I am now settled and unpacked in my new home in San Francisco, which means it is time to start sewing again 😊 I could only squeeze in a handful of fabrics from my stash in the suitcases that I brought with me (the rest of my stash is packed away with all my other belongings in a shipping container on a cargo ship, slowly chugging its way through the Panama Canal). Still, I knew I had to bring along this gorgeous Mind the MAKER viscose crêpe for my newest #MinervaMake — I had it earmarked for one of my Make Nine 2024 projects, and time was ticking! Head over to Minerva to read my blog post or scroll down for more details and photos.
I admit, I don’t often wear solid colours and I tend to prefer fun, novelty prints, but how pretty is this shade of primrose yellow? Minerva kindly sent me 3m of this Viscose Crêpe designed by Mind The MAKER, in the “Blonde Yellow” colourway. This fabric is Oeko-Tex certified and woven from Lenzing™️ EcoVero™️ certified fibres. This lightweight crêpe has a pebbled texture and is very soft and drapey. I pre-washed this fabric on a cool setting to avoid any shrinkage and used scissors to cut out the pattern. It was quite a pain to sew, as it was very shifty and prone to fraying, and I also had to be careful to press with a pressing cloth, as a section I pressed became scorched, even when using a low heat. Just make sure you take your time when cutting and pinning this fabric and use a microtex needle and a walking foot when sewing to avoid the usual pitfalls of sewing with viscose! I love how fluid and breathable this particular fibre is, it is perfect for warm weather days.
I chose Vogue 9328, which has been in my unmade pattern stash for a while. V9328 has a princess-seamed bodice with a bust dart detail, a revealing v-neck and a panelled a-line skirt. This dress has various sleeve options, including drapey trumpet sleeves and dramatic bishop sleeves, as well as different skirt lengths. I chose to make View E, which hits just above my calves and has swishy butterfly sleeves. Although the line art suggests a more flared skirt, my finished dress is surprisingly fitted through the waist to the hips, so bear that in mind. As this pattern comes with different bust cup options, my fitting adjustments were fairly minimal; I made a size 14 with a D-cup and I amended the bust dart length slightly and narrowed the shoulders.
The original design has a large cutaway at the back, which I skipped this time; I think I will go back and make this pattern again with the cut-out, but for this dress, I just wanted a simpler look to showcase this beautiful fabric. One thing to note about this fabric is that it really wants to stretch and distort off-grain; you can see how the back waistline of my dress is bowing and isn’t balanced, despite staystitching. In hindsight, I should have added interfacing or staytape to the neckline and waistline, as there is some definite stretching causing drag lines and that could have also helped make the v-neck sharper.
As I am without my overlocker, I chose to line the bodice instead of bias-binding the neckline. Everything else was finished with French seams, including the armscyes, which is always so time-consuming but is worth it with lightweight fabrics. I skipped the pockets this time around — usually, I am a dyed-in-the-wool #TeamPocket member, but I was under a bit of time pressure to finish this project.
This dress was fairly tricky — I felt a bit out of practice sewing with such a shifty fabric and I can already picture how challenging trying to get the cut-out back detail to lay flat will be when I make this again! I would also probably lengthen the bodice slightly and tweak the overall fit a little more; I can see that the viscose crêpe has relaxed since making and wearing this dress, which is making the fit looser. I think I may have more success with this dress in a viscose-linen blend, which would have more stability and still a nice drape.
Vogue 9328
Size 6 – 22
Full Bust: 30½″-44″
Waist: 23″-37″
Hips: 32½″-46″
