Here’s where I got up to today…

my basic bodice block no.1 (click on the image to enlarge)

Armed with my French Curve, my pencil, eraser, rulers, tape measure, roll of printed pattern paper, iPhone calculator app, and all 20 pages of instructions printed off the BurdaStyle.com website, I headed into Trish’s class this morning, ready to get to work. I managed to get through the first 29 of 32 steps of the construction process in class, mostly working on my own, but with Trish there to start me off, guide me through, make sense of the sometimes strange and not-always-so-wonderful instructional language, and definitely lots of that very important moral support. I got home and completed the last step, ie. drawing the waist darts, and now I’ll wait till next week so Trish can help me draft from the waist to the hips, as this part is omitted from Burda’s block.

From there, I’ll redraw the entire block on clean paper, and cut it out. Now, you know how I’ve been saying that I don’t really want to use this block to make myself anything, because I’d rather wait till I’ve dropped a couple several kilos? Well, I think I might change my mind on that. After all, I’m sure I can find some fabric that’s lovely and cheap enough that I won’t mind cutting into it, even though it may not fit me as the kilos are shed. I have an idea for a top I’d like to make, well, it’s rather more of a tunic, and I’m itching to give it a try!

As a review on the Burda instructions, I must say that, apart from the fact that Burda has decimated the poor old inch, and includes measurements like 4/5″ and 1/10″, it was really quite a straightforward process, one that is easily completed in a couple three hours. Any strangeness of language is more, I think, a matter of depth of understanding, rather than any shortcoming on the part of the instruction’s author. So, if you’re contemplating making your own basic bodice block, I can recommend this process quite happily. Use a pencil though, and have a good eraser on hand.