At the time of publication of this post, it’s the week of the release of edition 20 of Fibre Mood magazine, which means I’ve got a pattern from it to share with you!

So, this time, it is the Fibre Mood Nina Dress.

Disclosure: I received a PDF of this pattern for free in exchange for making it up in advance of the magazine’s release and sharing the garment. The views, time and money spent on printing, fabric and notions are all entirely my own. I also have a fully paid up subscription to Fibre Mood, paid out of my own pocket.

I was instantly drawn to the Fibre Mood Nina because it struck me as just such an interesting pattern.

The crazy “wings”! The wide shaped front waistband! The open back! The elastic in the back waistband!

And did I mention it has pockets (such a simple thing but it makes so much more enthusiastic when I know I can just use provided pockets, rather than have to go rummaging around to find pockets to add from another pattern!)?

All in all, with the Fibre Mood Nina there was so much going on that I didn’t quite know where to look.

It just struck me as having a bit of WOW factor!

It looked like a really fun and unique summer dress and I simply couldn’t resist giving it a try.

My version is made in gingham linen from The Fabric Store.

Got your back!

Can we talk about open back garments for a minute?

I have never really worn many but, somehow, have always really liked the idea. I guess, for myself, when it comes to showing a but of skin, upper back is probably the area where I am most comfortable going for some vitamin D collection!

So I’ve always liked the idea of exposed backs but have often questioned execution. Some patterns I have seen look like they just go too far down (let’s keep it to the upper regions, please!). I have also tried on RTW backless garments that just slide ridiculously off of my sloped shoulders.

So I was very happy to see that the Fibre Mood Nina exposed the upper back only and inlcuded top ties to keep everything in place.

At a purely practical level, I would note that if you don’t want a visible bra (not that there’s anything wrong with that – rock a visible bra if you want!), the Fibre Mood Nina kind of requires going bra-less. Or use some kind of stick-on or backless contraption. Not really an issue for me, but I have a small bust that lets me get away with it. So just thought I would mention this potential “limitation” in case it is of relevance to others.

Although I guess it’s rather obvious!

My Fibre Mood Nina and Pleated Perplexity

My Fibre Mood Nina Dress is the UK size 16, with no modifications. Fibre Mood patterns usually cater for a maximum hip size of 145cm (57inches)

So I absolutely love this finished Fibre Mood Nina. It feels swirly/twirly, modern and slightly edgy all at once. It is a great dress.

But I would warn that it wasn’t an easy sew for me. I definitely needed to pay attention. No mindless sewing on this one!

The Fibre Mood Nina is constructed with a traditional bodice underneath (shaped with darts at the front), to which you then attach over the top the front and back “wings”.

One of the reasons I really needed to pay attention when sewing was that these pieces were just so unusually shaped and, together with the slightly different shape that came from being backless, I couldn’t visualise how everything was going to come together.

There was one step of the process that I just found downright hard! That was pleating the front and back wings.

If you check out Fibre Mood’s version of the Fibre Mood Nina dress it will be pretty evident that my pleating just doesn’t look like it’s supposed to. I simply really struggled with this step. There are no markings as to where the pleats are supposed to be. The instructions tell you the size of each pleat. It tells you approximately how many pleats you should have for your size. And then it tells you to pleat your wings until the side seam is the same length of the bodice seam it will be attached to.

Sounds easy, right?

Well I struggled to figure out how to get my pleats evenly spaced. I started several times but found that I was getting my bodice to the final length it was supposed to be even if half of it wasn’t pleated yet. I found it hard to keep the spacing even. Although I unpicked and started again several times, I definitely had to widen the spacing between my pleats as I progressed down from the shoulder. On the front piece only, due to its shape, I wasn’t really sure if my pleats were supposed to be fully horizontal or if they should run parallel to the shoulder line which gave them a more diagonal shape, as you see here.

You are also expected to figure out for yourself how to start at the top sewing your pleats down for 7cm and gradually extend this until the bottom pleats run the length of “almost” the entire piece. (Hint: don’t take almost literally, I ended up having to unpick the ends of my bottom pleats because I’d sewn them too close to the edge – leave yourself probably about an inch and half between the end of your longest bottom pleats and the edge of the fabric. This is needed to enable you to navigate the hem easily).

Now, the most important part of sewing is maths and I did actually try to calculate how much distance I should leave between each pleat.

But I messed up my calculation and it just didn’t work.

So, I’m sure it is totally do-able, but personally I needed a bit more hand-holding in the instructions in order to get my pleats to look anything like the ones in Fibre Mood magazine!

I decided part way through that mine didn’t look the same but I liked how it looked anyway, so I just went with it.

But you can see that by the time I’d gotten to the back, I’d kind of had enough and have gone for a rather simplified version of the pleats.

My advice would be to start by pleating the back, not the front. As the shoulder seam is more horizontal, it is easier to get your pleats horizontal. So start with the back to build up confidence and experience before tackling the front.

Also, I would highly recommend doing each piece one at a time. That way, if you realise you’ve messed up the pleats you don’t have two pieces worth to unpick, as you would if you had done them simultaneously.

Finally, I was informed that Fibre Mood would make a video to help with the pleating step, so if you find this post in the future while trying to figure out how the f*@k to create these pleats, go have a look on their website to see if there is any tutorial or further guidance available!

The rest…

Trying to get this pleating right and ending up with my own creative variation on it instead, was the only part I found actually difficult.

The rest of sewing the Fibre Mood Nina did require some concentration, but here I found that following the instructions to the letter – even if I couldn’t quite envisage what would happen next – worked just fine.

So I wouldn’t suggest taking on this project exhausted and cranky and late at night. Nor would I suggest “winging it” too much.

But for me, it is all entirely worth it.

Now I just need some sun and a damn picnic!!!!