Mara Blouse |Dress|

A couple of months ago I was contacted by Marte, the designer from the pattern line Compagnie M. She was the sweetest, allowing me to pick one from all her patterns, not asking anything in return, apart from blogging about the result. That's a fair trade I believe, and picking one pattern, well, that was the hardest part of the deal. I chose the Mara Blouse after all. I had seen so many, and a few of my blogging friends said only good things about it, so I wanted to give it a try.

It was KCW when I cut the pieces for this, and the theme was upcycle, so, pretty much what I usually do anyway. I used a man's button up shirt and a woman's XL shirt. I was donated the first and bougth the second in the thrift shop. You might recognise it from this post. The Mara Blouse starts at size 1 and goes up to size 10, it comes with four different sleeve options (sleeveless, butterfly, flutter or long sleeves - this one was my choice, it is finished with an elastic through the hem), and has two tutorials included to help you turn it into a dress. I made a dress too, I just lenghtened the pattern a few inches to make it fit my daughter. The overall fit of this couldn't be better, I was surprisely happy to see how good, and fitted it looked on G. She's slim, and usually clothes (even rtw) don't fit her that perfectly. I picked the size (3) according to her meauremnts, by the way.

This pattern as a touch of vintage and a few darling features, such as the pleats on front, the buttons on the front yoke, and the tutorial has also instructions to add pipping or other trims to that front panel - I skipped that step for pure lazyness, but it is something to try once I use this pattern again. 

Because I refashioned a skirt that had a lot of seams, my dress has center front and back seams, but the pattern is made from a folded piece for each one of these. Also, the shirt fabric and the skirt fabric were different and one would slightly stretch, I blame it on that when I see my yoke's imperfections. The collar is finished with a bias tape, it was ready made because I didn't have enough to make it with the matching fabric from the skirt. The buttons were in my stash, and they were saved from something else I deconstructed a while ago. 

It was approved by the wearer. She picked the boots to wear with it and she said she loved them with her new dress. Daddy took photos of her, but it was hard, believe me. We decided we don't want to bother her so much with the photos anymore, so we shoot as she runs and plays and jumps, and that isn't quite the easiest way to get good photos, but as a friend told me not long ago, I am not selling anything here, just trying to share something I made out of love.