Burda 7379, maybe done?

Hello all!  Let's talk about sewing today.  I decided to give Burda 7379 a whirl...  I'm a sucker for a great ruffle, and this one delivers.



I mean, really, check out this ruffle action (that is ruffle on gathered armhole action there).


And check out my "fake out sway back adjustment".  It's called using a belt and pulling up the part that should have been tucked in a swayback adjustment up and over the belt.  Here I did that poorly, but you can see the rufflage on the back of the dress as well.  (These thin straps are not hiding my bra strap, I might install bra strap holders).  (and I might cut across the back of the dress and do a real sway back tuck back there).


and a closeup of front rufflage.



So, there were a few things.
I used a knit fabric instead of a woven as per the pattern envelope.  I recall vowing previously to never do that again, on a different pattern.  I acknowledged breaking the vow and went ahead anyway.   This knit is from Metro Textiles, from Antoinette and my big NYC shopping day.  It is a thin knit and sort of wrinkles a little bit, which surprised me.

According to the pattern, the dress is supposed to be cut on the bias of the woven fabric.  I cut it on the grain since it was a knit, size 10 grading to size 12.
I tried the neck facing but it was kind of a disaster.  So I turned the edge over and twin needle stitched.  Looks ok.
The left armhole actually gets gathered too!  I wound up finishing off that armhole with single fold bias tape.  But the armhole is TOO big, especially compared to the right armhole.    Another great expression there.


So I sewed in about an inch there to take care of that problem.


Oh, and here's the ruffle in progress.  It's two big long strips of fabric, cut at intervals which I'm not sure was necessary.  and the directions were confusing for that.  The illustration did not match the pattern directions.  So I cut the bottom strip every 3.25 inches and the top strip every 2 inches which matches the illustration and made more sense to me.  However, I'm not sure that cutting the strips on any interval really would have mattered.

Anyway, these pieces are based with two rows of stitching down the middle, then gathered and sewn on to the top (and then that left armhole is gathered as well).


And here's a closeup on Emma, twin needle stitching and all:


Oh, and the directions.  I hated how the pattern adds SAs and then the directions say to "cut off SA at edge of neckline" and "cut off allowance at edges of armhole".  What?  When I gave up on binding the neckline I cut off some of that SA (while I was cutting off the binding, lol), but did not cut off allowance at edges of armhole. 


So, yeah, if I hadn't spent like an hour futzing with the neckline (installing neck band, removing neck band, tightening neck band, reinstalling neck band, waving the white flag and just cutting the neckband off, turning the raw edge over and twin needle stitching) I probably could have done this dress in about 4 hours.

So, I might do a swayback adjustment on this, and I might install bra strap holders.  Or one or the other.  Or neither.

Oh, and here is a cicada from last week, on the outside looking in


Be well and good night!