Miz Mozelle’s Hummingbirds

One night, while working on this dress, I was overcome by a major sewing appreciation moment. You know the obvious stuff that comes to mind: a creative outlet, playing with fabric, colour, fashion. The secondary stuff…Sanity. Distraction. But I was suddenly all appreciative of some other things learning to sew has taught, namely patience and trust. On my first grade report the teacher wrote ‘Sophie does not like to try things unless she knows she will be good at them’. Aaah, still so true. Surely I’m not alone in getting so easily overwhelmed by the sum total of something that I can’t bare to start just in case I get stuck along the way. But sewing has taught me to go slowly and take care with big things like following instructions, smaller important things like transferring markings but also to get help when I hit a bump. Generally, to trust in the process. For someone with giver-uper tendencies it’s a pretty major revelation that if I take each step one at a time and don’t look down (get freaked out by section coming up), I end up with a finished dress in my hands. It’s the craziest thing.

Oh man, I la la la LOVE this dress. And not just the dress but the pattern behind it, the Miz Mozelle by Jamie Christina. Admittedly, it wasn’t even in the project queue (just floating around my sewing inspiration pinterest board). But I’d been wondering what to make out of this extra drapey pink jersey with finches (an etsy find from here) and after seeing the white version of the Miz Mozelle I was sold…and made an impulse pattern purchase. Oooo sewing thrills!

Let’s talk about the pattern. In my shortish sewing experience, there’s only been a handful of clothes I’ve made, where I’ve thought ‘yup I am going to make another one’. But for good reasons both the Mission Maxi Dress and the Miz Mozelle make the list with their flattering fit, neat finish, not to mention a beautiful end result. This dress is basically a slipper for your whole body, it’s soooo comfy. There’s lovingly thought out details like binding on the capped sleeves, a sweet little collar and a key hole with button closure. I added piping to my collar to make it stand out from the background fabric and found a pale pink heart button. Saccharine enough for ya?

Sometimes you just have to hear things a few times, from a few different angles before it clicks. I’ve been this way about sewing knits, knowing there’s some magical combination of this foot and that stitch and yadadyaa. And I kind of got it, but it wasn’t until the last few knit projects that it’s really come together. This dress sewed like a dream and is ten times neater than my last stretch adult stretch project, the Tigerlily Maxi. No puckers, no pulling and I can put it down to this: Stretch needle, walking foot and stretch stitch in the parts that need to stretch and regular stitch for the rest. Finally, I think I’ve tamed the stretch. But maybe not the thistle…

…note to self: blow away from wind.