The Meridian Dress by Papercut Patterns: Colourblock Edition
Ok friends, this may be the best dress I’ve ever made. It’s something I had been waiting to make since last Summer. Blackbird fabrics had shared some fabrics on their stories last year for the Summer/Spring 2022 collection. They shared these woven cottons and I was so sad I couldn’t buy them right this second but I took a screen grab and made a mental note and told my husband that next year I’d be definitely purchasing these fabrics. So that’s exactly how it went down. As soon as they were released on the Blackbird site I bought them!
So you’d think since I knew for a year about these fabrics that I would actually know what I was making. Well I didn’t. I kept coming up with all these ideas but none of them seemed quite right and there was one idea in particular that kept coming up. Once the fabrics arrived it was go time and I finally decided to go with the idea that kept popping into my head. Using the Meridian dress from Papercut Patterns but with my regular tweaks: slash and spread method for making a puff sleeve with elastic hem finish and a gathered skirt for the bottom. I questioned myself so much because I honestly wasn’t sure if it was too much. I’ve become informally known as the colourblock person but I had never colourblocked using patterns! But I trusted my gut and went for it.
I ordered 2.5m of each fabric so this dress took 5m total. The yarn dyed wovens were so soft and beautiful. Surpassing my expectations! It was totally worth it. Cutting it out was probably the hardest part since there’s no real right or wrong side to the fabric so I needed to stay focused. The sewing was normal but I did opt for french seams all throughout except for under the invisible zipper where I did Hong Kong seams. The inside was just as pretty as the outside and I think that’s what I’m going to keep doing with all my dresses moving forward.
The dress is truly a vision. It was a process but gosh I’m so happy and it really is my favourite dress I’ve ever made. It feel authentically me and that’s now the new standard for all my makes.
