Gemma’s Wilder Gown!
Hello everyone,
I’m so glad to be back on the Felicity Fabrics blog, and this time I’m talking all about The Wilder Gown by Friday Pattern Company.
This pattern has been hugely popular amongst the sewing community and I’m sure I’m probably the last one to get around to making it!!
I can see why it’s been so popular as it’s quite a straight forward sew but it looks so pretty! There is quite a lot of fabric involved for the long dress version – I requested 3m as the pattern states this is what is required for a size medium, but I came up short somehow. I think 4m would probably have been more realistic. Anyway, instead of requesting an extra metre, I decided to omit one of the panels on the lower tier of the skirt and just widen the two panels I was going to use. I think it turned out pretty well!
Another alteration I made was to add 2” to the bodice length – I had previously watched a video by Michelle (another one of the bloggers for FF) and she has pretty much the same measurements as me, so I decided to take her advice. The dropped waist makes sense if you want to wear a belt with your dress to cinch it in a little as it means it doesn’t have a waist seam above the belt.
The pattern is very versatile and you can choose from three options – you can either make a blouse, a shorter dress with one tier or a longer dress with two tiers. It also comes as a long or short sleeved version. I think I will definitely be trying out the blouse option sometime soon. You can wear the neckline tied or loose, but I think my preference is for it to be tied.
The construction of the pattern is quite straight forward and the instructions are well written. The bodice comes together particularly quickly due to it having raglan sleeves, so no easing sleeves in! Result! I would say I spent most of my time on the gathering of the skirt panels. There’s quite a lot of fabric to gather and you have to make sure the gathers are evenly spread out.
The fabric I chose to make my gown in is called Gentle Beauty and it’s a viscose by Lady McElroy. It’s quite a lightweight viscose but isn’t sheer. I would say you can see form through it if a light is shining behind, but due to the dark colour it is quite opaque. The fabric is beautifully floaty and perfect for a Wilder Gown! There is some still in stock on the Felicity Fabrics website if you wish to try it out for yourself!
I would suggest using sharp pins with this fabric as it is quite delicate and definitely a microtex needle for sewing. I have been quite intimidated by sewing with viscose in the past so I plucked up some courage to sew with it for this blog post. I was actually very pleasantly surprised with how well it handled and I didn’t have any issues at all!
I hope you enjoyed my blog post and I’d love to know if you make the Wilder Gown or use this gorgeous fabric for other garments. You can find me over @thedalythread on Instagram.
Until next time,
Gemma x
