This is my 4th Factory Dress make from Merchant and Mills. Now we're in Autumn I'm making my newly tweeked version in a vintage wool gaberdine that looks slightly denimy but has a really drapey feel.
Fabric: vintage wool gaberdine (twill weave) from House of Cloth. Was sitting in stash for 3 years.
Pattern: Factory Dress from Merchant and Mills. Tweeked to suit me.
Size: 14. A size larger than my summer versions so I can wear a longsleeve merino undershirt in winter.
Over the 3 other versions I've tweeked the design to suit my style and body. These are the major ones:
- First dress in grey chambray was a size 14, I made it my knee length by shortening hem by 5cm. Second adjustment on this was shortening the sleeve length by 5cm as it made me look less dowdy.
While the size was comfortable and didn't look overly large, there seemed to be room in the armhole are to go down a size.
-Second dress in a very light weight 4oz denim in size 12. Same 5cm hem length reduction and sleeve length reduction. Very comfortable still and looked a better size for me.
-Third dress used a prebought length on red linen from Tessuti Fabrics in Melbourne. Linen was 150cm wide and I had only bought 1.5m. Being desperate to use it for the factory dress, I figured with some very careful cutting I would just make it. The main changes here are:
- pockets cut from a replacement fabric
- sleeve cut very short, I had now removed 11cm from the length.
- collar cut in 2 pieces instead of one, it meant I had an extra seam on the outer edge of the collar and lost 1cm from each edge (2cm overall off the width of the cut collar)
- ended up being extremely happy with the proprtions of the shorter length of the sleeve and narrower collar.
Changes overview:
By shortening the collar and sleeve I think it makes a quite voluminous dress that has the danger of making its wearer look a little dowdy into a much sleeker line. By almost miniaturising these parts around the face and arms it allows the dress to flow. This is particualry important for a dress that needs to be made from sturdier fabrics due it its "factory" origins.
And yes, I plan to make another winter version, probably in another suiting weight wool, preferably dark blue.
