French Dart

Well, hello again! It’s been a couple of months since my last blog post as we have been busy moving, but we are now safely installed in the new house and I have managed to squeeze in a bit of sewing – hooray! As well as working on a large quilt for our new bedroom, I made a Closet Core Nicks dress to wear for the Festival of Quilts last week, which you can see a snap of on Instagram.

It was our 11th wedding anniversary on Friday and a fancy celebratory lunch was the perfect reason to sew something. I have cut out a McCall’s M8325 in some beautiful tomato red poplin from Bawn Textiles, but then I was hit with a wave of inspiration and decided to make something else instead for the occasion! The Maven Patterns French Dart is on my #makenine2023 and although I bought some lovely lightweight wool suiting for the project, I wasn’t sure that the fabric was really what I had in mind.

As I was drifting off to sleep the other night I was thinking about hunting out a large-scale floral for the dress instead and then I suddenly remembered a cut of 1950s vintage fabric I bought at The Knitting and Stitching Show in March 2019 – the perfect fabric had been sitting in my stash the whole time! I dug the fabric out, pre-washed it and got cracking the very next day.

The dress is very simple – a front with those classic French darts, a back with two fish eye darts for shaping, a collar piece (the star of the show), sleeves (a choice of short, long or capped) and, of course, pockets. Although my vintage fabric was narrow (less than 1m wide), I knew the cut I had (around 3m) would be plenty for the dress. I made my usual Maven Patterns size 10 and as before, I am really happy with the fit.

Construction was a breeze and the dress came together very quickly over a couple of sewing sessions. Maven Patterns are very well drafted in my experience and this was no exception – the pocket piece that allows you to easily overlock the entire way around on your way down the side seam is always a favourite feature! Before I knew it, my dress was finished and I didn’t need to make any adjustments at all – not even to the hem length.

We had a lovely day out on Friday and my dress was perfect for our adventures! First of all we popped to a bakery I have wanted to visit for ages for coffee and pastries – a lady working there said she loved my dress, which is always such a nice feeling! After a wander around a cute village, we headed to Updown Farmhouse for an absolutely fantastic lunch. The vintage cotton is sturdy enough to give the dress good shape, but lightweight enough to keep cool in the sunshine we were lucky enough to have. I can also confirm that there’s enough room in the dress to hide a large food baby!

It was lovely to finally use my treasured vintage cotton and I am so pleased with the finished dress – the fabric and pattern were definitely the perfect pairing, just waiting to be put together! It’s also nice to tick another project off my Make Nine and I actually only have two left now, but I will go back to my M8325 that has been patiently waiting to be made before I tackle another one!