Burda 6562

A good Monday afternoon to you all!  I hope your day has been as good as mine has been so far.  My day’s great because I made a new dress this morning, and even got it out for a picture or two.  Let me not give myself too much credit though.  I actually cut this dress out in January, I think?  Or was it December?  It has been hanging in my sewing queue since then, and I hadn’t really given it a second thought.  I had even traced out most all of the darts for the thing, so it’s not like there was a lot left to do with it except sew it up.

Just like I hate cooking in a messy kitchen, I hate sewing in a messy sewing room, and I get tired of seeing all these unfinished projects hanging up when I want to start something new.  I felt like I was in need of a new dress this weekend.  After that last make that I still haven’t quite fallen in love with all the way, I wanted something that would be a little more thrilling.  I thought to go with another Sew Serendipity Monique dress, but still had to rinse the fabric that I wanted to use.  I knew by the time I did a load of laundry, my sewing energy would be gone for the night.  I bit the bullet and dragged out one of those unfinished projects I knew I should get done.

Here are my thoughts on my version of a Burda 6562.

First thought, how on earth do I make those skirt pleats!?  I scratched my head on this one for a bit as I blankly looked at the instructions.  I even took to google to see if anyone had made this dress and had some insights.  I read and reread what the instructions told me to do, but still couldn’t make sense of it.  If I understood the illustration right, my guess was I had to sew the pleat closest to the fold to the pleat on the opposite side of it in a straight line down.  Then, I had to sew the pleat lines down instead of just pressing them.  Well, that is what I did and once I got done with it, I realized that I had figured it out.  That was the trickiest part of this whole dress, and everything else but the arms was a breeze.

The arms!  Oh, sleeves, you are my sewing nemesis!  I got them set in beautifully; not one single wrinkle or fold.  I tried the dress on, and the sleeve line was half way down my shoulder.  The dress actually looked like it had sleeves before I even put the sleeves in it.  So that wasn’t going to work and I started with the first of many seam ripped stitches.  I left the sleeves and went on to top stitching the neck with a double needle attachment on my machine.  Using a double needle worked great for me the first time I used it when I hemmed my boys work shirts, this time it looked sloppy and loopy.  Seam ripper to the rescue.  I put that aside and attached the skirt.  Perfect!  Now, it was back to what I had put off, the sleeves and the top-stitching.

No sleeves was the final decision.  Kind of looks like I have sleeves though, doesn’t it?  I actually really like the way it looks like this, and next time I make this dress – it’ll be a while – I won’t even bother cutting any sleeves out.  What was the hard part now was trying to get a decent looking hem.  I pressed it over, it looked too stretched out.  I used fusible interfacing on one side, it didn’t look that bad.  I tried using a stay strip, it ended up wavy.  I was at the end of my rope and about to just leave it serged, then I remembered I had accidentally cut out two neck bands.  I cut the extra in half, folded it and made a band for the hem of the sleeve.  Perfect!  Finally.

Now, the neck band on the other hand, it ended up loose.  I didn’t understand how this was supposed to be stitched at the ends with the instructions so I may have finished it wrong.  The neck looks loose, but I can live with it.  It almost looks like it should be that way.  At least my guy said so.  He told me when I was done he really liked the way the neck looked like that.  Um, thanks!  I should have just left it at that, but I tend to always point out my mistakes.  Oh, well, I kind of really like the way the neck looks too, mistake or not.

What I like the most about this pattern/dress, the pleats.  They look really neat, and I was trying to point them out in the picture, but it’s hard to see them.  It just looks like I don’t know how to pose for photos.

I think that my material was too stretchy too work with.  It almost could have been legging material.  It has some spandex in it I think and it is really heavy.  Next time I will go with a lighter weight knit and I think that will make all the difference.

Final thoughts: I’m not too disappointed.  It was my first time making a Burda pattern and I manged all right.  I will wear this dress, and I know it will even be a winter favorite with tights.  How can I even think of tights on a day like today though.  The humidity has been bad and we’ve been well over 100 with the heat index.  I am really looking forward to tights season right about now.

Thanks for reading!