This dress is another one made to fill in the “long-sleeved dress” hole in my wardrobe.  I liked this look of this pattern in Burdastyle (8-2015-116B) as it seemed both easy to make and easy to wear and with a bit of shape due to the gathered waist.  I wanted wool for warmth, but the pattern needed something drapey; this wool challis from Mood fit the bill nicely.  The fun print is even in my favorite colors, green and purple!

This pic was taken super quick on a phone while out at a coffee shop, so it’s not the best.

I quickly decided to dispatch with pattern matching, in favor of careful print placement on the body.  The sleeves are two piece raglan, and I did pattern match on the sleeves, even though it ended up costing me a bunch of fabric.  I had everything cut out, and then I realized that I had only cut one pocket.  I managed to squeeze a second pocket out of what I thought was a scrap, but actually turned out to be part of a sleeve.  That was pretty dumb, but at least I had enough fabric left to re-cut.  After my mishap, however, I had nothing but scraps left.  Oh, well, at least I have nothing to keep in my stash.

There is a seam there!

This pattern uses elastic thread shirring for shaping, something that I had never done before.  As with any new technique, I was a little hesitant, but it turned out to be pretty easy.  I pretty much just hand wrapped the bobbing and was good to go.  I didn’t even have to play around with the tension too much.  I gathered my waist a bit more than called for in the pattern, but I think it works fine.  I barely managed to squeeze the shirring out of one spool of Gutermann elastic thread (10 m), so you may want more than one just to be safe.  I really liked this technique and will for sure be using it in the future.

Not only did I make the dress, I also made the leggings, the sweater, and the purse.  Yay for making stuff!

The only significant change I made to this pattern was to narrow the neckline by 1 inch per side.  I hate wide necklines, but this was an easy fix.  Aside from the shirring, the construction is quick, so I could definitely see more of these in my future.  Yay for another long-sleeved dress!