Mamapicklejuice

After working for a month on my daughter’s mini-wardrobe, it was time to sew for little old me (well, little ole BIG me)…so I turned to Burda 8377.

Pattern

I had actually started on this pattern over a month earlier, but was plagued by first trimester exhaustion, cold weather (not motivating when sewing short sleeved garments!) and sometimes inscrutable Japanese patterns. As time is of the essence, I turned to my friend Deepika, who graciously agreed to help me “assembly line” a few garments together so I could enjoy them before it’s too late!

Here is the fruit of our labor (HA!):

I sewed the dress, and Deepika sewed up the top (I think my only contribution there was, um, cutting it out and sewing up the bodice side seams? Woo!)

A few notes on the pattern.

* I was using crinkle gauze (which has some give to it) so I used my pre-pregnancy size 12.

*Although half way through you might think you’ve just discovered the pattern inspiration for Mrs. Roper’s wardrobe, never fear - the gathering on the neckline takes it from gargantuan to charming .

* The pattern has you create a self-fabric casing on the sleeve (fold over the hem) and has you stitching on bias tape for the neckline elastic casing. Deepika suggested an alternative technique, which saved me the hassle of stitching bias tape to the neckline, folding it over, topstitching it down and then threading elastic, and finally handstitching the opening closed. Basically, we measured out the appropriate lengths of elastic for the sleeves and necklines, then sewed them in a circle. That done, we simply folded the edge of the fabric over the elastic, put it under the presser foot and voila, instant elastic casing. With the neckline particularly, since there is so much fabric to start, you might feel like you’re “running out of” elastic. Simply put the needle down (to anchor the fabric, and then push the fabric away from the bit of elastic that’s still near you - this picture illustrates it better than my clumsy description, I think.

* I will double check this, but I believe there is a printing error the sleeve pattern piece, indicating that there should be elastic casing on both where it attaches to the garment and at the hem. The error was not repeated in the instructions, but it still made me scratch my head a bit.

* While you can get away with a loose fitting tunic top, you really need the elastic casing under the bust for the dress, or you’ll end up with a muumuu. I did not like the indicated placement for the casing on the pattern piece, and for the next dress will lower it by a good inch or two.

* Thanks to speedy sewing, I forgot to sew the side vents on the tunic. I may include them on the next top - just for variation. It does not really affect the fit of the garment. If you are gaining a bit through the hips/rear, though, as well as the belly, you will definitely want to include them.

* I eliminated the drawstring under the bust on the dress and at the neckline of the tunic top. Note to maternity designers, not everything maternity has to have a bow on it! I simply just made an elastic casing instead, thus saving myself the headache of centering two buttonholes on the front of the garments. (Oh, and my buttonhole function is kaputsky right now.) Also eliminated the bias tape casing at the neckline, per Deepika’s suggestion.

* I have one dress and one top completed, and have one top and another dress in various stages of assembly. That’s probably it for this pattern, but the upshot is that while it is a pretty design, it’s not so unique that you can’t have more than one version of it. This is key if you’re sewing maternity clothes, as you can “assembly-line” sew a few copies of the same pattern, thus saving yourself time (you are sewing on a deadline, after all!).