Burdastyle Ruffle Dress

I really wanted a floaty summer dress, in a nice drapey and cool to wear fabric.  It needed to be in a dreamy floral without being too twee.  The trouble was I had neither pattern or fabric in my stash.  I am trying really hard to make from my stash because to do anything else is somewhat wasteful when I have more than enough already.  In this instance though, the brief necessitated buying a piece that was sizeable enough for said dress.  I wanted this dress to be wearable most of the year so able to be layered with a cardigan and boots for winter wear and worn with sandals or sneakers in the warmer months.  At least this way, I was redeeming myself a little in the sustainability stakes.

Burdastyle patterns seem to be quite under utilized in the sewing community.  I know there are a few bloggers that make quite a few but really, they are few and far between.  Sometimes though, a pattern pops up again and again, and these patterns pique my interest.  Burdastyle 120 04/2019 is one such pattern.  I have seen a couple of lovely versions made of this dress.  It is ruffley, (which is not a word, I know, but it should be) without being too over the top.  I love this sort of dress!  The fact that it isn't too over the top also means it doesn't fall too squarely in the trendy category which is another tick for wardrobe sustainability.


It was about this time that Spotlight were having a big sale.  I spent several days trawling through their rather extensive and actually quite lovely rayon offerings, adding and removing items from my shopping cart each day.  I finally settled on this lovely pretty  navy blue floral rayon.  I almost bought a piece of pink floral which was stunning, but I felt made into a dress it may have really just been a bit too pretty for my liking.  To justify the postage, I also bought another piece of rayon which will be made into another dress in the New Year.

We all know the worst part about making Burdastyle patterns, and I have to say, tracing is not my favourite task either, but armed with a sharpy and sheet plastic, I think I have made the process as painless as possible.  This dress really doesn't have too many pieces to trace which is also a good thing.  

My measurements put me at a 40 and 42, which is the size I made, but I actually had to pull my dress apart at the last hurdle and run the side seams in 1cm on each side because it was way too big.  I know it is a loose gathered style, but I felt swamped in fabric and it really just made the waist too booffy.  (yup another not word, you are welcome).

The dress is designed with a waist seam but no shaping, so in reality this dress is just a slightly triangular sack.  Rather than make a tie belt, I added a visible waist casing to the outside of my dress; a tunnel of sorts to thread through a tie.  I like this finish much better than the tie belt as the dress does not shift when worn.   I made a bias strip to finish the sleeves, rather than turn and top stitch.  I feel this gives a neater finish.

This dress was really quick to make up if you exclude the time I spent unpicking and running in.  I think the most time consuming part was stitching the 50 gazillion buttonholes I had to make down the front and sewing on the buttons.  Sewing buttonholes is perhaps my least favourite part of making anything because of the risk of catastrophic failure.  There really is no coming back from some of those!  Fortunately this time though,  luck was on my side and my machine did a fantastic job.  

I sat down one morning over breakfast and sewed on the navy shirt buttons with some pale blue thread for interest because I had it in my head to wear my new dress to work that very day.  Nothing like a bit of time pressure on a Monday morning!

Would I make this pattern again?  I have to say probably not, as I have no need for more than one such dress in my life.  This issue of Burdastyle will get another airing though, because there are a few patterns in there that have drawn my attention so watch this space!