If there is anything that symbolizes the impossible, it is a natural blue rose. A true color blue just isn’t genetically possible for the thorny flower. The closest color naturally or scientifically created ends up as a lavender, or violet, or a sort of mauve-ish pink. Sure, you can dye or paint a rose whatever color you may want, yet science has been beat so far when it comes to growing a rose in an azure tone.
This is why a blue rose mural is the perfect backdrop for a finished sewing creation which was so very challenging for me to make. I seriously had the “what if I can’t figure this out” thought during the construction process to my dress. I was terrified I had met the project which would beat me. As you can see, I ended up working through it successfully! Besides, this dress is also another 1950s Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” motivated outfit as a follow up to my previous post. I cannot just have one princess inspired garment, when it comes to my favorite Disney film, for my “Pandemic Princess” series! The blue rose theme also lets my choice of color for Princess Aurora’s gown be quietly known. As much as I love the color pink, her enchanted sleep was taken and awakened in her blue dress. With her blonde hair, Aurora needs to leave the pink dress to Ariel, the Little Mermaid, in my opinion.
White may be thought of as a ‘neutral’ or blank color but the funny thing is, I find it hard to find a pure white fabric that doesn’t have a blue undertone. This is a true rarity from a sewist’s perspective! Only recently have I found out this occurrence is either due to a fabric treatment called “bluing” or an accumulation of acid in the water from deteriorating pipes. It is hard to escape the frequency of blue in my wardrobe, even when wearing white apparently. I went along with the theme and wore my blue tulle 50’s poufy slip underneath for full vintage drama. With the subtle blue tint to the white, the wild rose flower all-over print of the fabric, and the elegant lines to this full-skirted, pretty frock I have an outfit that makes me feel like a princess in more ways than one. The fact it is a hard won accomplishment to even be wearing this makes the wearing of it so much sweeter of a treat. I found a different kind of ‘blue rose’ that is attainable…and I absolutely love it.
THE FACTS:
FABRIC: a super soft but thick Indian cotton bedsheet set
PATTERN: Burda Style pattern #121 “Jacquard Dress” from February 2020, a ‘re-issue’ of a July 1957 “Burda Moden” design
NOTIONS NEEDED: lots of thread and one zipper
THE INSIDES: cleanly bias bound
TIME TO COMPLETE: Not counting the time to trace and assemble the pattern, this dress took about 10 hours to complete. It was finished on August 7, 2020.
TOTAL COST: This bedsheet set was picked up at a thrift sale for $1.00…pretty awesome, right?!?
From the get-go, there are a few hurdles that set this dress pattern up to be challenging even before reaching the sewing and construction stage. Firstly, the pattern pieces for this dress are out-of-control ginormous. They are rather awkward shapes, too. This was a big, exhaustive deal for me to trace out the pattern pieces form the small and cluttered magazine inserts. I spent way too many hours bent over on the floor, tracing lines onto see-through medical paper, and taping pieces together. The larger the pattern, the more I get confused over the lines, and there were several mistakes along the way. A scissor with a magnetic ruler guide helps immensely to quicken along the step to getting a Burda Style pattern prepped because I add on the seam allowances as I cut. An online version of the pattern would be a downloadable PDF that then needs to be printed out and assembled together, and this option sounded like too much paper for me to want to deal with.
Of course, all of these facts also mean that this design is a complete fabric hog. You can only choose a fabric at least 60 inches wide (or more) and need about 4 yards. A directional print or plaids were discouraged in the Burda info, for good reason. My use of bedding with an overall print was perfect here. It offered a lot of fabric in a wider width with a print that doesn’t overwhelm the dress’ design lines and all at a cheap cost. Opting for a reasonable material rather than using any of the nice fabrics from my stash eliminated any extra stress on me to not mess up on this project. The fabric was such a dense cotton it does have some structure to it – something very necessary for this dress – yet at the same time it is broken in enough to be so very soft and supple. Yet, being a bedsheet, I could not tell grain line, just the bias, so I just followed the hem as it seemed the tightest woven direction of the fabric. For this dress, cutting the bias correctly is almost more important than choosing a fabric with body, as the most interesting panels to this design are on the cross grain.
The Burda Magazine page sums this dress up as “a masterpiece” with its “couture draping at the neckline and waist…shaped in the fashion of a French triangular scarf.” This is not just bragging on the part of Burda as I have come across a few designer couture dresses that have similar design lines with the ‘wrap-around-to-the-front’ skirt pleats that are part of the back skirt’s fullness. Here is a 1950s Mingolini Guggenheim Italian couture gown and a golden 50’s cocktail dress from the RISD Museum of Costume and Textiles.
The old original Burda Moden summary is a hilarious but still wise call back to 70 years ago in the way it warns “Never wear it in the morning, never combine it with a sporty coat and only wear it with at least mid-heeled pumps!” To match, I am wearing reproduction “Miss L Fire” leather snakeskin and suede bow pumps and a vintage 50’s era netted hat. The earrings are vintage from my Grandmother and my pearl necklace is the same as the ones I gave to my bridesmaids for our wedding.
Let’s dive into the dress’s details, starting with the trickiest ones first! There is a full ¾ circle skirt, with two pleated panels on each side that are seamed in with both the right and left back skirt panel. Those panels wrap around horizontally from the side back, along the side waist, into and around the front draping. The paneled strips are on the bias and actually one piece (cut-on) with the back skirt…and thus there are no side seams whatsoever from the waist down here. At the center front, half of the back skirt’s incorporated panels (two on each side, remember) end by joining in with the waist seam. The other half suddenly opens up to become unrestricted, individual tube-like ties. These are then wrapped under and through the incorporated neckline drape, which is itself seamed into both the dropped shoulders and center front waistline.
The skirt panels eventually end under a deep front skirt pleat on each side of the center front. This way the entire front draping affair is one big interconnected “give-n-take” game, equally pulling on all parts of the dress and keeping everything in place. My brain is still blown away over all this, and also rather stretched thin trying to explain how magical this Burda retro design is. Not since I sewed this Jacquard dress using another Burda retro re-issue, which also happens to be from 1957, have I experienced this kind of intricacy in a pattern.
Under all of this complexity, the bodice is a basic dart fit. A good starting point, a blank canvas, is needed for every masterpiece, right?! There are several knife pleats in the back shoulders that open up to provide fullness for ease of “reach room” movement. They also then become a low-key mimic to the more ostentatious origami-like folds to the front drape. The center back waist has a pointed, lowered, dipped seamline, with an invisible zipper coming from that point up to the neck. This dress has a slight ‘train’ to it and dips longer in the back by a few inches, nicely countering out the weight of the front and opening the pleats.
I personally am not a big fan of the slight train. It almost looks like I merely hemmed the dress wonky. The train looks really odd when I wear this dress with a poufy petticoat, which I do on occasion when I desire a less of an over-the-top vintage appearance. However, wearing a fluffy slip underneath is the only way to do this dress justice, otherwise I would suggest horsehair braid or another stiffening method to be added in the hem. This is a couture dress – there’s no way around it, even though my version is in a fine cotton. This dress requires plenty of time to perfect its details and master the silhouette. There is no room for a half-hearted effort here, otherwise the dress will only turn out messy. This is not a project for the faint of heart!
It might be complex and fancy but this is also a dress which is comfy and very wearable, making the time and effort invested into sewing it very worthwhile. It could equally be paraded down a red carpet or worn to a nice outdoor picnic party depending on the fabric chosen or how you accessorize it. My one and only complaint is that the pattern’s sizing seemed to run smaller than usual. I had to let out the sides and center back seam allowances to a scant 3/8” for a close fit in the bodice. Otherwise, I wholeheartedly recommend this pattern in every way possible, even with its difficulties. It is not for a novice, or even an intermediate skills individual who needs more than a words-only instructional text. Yes, it may be a project that presents a challenge, yet it is worth it in every way when you end up with a dress like this!
What is your “blue rose” – metaphorically speaking? Do have a goal that seems an insurmountable hurdle, but you aim to conquer it? Good for you – that is a “blue rose” kind of aim. Do you also get annoyed at how blue all the white clothes end up? Also, what do you think a blonde girl looks better in – blue of pink? The funny thing is, these two colors were the choices (out of availability of the chosen dresses) I was down to for my wedding’s theme…and my two bridesmaids were both blonde haired. They wanted pink to wear over blue. I happily chose a soft pastel pink as the color scheme. I will be following up this post with one more (final) “Sleeping Beauty” inspired project…and yes, this time it is in pink!
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