One More Summer Dress

First, thanks to all of you for your nice comments on my adjusted dress form, and your links to your own methods of making a personal dress form! Next time I have to do something like this, I will probably try one of the methods you suggested, as they all seem to be quite promising. For the moment, I will check out how good mine works, and see if fitting is now easier.
My dress form still doesn't have name. At the moment I just call her "dress form". Any suggestions?


You can never have too many summer dresses, and we still have really warm weather in Switzerland, so I decided to make another summer dress before autumn. Also, I had bought this cotton sateen with a nice retro print, which is waiting patiently since spring to be turned into a dress.

I chose a pattern from an old Burda magazine, it's no. 124C from the may 2007 issue.

When I tried on the muslin, I noticed that the neckline is quite deep. A lot too deep for my taste. So I changed the neckline, but didn't make another muslin. I will see how it will turn out.

The skirt looks quite full on the technical drawing, but on the photos in the magazine you can see that it is full at the waist where the pleats start, but that it is quite narrow at the hem. So I cut and spread the skirt pattern in the middle of each pleat to get a bit more volume at the hem.

No muslin for this part, again. I think it will be a bit of a surprise how this dress will turn out!

Unfortunately, sewing is progressing slower than expected.
I underlined all the bodice parts with silk organza, to get some more stability. Boning would work well with this pattern, but I don't want to have boning in a summer dress for everyday wear in hot weather. I will also use cotton for lining, as it feels better directly on the skin, especially on very warm days.

The Burda pattern calls for some piping on the bodice and waistline seams, made from bias tape in a contrasting color. Well, I wanted to use glossy sateen bias tape und couldn't find a matching contrasting color, so I used a hello one.

And I didn't like it. The yellow color doesn't accentuate the seams enough, and the sateen bias tape is very stiff. So I ripped the seam and went to buy ordinary cotton bias tape in blue, which is still not matching perfectly, but looks better than the yellow one and is easier to work with.

This is what I've got so far, and from today on, it's getting cold around here, and it seems that summer is over before I will be finished with this summer dress. This happens to me every end of summer or winter, I'm always a bit late with my projects. But never mind, I'll just wait for next summer!

I also have signed up for the Cose Conmigo/ Sew along which is hosted by Sonia from La pequena aprendiz, which takes place this week, to make the nice red dress of Burda 8/2012.

I will have to start a bit later, but I hope to finish the last summer dress by end of the week. This will be the start for autumn sewing!