Vogue 9112: Marcy Tilton meets Nani Iro

Back in the depths of winter there was a sale at Urban Sew and Janice was selling Nani Iro double gauze at half price. With no idea what I'd do with it I snapped up two different fabrics. Seemed someone else had the same idea and Janice emailed me to say her website had been too slow and my order had already sold out. Still, she would send me some of the newly arriving Nani Iro fabric for the same deal. Nice!

As the weather warmed up and I sewed Flipper's double gauze shirt I had an urgent hankering for a double gauze dress of my own. And while I'm out of town this week, if it's hot, you can be sure I'll be wearing this dress....

I'd not really known what I would do with this fabric until I started thinking about V9112 , the Marcy Tilton "Cirque" dress and suddenly I had a pattern/fabric match in my head.

A little search on Sewing Pattern Review gave me a few tips - size down to the minimum bust measurement, double layer the collar and why not throw in some flat piping to highlight the seam lines.

I had a 3 yard cut of the double gauze which allowed me to play a bit with placing the print in places that I thought would work. Honestly, I don't think the pale background colour and the yellow suit me at all, but the fabric was there and needed to be used up somehow.

I made some of my own flat piping with bias strips and every time the pattern called for staystitching one of the curved seam allowance, I simply basted the piping on as my stay stitching.

I didn't make a muslin, which is kind of sacrilegious when using Nani Iro, but apparently not if using half price Nani Iro.

Anyway, I changed the order of sewing slightly so that I stitched up most of the side seams with their pockets before sewing the centre back seam and collar. That way I could play with the seam allowance of the the centre back seam. I gave myself an extra 1/4 inch through the upper back, but it's arguably still a tiny bit tight through the upper chest.  I could then finish the centre back seam allowances, add the back lower hem section and then finish the right side seam below the pocket.

It was an easy change to the order of things and allowed for fitting on the go which isn't really possible when the side seams incorporate in seam pockets.

Yes! Pocketses!

Sewing the collar with two layers of fabric (and no interfacing) gives it just enough structure, but still plenty of  "casual crumple".  The collar has a couple of pleat tucks and I sewed these pleats in each layer, my collar and collar facing, separately before joining the collar pieces around the edge and then turning it right side out.

In this big, sparse print, the flat piping really helps to show up the lovely seam lines of the dress.

On the left side and the back it's pretty short and the Marcy Tilton blog indicates they added as much as 7" of length to the version they made for their runway show back when the pattern was released. Not a bad idea if you don't want to layer it over leggings or flash a bit of leg.

If you reach up too high to steal the neighbour's figs you could be caught out with that hem line....

But it's worth it, cause someone else's figs are always the tastiest.

Details:
Pattern: Vogue 9112 Marcy Tilton
Size: 12 (I measured closer to 14+) and it is a wee bit tight around the upper bust
Modifications: Flat piping and double layer collar
Fabric: Nani Iro - Komorebi Tender Days from Urban Sew