Mortmain + Stripes

You know those times when fabric is such a bargain that you just HAVE to buy it? This dress is entirely down to one of those occasions.

I'd seen this fabric online ages ago - I really liked it, but it didn't fit in with my plans at the time and it wasn't the cheapest in the world so, after a bit of dithering, I decided to be good and leave it behind. Fast-forward several months, and I saw a link to a fabric sale where it was reduced to half price. I was sold, and instantly snapped up enough for a dress.

I was very tempted to make yet another Emery, but the fabric kept telling me that it would prefer to become a Gather Mortmain dress instead. As you can see, in the end I had to agree because I thought that it would be good to have the option of playing with the stripe direction on the waistband.

It had also been a while since I made a Mortmain (previous versions here and here) and, much though I love the Emery, it's also always nice to have a little bit of variety.

So the fabric...we already know it was a bargain, but what else do I have to say about it? I picked it up from Patch Fabrics; they don't seem to have this exact one anymore but they do have the green colourway. It's a peppered cotton, the stripes are woven and there's a slightly irridescent effect from the different coloured warp and weft threads, which you can maybe see a bit better in this close-up...

Excuse the slightly crumpled look (this was mid-sewing) and let's focus instead on the fabric -isn't it lovely? And I hope you'll excuse me if I pat myself on the back for that stripe matching. I love striped and check fabric, but I always hate it slightly when I'm cutting it out and giving myself a headache trying to get the pattern matching right. The extra effort is always worth it in the end though!

Thinking about pattern matching in sewing has made me really critical of print placement and matching in RTW clothing. I don't buy much RTW anymore (mainly because it's more fun to sew my own), but whenever I am in shops I find myself picking things to pieces! Does anyone else do the same?

Anyway, back to the dress...I'm pretty sure that it does fit me through the back in spite of what it looks like in the photo above. I'm going to blame those extra wrinkles on moving about pretending to be climbing the rocks and on the fact that, while it is lovely, the fabric does crease really easily.

Once I'd got past the hurdle of cutting it all out, the dress was a nice and simple sewing project. In addition to the fitting changes I'd made before (adding an inch to the bodice), for this version I also added two inches to the skirt. Although my first two Mortmains are an OK length, I do find that they've ended up slightly shorter than my other dresses. It's a small difference, but it's one that I do notice so I decided to do something about it.

I also omitted the sleeve cuffs for this version. This may at least partially have been to avoid more stripe matching! I just did a simple hem on the sleeves instead, but added a couple of inches to them first so that I didn't lose any length.

I'm pretty happy with this dress. I don't think I love it as much as some others, but I do like it and I can see it being worn regularly. I definitely prefer it when I'm wearing it with a cardigan like this to pick out one of the colours - I think it helps the fabric come to life a bit more. And I love it with this cute little bow brooch I found in a charity shop recently! From the 50% off fabric and charity shop jewellery, can anyone tell that I love a bargain?!

Mortmain dress & an ode to chambray

I mentioned in my post about my denim Lilou that using the remains of my first Mortmain dress for the lining had reminded me that I should make another version of this pattern. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to be honest as I really like my first version and I had definite plans for making a sleeveless version this summer but they never quite became reality, but I've now got a second sleeved version at least - better late than never!

There are a couple of differences between this version and my first one. Firstly, I decided to reverse the pleats in the skirt - this is one of the suggestions included in the pattern instructions and there's also a really helpful tutorial on the Gather website if you're not familiar with sewing pleats. I'm pleased that I reversed the pleats on this one, in some ways it's a small change but I think it makes a surprisingly big difference to how the dress looks and, much though I like Mortmain no. 1, I think I prefer the pleats in this one.

I also used a regular centred zip this time instead of using an exposed zip as the pattern suggests. I quite like the exposed zip on my first version because it's a bit of a contrast with the extreme girliness of the rest of the dress, but as a general rule I'm not a massive fan of exposed zips. Plus, in places where I've seen them for sale anyway, they cost about five times as much as regular zips!

My first version uses ribbon ties on the sleeves, and I really do love this feature, but it's not massively practical for wearing under cardigans, so this time I used buttons on the sleeve cuffs instead. The pattern has instructions for adding a small elastic loop to one end of the cuff to secure the button, but I found that I had enough space in the cuff to sew in a buttonhole, and I thought that would be more secure, so that's what I did.

OK, so the material. It's a gorgeous dot chambray by Robert Kaufmann that I got from Dragonfly Fabrics and I LOVE it. As you may have guessed from the title of this post, if I had any poetic talent I might even be inclined to start writing sonnets about it, that's how much I love it. The only thing I don't love about it is that it seems to be some kind of shy wallflower and doesn't want to show off how lovely it is to you because it doesn't photograph brilliantly so you might not appreciate it in all its glory, but trust me that the glory is there. I do love spots and dots, so that definitely helps, but aside from that the colour is gorgeous, it was lovely to sew and it feels so nice to wear. I'm seriously tempted to get some of the indigo for another dress. And as a bonus, the material came so beautifully wrapped that it felt like Christmas had come early!

Sorry if I sound like I'm going a bit over the top there, I possibly may be getting a bit carried away with myself, but it really is lovely fabric. I've also become aware recently that the difference between me just liking a finished garment or really loving it tends to be the fabric that I've used, and not so much the obvious aspects like the colour or the print, but the the quality of the fabric, the way it sews up and how it feels to wear. Does anyone else find that? It's not a particularly earth-shattering realisation, and probably one that that I have been a bit slow to arrive at, but I'm glad I got there all the same.

On a not-particularly-related subject, the photos for this post were taken in the grounds of the American Museum in Bath. My Mum and I popped over there last Saturday mainly because they have a Kaffe Fassett exhibition on at the moment, which was so inspiring. It's on until 2 November, so if you're in the area and you're a fan of colour I'd definitely recommend it. The only problem was that I came away from it wanting to buy huge amounts of rainbow-coloured material and yarn to make massive quilts and blankets to brighten up my flat (which is rented, therefore entirely painted in magnolia). I'd always been intimidated about quilting, and not really sure if I wanted to give it a go, but after seeing some of his work, I definitely feel like I should try it some time. I'm still slightly intimidated by the idea though! Any tips on how to get started?

Even once the Kaffe Fassett exhibition is over, the museum would still be worth a visit if you're interested in quilting at all, because they have a lovely collection of quilts and textiles. Plus, as you can see from these photos, the grounds are beautiful. Although I don't think there'll always be yarn-bombed lampposts to greet you, I think they're in honour of the exhibition!

To cut a long story short, I love this dress and I had a great day wearing it for its first outing. I still really like the idea of a colour-blocked Mortmain, so number 3 may be appearing at some point this autumn/winter. And there will probably have to be some more dot chambray in my life - it's OK to use the same fabric multiple times, isn't it?!

Gather Mortmain Dress

Just after Christmas, I picked up some pretty rose print cotton at a bargain price in the John Lewis sale. I had a plan of the dress I was going to make and it was all going to be great, then as I was working on other projects I fell out of love with the original idea for the dress. For some unknown reason I started to get oddly stressed about what to make with the material, but then I saw the Mortmain dress, which has recently been released by Gather, and my problems were solved! It's a shape that I knew I'd love, and the name is taken from the book I Capture the Castle, which was definitely a good sign as far as I was concerned. A couple of weeks later and the result is just what I hoped for...

Sorry for the random shadows, but hey, shadows mean that the sun is out which is definitely a good thing compared with how the weather has been lately!

Anyway, back to the dress...the first thing to say is that the packaging is really pretty (it also arrived the day after I'd ordered it which is nice when you want to get sewing!), the pattern is printed on slightly thicker paper than lots of patterns and the instruction booklet that comes with it has lots of really clear instructions and plenty of diagrams to help you along the way. The pattern is classified as being for ambitious beginners, which I'd say is just right - there are more details than in an average beginner pattern but the instruction book will hold your hand and guide you through them all so there's nothing to be scared of. 

The dress has a fitted bodice, separate waistband and box pleated skirt, and can either be sleeveless or the option which I made with 3/4 sleeves with cuffs. The main instructions for the cuff have you make an elastic loop to fasten onto a button, but there's also a tip in the instruction book which suggests using ribbon ties instead which sounded fun to me, so that's what I did...

This option probably wouldn't be to everyone's tastes, and it does make the dress very girly, but I love it! Oh, and excuse the stray bit of thread that I clearly didn't manage to remove before taking the photos. On the plus side, this photo does show the waistband nice and clearly for you - it gets a bit lost in this print but I think it gives the dress a good shape.

The Mortmain fastens with an exposed zip up the back - this was the only bit of the dress that I wasn't 100% sold on at the outset because I'm often not sure about how exposed zips look in general but I decided to give it a go and I'm glad that I did because it means I've done something a bit different for this dress. I think it helped as well that I found an olive green zip to use which goes with the leaves on the material. 

As for sizing and fit - I cut a straight size 14 and added an inch to the bodice (which is a standard adjustment for me as I'm on the taller side of average) but that was the only change I needed to make. 

Everything came together really nicely, apart from the moment when I almost managed to ruin things by somehow ripping the neckline part way through sewing up the bodice. Aaaargh! Don't ask me how I managed that because I really couldn't tell you what happened. Much to my relief, the rip was tiny so I just sewed the neck facing with a very slightly bigger seam allowance and disaster was averted - phew!

Overall, as you can probably tell, I'm really happy with my Mortmain dress. The general shape is similar to some of the other dresses I have made, but there are extra details to keep things interesting - the fastened cuffs are cute and I think the waistband is flattering. The pattern was great to work with so I'm looking forward to seeing what Gather come up with in the future and for now there are other Mortmain dresses emerging in my head - I think it would work well with some colour blocking and I've already spotted a fun print which would make a great sleeveless version for summer. Now let's just hope that this break from the rain will continue so I can wear my dress again soon!