Watch out, we have a queue jumper! The Deer and Doe Myosotis Dress!!!

I think I have at least 5 sewing projects that I finished before this one, waiting patiently in the blog queue. But they shall have to wait a little longer, as I couldn’t wait to share my Myosotis dress!!

Myosotis: First impression madness

When Deer and Doe Myosotis was released, I thought “cute, but not for me”.

I don’t do ruffles. Or oversized. And I already have plenty of shirt dresses…

I was absolutely, definitely, totally not going to sew this pattern.

Then all of the lovely Sew My Style 2018 versions started popping up everywhere in May! I saw this version by Fiona Parker. And this linen version by Tasia.

And I started to think, hmmm, maybe…

Then I saw an ad pop up on my instagram feed for a RTW dress which incorporated stripes in interesting directions. And I thought, “that would look great with the Myosotis dress”.

(Aaahh, do you remember the good old days, when internet advertising was annoying but never actually tried to sell you things you wanted to buy. These days I am being constantly tempted… )

So, the concept of a striped linen Myosotis dress was now firmly embedded in my brain.

The only way to get it out of there, would be to bring it into existence.

The fabric is a super soft lightweight linen from The Fabric Store. I’ve gushed so much about their linens in the past, that I feel there is nothing more to be said about how wonderful it is.

But I really like that this particular fabric makes a great base for some playing with stripe direction. Its large-scale enough that you can see the directional effect, but, at the same time, fine enough that you would be crazy to worry too much about actual stripe-matching.

Which makes my job much easier!

Sizing up

The Deer and Doe Myosotis dress is designed to be oversized. My size, based on my body measurements, should have been a 42 at the bust and 44 at the waist. After checking out the ease charts, I decided to go with a size 40 all over.

Even at the size 40, I feel like like my Myosotis dress is still appropriately loose and oversized, I definitely wouldn’t want it to be any bigger. So make sure you check out the amount of ease before cutting!

This version is a mash-up of views A and B, with the ruffled tiered skirt of view A, but the sleeves of view B. Since ruffles are already a step outside of my comfort zone, I wasn’t brave enough to try the ruffled sleeves of version A!

The only other changes I made were to lengthen the skirt length to the length of the longest size on the pattern piece and to add some contrasting cuffs to the sleeves. I also used the selvedge as the hem, as I thought a little frayed finish worked nicely with the bohémien feel of the Myosotis dress. This means that I have no hem at all, which also serves to lengthen the skirt a little. I’d say that, overall, my skirt is almost a couple of inches longer than designed.

Let’s talk stripes

Playing with stripe direction is something that I’m always a fan of.

Let’s talk technicalities for a moment.

I’ve always understood that cutting out a pattern piece on grain and on the cross-grain doesn’t really make much of a difference (assuming the fabric isn’t a twill or something woven on the diagonal). Since the weft and warp threads are at right angles, the fabric will behave pretty much the same way on-grain as on the cross-grain.

Can anyone confirm if this is true?

So, switching between vertical and horizontal stripes is not a big deal.

But, then, let’s talk chevrons!

I really wanted a chevron effect for the bodice of my Myosotis dress. But, with this fabric, that meant cutting the pieces out on the bias, which can cause major differences in feel and behaviour of the fabric.

I’ve always wondered how this problem is solved in RTW. I feel that chevron shapes are very common in RTW, but I don’t feel that in RTW garments this effect is being achieved often by cutting the pattern pieces on the bias. Maybe RTW designers have access to the same fabric but with the stripes printed in different directions? Who knows?

I was a bit worried about the impact the cutting of the front bodice pieces on the bias would have. I thought that, since between the facing, collar, back bodice and skirt, the bias cut piece would be ‘surrounded’ by on-grain pieces, this might help it to behave.

In the end, I think it looks fine, but the neckline and collar hang a little more loosely than designed. I also had to place a button higher than normal, to help keep everything sitting OK.

I still think it’s worth it for the visual effect though.

This bias cut front bodice pieces did have some unexpected benefits. It’s a total breeze to ease your sleeves in when half of your bodice is cut on the bias. So much squidgy, lovely flexibility!

Out of the comfort zone

It’s bizarre, in fact, because the Myosotis dress actually incorporates a bunch of things that are not really my favourite things. Ruffles, stand collar, plenty of ease, gathers around the waist.

Normally these are things would leave me shaking my head, going “I don’t think so…”

But, somehow the Myosotis dress just works and I totally love it!!!

I think that’s a testament to great design, when the elements of a garment balance well, so that even if the elements don’t necessarily reflect your usual personal style, they just work so well together.

Gather ’round people!

The ruffles and skirt of the Myosotis dress definitely require quite a bit of gathering.

After reading the the great blog post on the Deer and Doe blog setting out three techniques for sewing gathers, I was inspired to try to gather using my serger. But somehow, it just didn’t work. A different thread would break on my serger every time I tried to do this. I’m sure it’s just a manner of getting the settings right on my specific machine. But, after you’ve had to re-thread your serger about 10 times, it no longer feels like this is a time-saving venture!

So I reverted back to the “mutliple lines of gathering stitches” tedium.

A small word of ‘don’t do as I did’ advice.

By the time of attaching my bottom ruffle of my Myosotis dress, I was tired and cranky.

My gathering stitches had taken forever because my bobbin had ran out of thread 4 (!) times in the middle of sewing the basting rows. That’s what happens when you try to use the bobbin leftovers in your drawer with the closest colour match because you don’t want to have to rethread.

My bobbin had just run out (again) and I could not face the thought of re-threading.

So I just attached the bottom ruffle directly using my serger.

Seriously, I kind of knew it was probably a bad idea. But, if in childhood you ever read the book ‘The Little Engine Who Could’, I was having a moment where I was just the rusty, tired old engine who could only puff ‘I cannot, I cannot, I cannot’. There was just no way I could handle re-threading that sewing machine…

So, sewing the bottom ruffle to the dress directly with a serger,  of course, kind of flattened out the bottom ruffles. Overall, it’s not a deal-breaker and won’t bug me too much, but it was a needless mistake.

So never attach gathers using your overlocker people!!

Something old…

 

Oh and how cool is this? I managed to re-use buttons which I had used in one of the very first dresses I ever sewed. It was a dress where I used a heavyweight linen which just didn’t work with the pattern. Plus it was way too short. And I pretty much never wore it. But I did salvage these lovely buttons and left them waiting in my sewing drawer for years.

Now, they’ve finally got their chance to shine.

So that’s about all that I have to say on this wonderful pattern. Thanks sewing community for tempting me to sew something I had no intention to sew.

When I asked my other half what he thought of it, he said it looked ‘fresh’. And that’s exactly how I feel in it, fresh and springy and light.

In fact, if I had to choose just one word, the Myosotis dress makes me feel playful!

And comfortable.

Oh so comfortable…

 

Oh and, finally, a little P.S! If you like to get your blog hits through Bloglovin’, feel free to follow me over there: you can find me here.