Mira Dress by Fibre Mood – My Review…

I have been eyeing up the Mira dress by Fibre Mood pretty much since it came out.  I absolutely love the boho style of this pattern, it has a touch of 70s style about it don’t you think?  I stalked the pattern for a while on Instagram and adored the versions that other sewists were making so I knew it wouldn’t be long before I had to give it a go myself. I have to be honest though, it was the gathering of those tiers that was putting me off a bit, gathering is not my favourite sewing task it has to be said.

I was drawn to this Crepe straight away on the Minerva website, the red, pink and orange tones in the flowers are stunning. I ordered 2.5 metres and wasn’t sure exactly what I would make at the time.  I’ve had the Myosotis dress pattern in my ‘to make’ pile for a while and it was a toss-up as to whether I made that one or finally had a go at the Mira with it instead.

I asked on Instagram what people thought I should make out of the two options and the result was pretty split but at the end of the day I just could not get the Mira out of my head and I really felt that the boho style of the dress would pair perfectly with the bright florals of this gorgeous fabric – a bit of a nod to retro style!

I ordered the pattern from the Fibre Mood website in PDF form, printed it out and got sticking.  I was relieved to find that I could comfortably get the pattern out of my 2.5 metres because I had imagined that the tiers would be wider that they actually are.  It was fine though thankfully.

However, when I came to start sewing I realised that, due to my lack of reading of the pattern prep before cutting, seam allowances should have been added to the pattern pieces before cutting which I hadn’t done and so my parts were actually smaller than they should have been – big OOPS!!

Because of this error I decided to give myself a little extra give by working with a very small seam allowance and thankfully the bodice of my dress fit perfectly.  A little extra room certainly wouldn’t have gone amiss but it was perfectly fine for this first attempt thank goodness.  The skirt however unfortunately did turn out to be rather short!  The extra couple of centimetres on both tiers would have made the length perfect so I’m quite sad that I missed this but hey you live and learn and I’ll know for next time. 

THE MAKING PROCESS

As always I washed and pressed my fabric before cutting and it’s worth mentioning that it needed very little ironing – always a good result in my book.

I was a bit worried about how easy this fabric would be to work with as it’s lovely and silky but actually it was fine.  It even went through my over locker with ease and she can be a temperamental beast with slippery fabrics at times.  Do be careful with the iron though because, after adding water to my iron making it extra hot, it did burn my test piece slightly so be sure to use a lower heat when pressing, use a cloth and test before ironing your actual garment.

The bodice of the dress came together super quickly, the neckline is finished with a bias biding which the pattern calls for you to make from your main fabric but as my fabric was black I decided to be lazy and use a remnant of shop bought tape I already had in my stash.  This worked fine but putting the extra effort into making your own is always lovely.

The sleeves went in very easily and there is no gathering in them which I loved (note my previously mentioned hatred of gathering!!)

I’ll be honest I was dreading gathering in those tiers to the bodice and because of my having to work with minimal seam allowance it was a bit of a fiddle.  I ran two rows of gathers on both the front and back panels once they were seamed together and then I quartered the piece by finding the centre front and centre back of the panel – I did the same quartering on my bodice and then eased out my gathers for each quarter until they fit the bodice comfortably.  It actually wasn’t as bad or as fiddly as I was expecting once I got sewing so that was good but pulling out all of those black threads was no joke.  Note to self, use a different coloured gathering thread next time.

The bottom tier is gathered onto the middle tier in the exact same way  using the quartering method again – this took a little longer of course because of the extra volume of fabric you are working with.  The pattern suggests hemming the bottom tier before gathering it on which I did this time and because I knew I didn’t want to lose any length but if you were unsure about what length you wanted the dress to be I guess you might be better leaving this step to last and trying it on first.  As it was for this dress I simply overlocked the bottom and turned up the tiniest little hem I could in order to save as much length as possible.

Despite the lack of length this finished dress is my current dress of dreams.  The fabric is perfect for this style as it drapes beautifully and, as it’s black and a more wintery style print, it’ll be perfect as a tunic layered over leggings or skinny jeans.  I absolutely love the ‘baby doll’ dress trend around at the moment, so comfy to wear and perfect for Sunday roast day 😉  I can see that I will be making many more of these for spring and summer.  I already want a white one, a denim chambray one and definitely a couple more floral ones – I’ll just remember to add the required seam allowance next time!!

Ooh and if you’d like to see this dress ‘in action’ I’m wearing it in my spring fabric haul video which you can watch here.

Have you made a Mira yet?  How did you find it??

Until next time…

Sally  xx

*Just to be absolutely clear some of the products I’ve linked may be affiliate links meaning that should you choose to purchase via any of them I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.*