First things first, what will you need to sew yourself the Shirred Dress from the May 2014 issue of BurdaStyle?
SUPPLIES
- BurdaStyle 05/2014 issue OR the digital download of this pattern, which you can find here in English and here in German.
- Suitable fabric - anything really that can be worn as a summer dress. I recommend fabric which isn't too stiff, as it will be easier to shirr. You will need about 2 meters of 140-150cm wide fabric.
- Shirring elastic to match the colour of your fabric. It's usually only available in white or black, so choose whatever looks best with your fabric. To err on the safe side I would get 2 spools.
- A fabric marking pen or chalk pen or chalk that is clear and easy to see and will definitely wash off. The pink pen you see in the picture is a Pilot FriXion pen. Bring the heat of the iron close to the marking you made with the pen and it vanishes. Brilliant pen! But be careful and test first. Also not suitable if you have to see markings after applying heat.
- Tissue paper, tracing paper or baking paper.
- Additionally you will need some matching thread, and the usual tools of the trade, including suitable iron-on interfacing.
Today, I'm going to guide you through finding the right size and tracing your pattern from the magazine. I will not cover how to piece together the PDF pattern if you have downloaded your pattern online. There are plenty of tutorials on the blogosphere on working with PDF patterns, for example, here on the BurdaStyle site.
I'm more interested in helping you find the notoriously-difficult-to-trace pattern pieces, so you won't be scared of BurdaStyle issues anymore in future. It's really not that bad and I'll show you how to find your size and the right pieces to trace.
LOCATING THE SEWING INSTRUCTIONS
Below the photo the magazine tells you the number of the dress, the sizes it comes in, and shows you a handy little technical drawing. See where it says: "TAILORED DRESS 133, BURDA SIZES 34-42"?!
Armed with the knowledge that the dress has the number 133, we can easily find it in the instructions booklet printed on recycled paper in the centre of the magazine.
Are you with me? Have you located the dress instructions on page 19 of the instruction booklet? Excellent!
The instructions tell you what kind of and how much MATERIAL you need, which is 1.90 m for size 34, 1.90 m for size 36, 2.00 m for size 38 and so on. That's what the list of numbers divided by hyphens means.
Then it says you'll need "Vilene/Pellon G 785", which refers to iron-on interfacing. Vilene/Pellon is a brand. G 785 is a type of iron-on interfacing made by this brand to suit lightweight dress fabric used in this project. Of course, you can replace that with any suitable iron-on interfacing. The amount required is not stated. You will have to figure this out yourself once you have located and traced the pattern pieces that need to be interfaced.
And lastly, the instructions tell you that you need elastic thread, a.k.a shirring elastic.
That's as much as we need to know right now as we will do our PREPARTION first, which means tracing our pattern pieces.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT SIZE
Compare your bust measurement with the chart on page 4 of the instruction booklet and find your size. If your cup size is above a B/C-cup, take your high bust measurement and use this to find your size.
For example, my bust measurement is about 102 cm, so I would be between a size 44 and 46 according to the Burda size chart. However, I am a G-cup, so I use my high bust measurement instead. My high bust measurement is around 95 cm. That makes me a size 42. I will therefore use size 42, but will remember that I will have to add approximately 6 cm to the bust of the pattern, once everything is traced. 6 cm is the difference between my actual bust measurement (102 cm) and the bust measurement of my chosen size 42 (96 cm). I'll show you how to that later on.
FINDING THE PATTERN PIECES
It tells you that you will need to trace four pattern pieces and shows you the shape of each pattern piece. Pay particular attention to what is drawn onto each pattern piece. You can see the grainlines (lines with arrows) and notches on each of these patterns. This is a guide for you to highlight what you must trace from the pattern sheet. This means that it isn't enough to just trace the outline of the pattern, but you must also trace the other lines and markings shown on the diagram. This is very useful as it shows you where on the pattern piece to look for all of these lines, which can sometimes be hard to find on the pattern sheet itself.
The box also tells you that the pattern is found on sheet D and that it will be printed in a red line. The pattern piece numbers you have to look for are 21, 22, 23 and 24. The design of the line you have to look for to find your size is also shown in the little box. Size 34 is a solid line with dots, size 36 a dashed line, etc.
So, armed with everything we need to know, let's find the pieces on pattern sheet D and trace them. It takes a bit of patience but you will find your pieces and manage to trace them. The numbers around the side of the sheet (in the example below a red 3 and a blue 21 is pictured) can help you locate the right pieces. Remember we want numbers 21, 22, 23 and 24 printed in red.
For tracing I either use tissue paper (as available from Burda) or if I don't have tissue paper to hand I use baking paper, as it's easy to find and cheap.
So, even if you have a pattern tracing emergency on a Sunday, you can just pop down to your local 24-h super market and get some baking paper.
It's good to weigh down your paper with some heavy items you have lying about, as it keeps the paper from slipping around.
Don't forget to trace your grainline. Remember, it looks like a long arrow and why it is important you can read about in this great article on The Cutting Class blog. Once you have traced the pattern pieces, do not cut them out yet!
Fold them away neatly and wait for the next instalment, in which we will finish preparing our pattern pieces for cutting out and sewing! Weehee!