Oh so pensive.  In a dress that fails because it’s unlined, exposes too much middle aged back and is too narrow at the hem to allow me to vault anything other than the squattest of walls.  One never knows when the need to vault might arise.  As the material might just be my most favourite (from Kim at Worn and Washed) I thought that I would try to save as much of it as as I could.  My plan was to make this Burda shift.  That’s a couple of days that I’ll never get back.

A sack with pretty straps is still a sack.

we really are in House Elf territory here.  Good job I changed my mind and made something entirely different for our trip to the Hogwarts bridge:

I always seem to go off piste, where was it this time?

• I used a single piece collar from a shirt pattern in Burda Easy Spring/Summer 2013.  I can’t be doing with fiddly twiddly two piece collars.
• I didn’t interface the collar or the button stand.  I can’t be doing with stiff collars either.
• I substituted shirring elastic for the recommended 1/4 inch elastic on the sleeves.
• The fancy stitching down the button stand was all my idea.

Obligatory Sewing Error(s)

• The original dress was shirred and parts of the fabric retain a hint of shirr, particularly the sleeves.  Not an error as such but something to bear in mind when cutting out from foraged fabric.
• Having said I’m not keen on the stiffness interfacing can give to a collar, I think that if I had my time again, I would interface this button stand.

Sewing Insight

• Boy oh boy, it takes a long time to choose the best buttons.  At least an hour for this here shirt.  And setting in sleeves?  More like an hour and a half.

Verdict on the Susan Scale?
Susan Boyle
Susan Vega
Susan Sarandon

sleeve detail