"Winter Skies" dress: Burda Kids 9503

I made this dress for Lavinia before Rosamund was born, but never got around to photographing it for the ol' blog. A few months ago, my mother-in-law visited an indie fabric store and asked if I was looking for anything specific. I requested cotton corduroy in soft colors for a winter dress for Lavinia, and she delivered! I got this pretty length of sky blue and I also have some light grey, perhaps to be made into something next winter. I used Burda Kids 9503 as a pattern and followed it pretty closely, only making a few changes (lengthening the dress to knee-length and making an elastic casing at the cuffs instead of sewing a cuff and placket).


The pattern itself is fine, but the instructions leave a little to be desired. I gather that Burda patterns are translated from German and they don't seem to be proofread very well! A few warnings if you want to attempt this pattern -- the bias binding for the neckline is way too short, as a few other reviewers have noted. Also, the button placket instructions are terrible. Unless you have done this sort of placket before, definitely practice on some scraps first! Otherwise, the dress goes together pretty intuitively.


For fun, I finished some of the inside seams with homemade bias binding, made from leftover scraps of softest blue dotted swiss.