Let’s start with a question.

Am I still participating in a creative hobby when I blatantly copy the designer’s sample garment?

The moment I saw this pattern and fabric combination on the Merchant and Mills instagram, I knew I had to make it mine.

Exactly as it was!

This doesn’t happen to me all that often and it feels a little bit like cheating – too close to RTW perhaps.

But I really don’t care on this occasion because I just adore this dress!

Luckily, I already owned the Trapeze Dress by Merchant and Mills, although I had yet to sew it. I’d purchased the pattern after a closet cleaning frenzy, when I decided that I would turn 3 old wool coats into a patchwork trapeze dress. But then, one of those coats did still fit me, even though I hadn’t been wearing it often, and it had such beautiful details that I chickened out and couldn’t bear to cut it up. And the remaining two coats alone wouldn’t provide enough fabric for my patchwork dream.

So the Merchant and Mills Trapeze Dress patterns had been quietly waiting for its next purpose to arrive.

When I saw this fabric, I had to have it. It’s a collaboration of Hannah Bould with Merchant and Mills and the colour, the simplicity, the super large scale – everything about it spoke to me.

When it arrived, it is a really thick and heavy linen, and is quite rough to touch. Definitely no Fabric Store linen softness here. But the design is so eye-catching that I’m a big fan anyway. Although I’m not sure how comfortable it would be worn right up against the body.

First timer

This Trapeze Dress was my first time sewing a pattern by Merchant and Mills.

The pattern comes with 6 different variations. Which sounds like a lot but isn’t really. Essentially, it can be sewn up sleeveless, short-sleeved or long sleeved, and with each sleeve variation you can choose between having a button closure at the back or no closure and simply slipping it on at the back.

I have made the sleeveless version without any closures.

My Trapeze Dress is a size 14. I was a tad dissapointed to see that the pattern didn’t come with a body measurement chart, only a finished garment measurement chart.

Since the garment has such a distinct shape and look, it would have been useful to know how much bust ease is recommended to obtain the look as set out in the gallery images.

In the end, I think my size guess turned out pretty alright. Next time around, I might remove a little bit around the centre back, as it is a little gapey on me there.

There were a couple of little things about the pattern as a product which I didn’t love.

For example, I have the paper pattern and it comes printed on 4 large tissue sheets. It’s pretty big, due to all the variations. But it doesn’t list anywhere which pieces are on which sheet, so you ended up having to unfold and refold all of them to locate the pieces you need for your variation of the Trapeze Dress.

And once you’ve unfolded them, good luck getting them to fit back in the envelope! Does anyone else always have that problem or am I just totally incompetent at folding?

The main thing though, is that there is no differentiation in the lines for each size on the pattern piece. Yep, every single size is simply drawn with a solid line and so you have to locate your size and be scrupulously careful as you follow it around.

The other thing that I might have expected from such a simple pattern would have been pocket options – either patch or inseam. I added inseam pockets to my Trapeze Dress, which, obviously, was very simple to do. But, perhaps, for beginners, who would likely be attracted to the simplicity of this pattern, including pockets already would have been nice.

Honestly, for me, as the indie pattern market becomes more fully developed and competitive, pockets are a bare minimum, unless there is a design reason that it is better not to include pockets – which I don’t see at all in such a roomy dress as the Trapeze.

My modifications to the Trapeze Dress

I made a few minor modifications to the Trapeze Dress for my version.

First, I didn’t sew the facing (for the sleeveless version an all-in-one facing is included) and simply bias bound the neck and armholes using pre-made linen binding from The Fabric Store.

This was motivated by the fact that I had the lovely bias binding handy, that I quite like a bias bound finish and, ummm, laziness. When I sewed this, it was my first sewing project in a month and I was very eager to simply get a quick win under my belt as I returned to my sewing practice.

To make this modification, I trimmed by neck and armholes down by half a centimetre to ensure that everything still came out the size as intended, even with my alternative finishing method.

The other thing I did was cut my back piece on the fold, instead of as two pieces. Due to the distinctive nature of the print, I was worried that if I didn’t pattern match perfectly along the back seam, it would ruin the garment. But I had a very limited amount of fabric which didn’t enable me to ensure that the pattern matching could be flawless.

It seemed to me that the best way to avoid the risk of eye-jarring pattern matching was to remove the centre back seam and cut the back on the fold. Since the grain line for the back piece runs parallel to centre back line, I couldn’t see any reason why I couldn’t do it this way.

I think I may have asked this question before but I am often confused as to why garments will have two pieces for the back rather than one cut on the fold. I understand that for some garments like a coat, this is necessary for strength, stability and mobility, but it’s never been clear to me if the same applies for lighter weight garments like this Trapeze Dress.

For example, my slight gaping at the back neckline – could that be caused by me having cut it as one piece not two? (I definitely remembered to remove the seam allowance when I cut it as one on the fold, so it’s not that!!). Or is this likely unconnected?

Cutting on the fold also fit in quite nicely with my ‘quick win’ aim, so I’m no complaining at all about the finished garment, just wanting to expand my knowledge…

With my little simplifications, this project was a one-evening number which gave me all the warm and fuzzies of being back at my sewing machine.

Plus, the dress is pretty amazing, right????

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. And you can find me on Instagram here.