Anna Maria Horner + Melody Miller

Anna Maria Horner's beautiful Painted Portrait Dress pattern meets Melody Miller's gorgeous arrows cotton/linen blend (by Kokka)... a match made in heaven! (Well, South Australia. But it's pretty nice here.)

This is my second version of this dress, which I made before in linen, here.

I actually made it a while ago but it spends a bit of time hanging in the shop as a sample (I want everyone to know how awesome this pattern is!) so it's taken a while to blog it.

Things I love about this pattern:

1. It's loose and easy to wear, but has lovely shaping so it's not just a big ol' sack. The side panels and yoke effectively give it princess seams.
2. Massive great capacious pockets.
3. Incorporation of one button - chance to find that perfect button from the stash!
4. Totally wearable on its own or layered with things under and/or over it.

I had some fun figuring out the pattern placement with this beautiful border print fabric. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I ummed and ahhed about using the scalloped border and flower again on the yoke, and cut it out to try, but in the end just went with arrows. The yoke is fully self-lined so the flowers and scallops ended up inside! It's quite a fabric-efficient garment. I can't remember exactly how much I used but it was definitely less than 2 metres (1.7 maybe?).

If I made this pattern again, and there's a high likelihood of that, I would probably try to figure out a minor FBA. It's a size M and in the linen, which had a bit of 'give', there's a bit more breathing space than this version. Shouldn't be too hard to add a teeny bit of width at the side panel where it meets the bottom of the yoke, should it? (Tips welcome!)

- Jane x