on Pattern Review.  However it has taken me 4 weeks to get the first piece made... so now I have 2 weeks to get 3 more done.  I am not giving up yet.

I had a pile of fabrics chosen for my pieces and you can see the black and cream jersey is dying to be a wrap dress.

Well I had actually chosen another pattern off burdastyle for it, but I don't have the issue it was in (not being a current subscriber) so I planned to download it.  Well the sewing gods had other ideas and the Burdastyle download was broken for a few days so it gave me time to think about it more.  I decided the pattern I had chosen needed a heavier knit and I should look for  a new pattern for my fabric.  BTW the Burdastyle download did get fixed and I was offered a coupon code to make up for the fact so I still got the other pattern... surprised? ... can't have too many frocks... or frock patterns!

So I had time to think and decided a wrap dress would be perfect and went looking for inspiration.  The ultimate wrap dress inspo is a DVF dress, oui?  How about this...

This would be perfect for my fabric, don't you think.    This is  the DVF Julian wrap dress and is divine with a capitol D.  However well out of my budget. This is why we sew. 

I have made DVF inspired wrap dresses before but the skirt in these patterns is fuller.  This more modern version has a narrower skirt, which I really like so I started looking for a pattern.  I am trying not to add to the stash so looked through the patterns I already owned and a pattern from Burdastyle caught my eye.  It is 06/2011 - 139 a designer pattern. Blumarine to be exact and this picture shows the blumarine dress compared to my inspo pic. 

The skirt is narrower but a few changes needed to be made.  This is what I ended up doing to make it more like my desired dress:

- I left off the collar. 

- I narrowed the (trumpet) sleeves and made them 3/4 length. 

- I raised the curve of the front neckline by 3". 

-I attached the ties higher and correspondingly raised the side seam gap which the tie passes through.

Not a style adjustment but a fit adjustment - I added more width to the bicep.  I am not sure this is an adjustment I normally make to a Burdastyle pattern, or whether it is because it is a "designer" pattern, but I am happy with my changes as my arms don't look like sausages in a too tight casing!

A few of these tips I got from reading the reviews which were pretty positive.  I ended up making a muslin to check my changes and was happy with the result so went ahead with my dress which really is a quick dress to make.  I am not so sure why it took me so long to make this dress, but I think I had a lot of self doubt about all the changes, but I am pretty happy with the result.  Not an exact replica but I hope you can see a touch of the inspiration dress...

I haven't got "proper" modeled photos yet but have a wild hope I can get the three other pieces made before the end of the contest and will get my photos better organised then.  Wish me luck!  Ciao kittens... piece 4 sewn out of order next...