Pattern Hack: Fibre Mood Hortence

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Hello! Today I am sharing my version of this pattern from Fibre Mood Issue 18, and hopefully inspiring you to get hacking, too .

In true Fibre Mood style, Hortence catches a few current trends while retaining a sense of fashion longevity with a classic silhouette. I would say this dress is an easy sew, with an advanced technique- elastic shirring. For support with this technique you can check out the Sew-Along on Fibre Mood’s Instagram page, or search through the sewing blogs & YouTube tutorials out there!

Sizing:

Available in bust sizes 30″- 57.5″. The pattern describes extra ease and suggests sizing down if preferred, so I made an xs. I also took fabric choice into consideration. In my experience, viscose crepe can “grow” and doesn’t require much excess ease to flow nicely. You can see here it skims without clinging.

My hack:

When it is time to cut out the shirred yoke pieces, cut the front yoke as 2 mirrored pieces. The back yoke will still be cut on the fold. This version doesn’t use any collar pieces.

The front bodice piece is cut on the fold, with a wedge removed 0.5″ from center top of the piece, angled down to the center front at 2″. (See photo)

Attach the shirred yokes to the front bodice, stretching the yoke to equal the bodice width as per the instructions. Repeat for the back yoke & bodice. Sew the back yoke to the front yokes at the shoulders.

For the skirt, I cut the pieces 2x the length and made no change to the ruffle piece. I also opted for clean seams rather than the frilled ones. No changes were made to the sleeves.

The front “v” is finished with a length of bias binding (I cut a 1″ by 6″ strip from the main fabric for this part), and then the remaining neckline is finished the same way. (I used 50″ length of self bias binding, leaving 16″ on each end for ties).