The pattern is from the burdastyle magazine of June last year. It is pattern 101 C, jersey mini dress. Being a northern hemisphere magazine the dress is meant to be a summer dress, but it's winter down here so my version is a cool weather version.
The fabric is a midweight merino from The Fabric Store. The fabric store has an amazing range of New Zealand merino, but I've been quite daunted about using merino because it's high quality and pretty expensive so I didn't want to ruin it. But the colours of this fabric were just too much to resist. The various blues are very vibrant and stood out from the rest in the store, so it came home with me.
In the end, the merino was extremely easy to sew with. It was very easy to cut and glided through my machine. There are only four pieces to it, two of the bodice/sleeves and two of the skirt/body. I lengthened both the sleeves and the skirt to make it a bit more cold weather appropriate. I also cut the front neckline just slightly more scooped so that I can identify the front from the back. I didn't want to make it too long because that might be too heavy and frumpy, but I think the length I chose works about right.
The dress is very comfortable to wear. It's a bit secret pyjamas, feeling much lazier and cosier than it looks. It's very easy to just throw on and wear at home, but a nice enough fabric and good enough cut that it's more than appropriate to wear out and about.
I'm very happy with this dress. And I don't think I'll be so scared of using merino again, it really was a pleasure to use and it's such a nice fabric to wear.
