Oh My-osotis!

If that sounds like a negative, don’t misunderstand me: many times when a pattern comes out that becomes an instant hit, it has good reason to be one. The pattern itself might be really good, the fit might be really good for a lot of us, it’s got design elements that just speak to a lot of people, or we just see others that look excellent in it. It might be all of these reasons, or multiple, or even just one of them that drives us to jump on the hit bandwagon. My reasons for wanting to make this dress is because reasonably straightforward patterns for relatively basic dresses with a small bit of interest that sets them apart are my jam. So here we are.

The good thing about jumping on a bandwagon after said bandwagon has had its big hit moment, is that there are many people who made this pattern before I got to it, and subsequently many people who have posted about that. What I found most helpful is just being able to see so many variations already out there on many different bodies. These days I have an good idea of what I like but it’s still helpful to see what other did. This made me decide that I wanted my Myosotis in a solid colour.  I’ve also wanted to work with double gauze for a while and then I saw this rusty orange double gauze had just got in at one of my go-to fabric stores and I knew we had a winner.

The constructions is pretty straightforward and so are the instructions. I didn’t run into any problems and it came together smoothly. The collar might be a hurdle if you don’t have a lot of experience with them but that too is pretty straightforward. There was one mildly dramatic moment when I had almost finished the dress and was serging the skirt-bodice seam and accidentally serged a tiny cut in the sleeve hem. Not a huge problem, I unpicked the hem, repaired the hole, and rehemmed it folding it inwards a tiny bit further (so the repair isn’t visible), but yeah consider this your bimonthly reminder to be careful when you are merrily zooming your way through a seam with your serger.

The neckline and collar are probably the most challenging features of the pattern, but shouldn’t worry you to much if you ever sewn anything with a collar before. Normally I’m not a huge fan of standing collars, and they can be a bit of a hassle to layer under sweaters, but I think on this dress it balances the proportions nicely. If this does turn out to be a workhorse pattern though, I can see myself tinkering with the collar and neckline for future variations.

The fit of the dress is pretty much spot on for me for an oversized boxy dress. Which is great, because although a boxy dress is a bit more forgiving when tinkering with the sizing, there is always the chance of it just looking like you are wearing a dress that is a couple of sizes too big. This dress does not have that. I went with my bust size to pick the size for this, so I’m wearing it with the intended ease of the pattern. I usually don’t have to tinker a lot on Deer and Doe patterns and the patterns I’ve tried from them so far fit my pretty well out of the box and this pattern was no different.

Another thing that you might want to know it you make this dress is that the pockets, when positioned as per pattern, sit very low on the skirt. Lower than on any other dress, skirt or trouser pattern I’ve made. It isn’t a huge issue or something but you might want to pin and try it on beforehand so you can decide for yourself.

Now for the “not good” part of this pattern: the size range is pretty bad. This is not so much a specific pattern complaint, but part of a critique of the brand size range and the size ranges in the sewing world in general. In the case of Deer and Doe, it’s better than it used to be, since they added a bigger size range in the pdf version. I had the printed version which has even less sizes which is not impressive. I know that they are still working on extending the size ranges of their old patterns but I hope that with the ongoing inclusivity discussion in the craft world, which specifically focussed on sizes in the sewing world Deer and Doe will decide to increase their size range further for new releases.

I like it a lot. I mean, easy to wear dresses *with pockets* will always find a place in my wardrobe, but my wardrobe was also severely lacking in rust coloured garments and I’d been meaning to make one for a while. So when I did, I instantly had lots of things in my wardrobe that I was excited to pair it with. If you want to have an idea how this dress looks when layered with cardigans and jumpers, in my previous blogpost you can see it paired with the Love Note sweater I made. This dress has made me fall in love with double gauze so all in all it has definitely been a success.

Now, is Myosotis for you? That, of course, depends on what you are looking for. Many of the blog posts I read went down a couple of sizes or added a waist tie, which is great and yay for sewists making adjustments. If you know yourself well enough to know that you don’t wear boxy, loose garments, and you don’t have this pattern yet, I’d say you can skip it. There are so many shirtdress patterns at this point, you probably have some in your stash that you could use instead. However if you are in the market for a boxy dress with the right amount of positive ease, here you go.