Merchant and Mills Box box dress, a review

I decided to make this as the final make before moving house.  It meant I didn't have a lot of bandwidth for anything complicated!  I assumed...it would be easy.  Well, mostly it is as long as you choose a fabric that doesn't shift around too much.  Also of course just before moving I found the absolute best spot for taking photos.  Of course!

Started out with the size hunt.  Sadly no blog reviews of this up anywhere so I turned to Instagram where indeed lots of advice was to hand. Seems this tends to be big, and the drop shoulder made me immediately think about future sleeveless versions.  Because of the reviews suggesting it was pretty roomy, I went with size 8.  It was not a good choice.  Being snug on the shoulders "worked" in that my shoulder is within the drop shoulder, but it's not the designed fit and it felt uncomfortable.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  I think you are fine to go with the size chart (I would have made 10) rather than sizing down, unless you are narrow through the shoulders. 

Fabric is a beautiful piece of plaid...Mind the Maker...tencel.  It has the best drape and dry cool feel.  It is shifty.  It has vertical stripes!  Did I mention above how I wanted something easy? 

Also, this has a facing.  I really hate facings.  It's a small facing, and you can attach it down in a lot of places, but it is still rife with potential for flipping out.  

So I cut out the dress with a rather lazy grain, and pleated my pleats which just would not line up, and then corralled them down, still not straight.  (I really like the z-lines that you sew, this bit is very fun and feels like wild cowboy sewing!)  The dress was a simple sew after that and I was pleased with my choice of button.  The fit is not terrible but it is too tight across the shoulders.  To salvage the pattern I would do best at this point to turn it into a tank top dress and cut out some roomy armholes.  

 

Of course with all those mismatched front lines no way could I keep this, it went to a friend who suits that colour more and isn't nearly as picky as I.  

I think it's worth making again.  The facing is not avoidable, you need the back button to get the dress on or the neckline is too tight, and a facing is the best way of dealing with the front pleats.  But it's not too substantial and I was happy enough with it staying in place.  The way the pleats open out into the skirt is really lovely.  It feels like there's a lot of volume in the skirt but it's flattering.  I will probably skip the sleeve, and then make the dress or top and cut down the armhole til I am happy with the coverage.  No immediate plans to go there, but some food for thought. 

La Maison Victor Lize tshirt dress (3/2019) in Pucci

Gah!  Where has the time gone?  I have been sewing a tiny bit but somehow not enough to finish a blog post?  For 6 months?  That's never happened before unless I was literally unable to get to a sewing machine. 

Anyway, I borrowed a few different editions of LMV a long time ago and traced a few patterns.  Here is this one.  Unfortunately the only way to access it is by finding a copy of that magazine. I was kind enough to my future self to add the seam allowances too, so basically the traced patterns were ready to go.  I've already made the Charlene sweatshirt which I thought was quite cool, though I sort of hate voluminous sleeves in real life.

This is a long tshirt dress with no remarkable features.  I had traced size 34, which I presume is my size, and I could see by the lines on the pattern pieces that I'd given myself a good 1 cm seam allowance.  I cropped the pattern as long as the length of my blue fabric.

I had schemed to use an amazing little tiny metre of Pucci fabric...so first I followed the pattern and made this nice swan dress for a friend.  I was too lazy to add pockets.  The swan fabric is rayon and it's from one of my European binge shops about 18 months ago, I don't love it, so I was happy to offload it onto someone else.  I liked the fit of the dress, but it's SO A-line.  Too much for a tshirt dress. If you made it full length that would be a lot of fabric.  Maybe nice to swish around, but anyway.  Because of the higher neckline it does not Show All, unlike the Closet Core Ebony dress, but I would say it's only a bit less voluminous.  I didn't choose that pattern because I thought it would be harder to balance the pattern across the raglan shoulders, and because the wide shape is the point of the pattern so removing all that volume seemed like a bad idea. 

 

So I retraced the pattern flat instead of on the fold. I laid out my tiny metre of fabric on the floor (my kitchen floor isn't a great cutting space but unfortunately the carpets aren't crappy enough to rip up yet) and laid out my new pattern pieces onto it.  Then I proceeded to basically crop off the A line until it fit the fabric.  I cropped off a lot!  EEEK!  I played around with the fabric layout as much as I could but had to give in and use the geometric border, which I would have liked to avoid. 

I was overjoyed by the results.  I again didn't add pockets, this time because I didn't want to mess up the line of the dress.  I have stashed this insanely cool fabric for about 18 months and it's been on my mind the whole time.  I don't think another garment would have suited the heavy rayon drape and stretch as well as a tshirt dress, and it's obviously the best canvas for a print of this nature.  I also managed to keep things like mountain tips off my nipples, which is a grand success.  The geometric bits are all on the same side, and the other side matches up harmoniously.  Overall, a win for a special stash fabric.