Burda Style 05-2008-125

I finished this dress last Sunday, and it's taken me all week to find the right opportunity to take a photo.  Lucky for me, the sun came out today after a nice rain shower.  Not so lucky for me is the finished dress.

The dress itself turned out fine.  The linen/rayon/lurex blend fabric is perfect for this pattern.  I lined it edge to edge with black poly and it turned out very nice inside also.

 No, I just have a feeling that this is "not my dress."  The tech drawing is very nice.  But the finished dress is just not working for me as well as I had hoped.  The color is wrong for me- too light against my pale skin.  I might be able to fix that, though, once the weather cools and I can add some black hose and a cardigan. 
 

I love the high neckline, the sleevelessness (is that a word?) and the upper bodice which offers a great canvas for showcasing a statement necklace.
 

The waist seam on this is slightly dropped, and that, combined with the horizontal gathers across the front, makes my shape appear more rectangular than it really is, which is not the effect I was going for.

The front skirt overlay droops ever so slightly.  I worked very hard to get the gathers sewn into the dart just so, ripping out and re-doing it at least three times.  Here is a picture of what the dart looks like on the inside:

No matter what I did, though, I could not get the hem of the overlay to match up with the underskirt.  I finally gave up and decided to live with the slight droop.  It's not too bad. 

Here is a photo of the front princess seam.  I clipped the seam allowance right above the gathers so I could press the upper, curved part of the seam toward the center, and the lower part toward the side so the gathers would lay nice and smooth.

All seams were serged on both the fashion fabirc and the lining since both fabrics frayed like crazy.

I'm happy to have this dress finished so I can move on to something else.  I'll wear it, I just don't think it will be one of my favorites.