Silver party dress: BurdaStyle 12/2010 #130

I didn’t intend to make another party dress but a bit more free time than I was expecting on the weekend prior to a gala dinner in November, some old Burda magazine pattern perusing (I was looking for a blazer pattern for sensible sewing. Yes really!) and delightful fabric in my stash made me do it.

Reproduced from the German BurdaStyle website: https://www.burdastyle.de/produkt/magazin-schnitt/kleid-12-2010-130_2069911020990std

Look at this image. What more could you want? A party dress with great sleeves, a sparkler, multiple necklaces, a slouchy knitted hat and a man how clearly adores you! With glasses! What’s not to love?

Line drawing from the Russian BurdaStyle website: https://burdastyle.ru/vikroyki/platya/plate-burda-2010-12-130/

Finishing the hem at midnight on the day before the event – which was, of course, in the middle of the working week because it was a corporate event – did make me question my judgement.

I didn’t add the contrast hem band. Very happy with how it turned out though.

The fabric is a wool and metallic boucle that came from @pinpoint_textiles through the Adelaide sewists fabric swap this year. Thanks Belinda. Its beautiful!

I underlined it with green bemsilk rayon lining from Spotlight. Green because I liked how it looked with the silver and underlining because its boucle and I was worried about it not holding up to stress.

You can see in the image below how I also stitched the underlining to the boucle through all the tuck and pleat markings in the sleeves. I did the same for the darts. Hopefully reducing any possibility of fraying and pulling apart at the seams to zero!

The sleeves are supposed to be gathered slightly onto a self fabric band that is turned to the inside and lightly elasticized. Using boucle for this sounded like a nightmare, so I used a premade satin bias strip from the stash instead.

I sewed it onto the sleeve before I sewed the sleeve seam, leaving a small section unfinished, sewed the sleeve seam, inserted the elastic and then finished the opening by hand.

I faced the neck with an interfaced black poly cotton remnant. Sometimes I remember to sew the interfacing on first and then turn it over and fuse it. I did this time. It makes such a neat finish that I wonder why I don’t always do this?

The neck trim is a strip of black powermesh from EOS stitched into the neck facing seam and then slip stitched down onto the dress once the facing was turned in. The pattern calls for piping, but I didn’t have any in the stash or inclination to make some.

I like the trim a lot more than I thought I would. Particularly happy with how it echos the shadow created by the vertical pleat in the sleeves.

I made this up as a size 48 bust, 50 hips, back to 48 at the hem. This is a size larger than I have been making recently, but its an older Burda pattern that seems to be drafted a bit smaller than the more recent ones, its delicate fabric and I wanted it to hold up to the strain at the side seams when seated.

I felt great wearing it on the night. And I have my very own adoring man with glasses.

We were under yellow lights – my hair does not look this colour, anymore

And, this story gets even better.

Within about 2 weeks of the gala event, my office had its end of year breakup party. It was a coolish day. Could I wear the dress again? The dress code was not silver dress, but.. I feel like I glammed it down enough with sneakers…

Cheers!