April BrudaStyle challenge (with a bit of help from Colette!)

So this is a bit of cheat, being a hack of a shirtdress from the April issue of Burdastyle and the Colette Hawthorn.  This is make number 4 and  probably my favourite  so far for Hila's Burdastyle challenge

So what happened was I was about to start to tracing from my April Burdstyle when I finally noticed that the pattern I had chosen was a "tall" sized one.  Being only 5'4" this wasn't going to work, then it also occurred to me that the bodice and collar were almost identical to the Colette Hawthorn.  So I used the Hawthorn bodice and sleeves, just including the tie from the Burda dress and adapting the skirt to have the high/low hem of the Burda dress.

I used the Hawthorn size 8 pattern which was a really good fit.  I did raise the waistline by
1".  Looking at the photos this may not have been necessary at the front, but the back needed a touch more .... mm bit of a conundrum there.  Is that because the front is rising due to my bust, and I needed a fba?

I like to try clothes on throughout the making process to keep checking the fit and decided that the back hem dipped just too low.  Believe it or not I took about 4" off the length at the back and reshaped the curve.

As you can see the skirt is very full (and coincidentally the Hawthorn and the Burda were almost identical in shape).  I wouldn't want to hand hem it and  I chose to topstitch in a chocolate brown thread.  Fitting the sleeves was a bit of a challenge.  Looking at some reviews the sleeves looked a bit puffy, so I took around 2/8" off the sleevehead height.  Having narrow shoulder I also needed to reduce the shoulder width by 3/8".  Despite all this the sleeveheads seemed large and they were hard to ease without gathers.

While I like the look of the Hawthorn collar, I think it is a difficult one to fit and you can see below it is standing up a bit.  I takes a lot of notching to get it even this flat!  I do like the centre part though.

I love the tie, it gives lots of waist definition, and it could be added to a lot of styles, I may well use this again.    Overall I do like this dress and though I probably won't make it again, it is comfy and from most angles quite flattering.  The fabric is a mocha heavy chambray, 100% cotton and a great price at only £4 a metre.  Sews well and has a bit of a linen looks about it.  As you can see from the photos though it does hold creases, sometimes when you don't want them!  It's from Fabworks and still available.

After a busy week, Dan came home and we had a lovely time at a Tom Paxton concert and then on Saturday in the garden (Rosy loved having him home too).