You can almost guarantee that when Burda puts out a fitted work-appropriate sheath dress, I’m going to make it. I always figure that if I’m going to put time and effort into making something, it should be something that I’m going to wear for years to come, and I can get my trendy, floofy stuff at the mall. (Though now that I think about it, I can’t remember the last time I went shopping for clothes. Hmm.) Although I’ve been going through a bit of a Burda dry spell, I’ve been just mad about dress 128 from the 8.2009 issue since the moment I saw it:

I’m also not the most imaginative of seamstresses. It’s often difficult for me to imagine the myriad possibilities for a pattern, so I tend to be especially drawn to making something when Burda hits it right on the head, as I feel they have with this dress in terms of fabric choice and styling. So what did I do?  I went out and bought fabric that looks just like the stuff that they used:

Unfortunately this was labeled with the ambiguous title “wool blend” with no further detail.  Grumble. It’s not the worst stuff in the world to work with, but I’m guessing that the wool in this fabric is taking a backseat to the synthetic, as it’s being pretty resistant to pressing. Sigh- puffy darts. Well, at least it will be wrinkle resistant!

So what’s so dangerous about this?  Well, I made an executive decision that may or may not prove to be a mistake. I didn’t muslin the bodice (or any of it for that matter, but muslining a not-very-fitted skirt sometimes seems like overkill). The pattern starts in size 36 and I graded down to my usual 32. I do this often with Burda sheath dresses and they have always ended up a great fit with no alterations.  So I figured this should fit similarly, right? Right? Right? Famous last words perhaps?

I guess we’ll see.  So far I’ve just stitched the darts (tracing the pattern out is tedious. Grading two sizes and tracing the pattern and adding seam allowances sometimes feels like as much work as actually sewing the freakin’ thing up!) and it looks ok thus far (photo makes the fabric look lighter than it actually is):

Yep, that’s black grosgrain ribbon next to the bodice front, just like in the picture because the Selfish Seamstress is not creative enough to think for herself!

Okay, go ahead and berate me for not making a muslin, and wag your fingers at the follies of laziness and the likelihood that I will have just wasted two yards of relatively nice fabric to make an ill-fitting dress that I will never wear. Tell me that I’ll be sorry later and I’ll learn my lesson the hard way. It’s nothing I don’t already know :D

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