This turned out to be quite a long post so I decided to split it. In this post I will mainly talk  about the main body of and the drindl – the dress – and in the next, I will talk a little about the apron that goes with it.

For a while now, I have been thinking of making a Drindl – which is the German name for the Bavarian traditional woman’s dress. I first wore one when I was on holiday in Romania last September and one of my friends was part of the organising committee for the Beer festival. She has a lot of these traditional dresses and was kind enough to lend me on of hers for a day. Ever since then I just wanted one for myself. At this point I started dreaming of  making one. But before I made one, I just had to  have one, so I bought myself one drindl from Germany, which I later used to get inspired and add little details to my own.

Knowing that Burda is a German company, and that Burda Style magasine sometimes features them, I though of starting there. I did find an issue with a drindl pattern in it (I think it was the issue I got in Romania – September 2015 ). The pattern I found was more of a dress in itself and did not have a pattern for the drindl blouse. Which was not really what I wanted, although the dress is beautiful as well. This means, I kept looking at the Burda website. In the end found patterns 7443 and 7057.  I bought them from my local store  and I was lucky that they already had them in stock. I did not want to have to wait. 

After some time trying to decide which one to do, I went with the Burda Young pattern, B7057. The technical drawing looked like it was the closest to what I had in mind. I could also imagine it as a dress that does not scream costume. So I decided for the main body of the drindl to use some dark brown corduroy that I had in my stash, which I still have plenty more (if it turned out to be a disaster , had plenty more to keep going again) .  It was the first time  working with Burda Young patterns. So I decided to  take a risk and not make  any changes to  the paper pattern. My measurements fit spot on their sizes! Everika finally one company that makes patterns just for me. Hope by the end of it I will be happy not discover I have to start again. 

I even ordered the little metal hooks from Germany. That’s only because I could not find them in UK. So I  had pay for the postage all the way from Germany (not the cheapest) and wait for them to come.  It  was a good thing that I ordered them way before I started actually making the drindl. I sewed them by hand once the drindl was  made. Using my ready made drindl, I decided to also sew in little buttons to secure the apron when wearing it! Isn’t it such a sweet detail? I had to have it in my drindl.   The pattern comes with the bodice pieces. For the skirt I made my own pattern using the instructions on the tissue paper. I made it as short skirt suit me better. The skirt is one long strip of fabric that gets gathered, with one one seam at the centre front.  You might think it took me forever to gather over 2.5 metres of fabric. But no, it took me less than 10 minutes. I used a trick I saw on YouTube . Follow the link to see what I did: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZKVOqHMzxA

The most difficult part it was attaching the main bodice to the lining. I used same fabric for the facing to give it more body and to mimic the ready made drindl (I could have used boning in the princess seams as well). The instructions were easy to follow for me. However, I did use mostly the diagrams. So no issues there. Some hand sewing was involved.       Once I attached the skirt to the bodice and added the lining to  it. I hand stitched the bottom of the lining on the inside so it does not show on the front.   It all went well, until I put in the invisible zip. Because I used corduroy there is too much bulk at the waist seam.  It looked perfect until I wanted to  try it on and cold not open the zip again  : (.  One of the zipper teeth just snapped and I had to take it out. It was clear to me at this stage that I have to reconsider my decision to use an invisible zip. (I now know that there are three types of invisible zips and two of them are stronger – I think I would have needed to use at least the medium wight). In the end I managed to  take the zip out without damaging the fabric.  It was so annoying as the first zipper went in smoothly and looked perfect.

  I decided in the end to use a normal black zip, centred. I made  a mistake when I put it in an one side is slightly higher. But I just could not bring myself to undo the darn thing and try again. Unpicking black on black is too much of a pain for me.

The overall fit of the main dress is perfect on me. Can’t believe it! It is not often that a pattern fits straight from the envelope. Can’t really show you how it looks on me, because my remote control broke. So you  have to settle with the dummy pictures.  I also like the fact that I can wear it with other tops and you can’t really tell its part of a drindl. I don’t really have many occasions to wear one.  Today I’ll show you the outfit I wore for New Years Eve party and in my next post the outfit with the apron.

I like the fit in the bodice so much that I will make a couple of vests and use open ended zips in the front. I so love the way it emphasises my waist. And if I decide to take to hooks off it will look even less like a traditional dress.