There was a discussion thread over on Craftster for doing a sew-along for the Almost Pollini dress pattern available on the Burdastyle website, available here.  The pattern is adorable, but unfortuneatly only comes in a single size, and it’s not quite my size.  I’d been thinking about recreating this dress, though, so when I saw the sewalong I thought it was time to give it a try and share my process for the other ladies who were thinking about taking on the resizing.  The way I did it was pretty easy and didn’t take too long.

I adapted my own bust sloped to fit the style of the pattern, only changing a few things from the original.  Instead of having the neckline facing be one continuous piece, I made the front facing a part of the front bodice piece, and made a second facing piece for the back. To use my version of the bust pattern pieces you can print out these photos on U.S. letter size paper.  This pattern fits about a 38 inch bust, but be warned! I made the original pattern too long. It will have to be shortened to fit the style of the dress. To fit me, I ended up shortening it to  the bottom of the side dart.  It’s an easy fix, just cut along horizontally to the bottom line.

Click these images to view full:

First, how the pages should layout when you’re ready to tape them together:

And here are the pattern pieces.  There are 8 in all:

Each image should be printed as a full sheet of paper.

The Making of: The Almost-Almost Pollini dress

Ok, assuming you’ve already printed out your Burdastyle Pollini dress pattern (I only printed out pages 8-9, and 14-25 since I wasn’t using the original bust and sleeve patterns. you can set that in the print dialogue) and the 8 images above, it’s time to resize the burdastyle pieces to fit the LauPre pieces.  This is really easy, but here are some images of how I did it.

The key to resizing the skirt is to know that the skirt panel seams should match up with the seams and dart lines of the bodice. Here you can see the original burda skirt panel side back, matched up to the new bodice back piece.  The skirt panel should hit the side seam and the edge of the dart.  The long arrow grainline printed on the skirt piece makes a perfect altering line, so cut the piece in two along this line.   Lay the edges of the pattern in place, and use some scraps of paper and tape to create your resized piece.  The yoke pieces will also have to be made to fit the width of the new bodice.

Remember when you cut out the pieces to add seam allowances to the Burda pattern pieces

I used 2 yards of fabric for the dress, but it was close.  I would suggest getting  two and a third, or even two and a half so you won’t have to do tricky piece cutting.  I ended up not having enough to double my yoke pieces….

anyway, once you have your pieces it’s really easy to put it all together!

Start with the bodice:

Sew the darts.

Fold the facings at the center front of the bust pieces to the wrong sides of the fabric and press.

Place the two press lines together, right side together, and sew a line, using the pressed crease line as a guide

Fold the facing against the crease and stitch along the neckline for each side.  Turn out the corners and press.

Attach the back facing piece to the bodice back.

Sew the front bodice piece to the back bodice piece at the shoulders, being sure to match up the seams for the facings.  Press the seam flat.

Attach the yoke pieces to the front and back.  The original pattern calls for interfacing, so use it if you like. You can see that I cut my yoke pieces extra wide.  I trimmed them after attaching them to the bodice.

Now add the sleeves:

Next you’ll make the skirt pieces.  Attach the skirt front sides to the skirt front center and the skirt back center to the skirt back sides.  Don’t attach the front and back to each other yet.  Instead, sew them into place below the yokes, making sure that the seam lines match up with the dart lines in the bodice.

Match up the right side, from the end of the sleeve to the bottom of the skirt and sew the two pieces together.

For the left side do the same except add a zipper in at the places indicated on the burda pattern.

All that’s left to do is hem the sleeve and skirt, and topstitch the neckline.

I hope this is helpful, feel free to contact me if you have any questions!