Maynard Dress by Elbe Textiles

I decided to dive in with my first version of this dress and use some Liberty yardage that has been sitting around for so long.  I planned to make this for a friend because I am short and I expected to need to shorten the pattern for myself, but I wanted to try it out just as the pattern was meant to be before modifying.

I made a Size B. I think size C matches my measurements a bit better but I expected to be pretty overwhelmed in this dress with so much in the way of crisp folds, and so I sized down.

I was very excited about the Maynard when it came out - cool concept!  Interesting design lines!  For some reason I wasn't that excited anymore when I cut it out - which I did awhile ago in a free moment.  My lack of enthusiasm persisted and means that the process dragged on.

It is not difficult to follow the instructions but because you have no idea what happens next it requires concentration (or is a constant surprise!)  It is important to use fabric that will behave with a double fold hem, as each piece is basically hemmed all the way round prior to uniting them.

The waist straps are cut out of the sides of the yardage, and as my fabric was EXACTLY the width required by the pattern, the selvedge included a frayed edge which wasn't very solid.  No way could I turn loops made from this right side out.  I did two of them like jeans belt loops, with one side overlocked and folded over the raw edge.  I used two random other scraps for the inside two pieces.

I was a bit confused with overlapping the fronts over the backs because you are told to use the same stitch lines as before, and that seems to be a big overlap (of more than a cm.) I ended up just stitching kind of randomly because my fabric is pretty busy!

I skipped the pockets, not because I dislike them, but because after trying this on it was a total no-go.  It seems too large in all ways.  The straps are tied at the very limits of as tight as they can go.  I should do the shoulder adjustment using pieces of the pockets to add a part to the shoulder - that would help the shoulders sit better, but the waist is loose, the top overwhelms me and the right side pleat poufs out in a funny way.  I feel very thoroughly wrapped up, but I honestly wouldn't wear this dress.

I'm sending it over to my friend Tessa to see if it fits her better - she's been very curious to see how the pattern went! Chalk this one up as an interesting experiment.