Laura has made this gorgeous Liberty Dress in Lantana, the new wool and cotton blended fabric from Liberty. We’ve got six of these Lantana fabrics in stock at Alice Caroline HQ and they do not disappoint. Super soft to the touch like Tana Lawn® but with that extra warmth and heaviness of wool.
Here’s Laura to tell us about her beautiful make. “Liberty Lantana is a lovely cotton/wool blend that is super soft, smooth, and drapey. It is of course heavier than Tana Lawn® but still manages to be light weight. It feels amazingly luxurious to wear, call me ignorant but I had no idea wool could be this nice! I have sewn with wool before but the wools I used weren’t as easy to handle as this Liberty Lantana and certainly not as nice to feel. It is just so lovely! Even if I couldn’t as simply ‘snip and rip’ to achieve the perfectly straight hem and skirt waist edge as easily as I would have with Tana Lawn®, I’d certainly use it again. Folding its width in half and lining up all the placemats I owned at a right angle across the fabric to cut the straight lines wasn’t that much harder anyway – so worth it!”
“I had a difficult time choosing which of the Lantana fabrics to use as they are all so nice. The ever trendy Capel Mustard, classy Betsy Pale Blue, fun Folk Tails with all its animals, classic Strawberry Thief Blue and colourful floral Edna. There is something very warm and mellow about the colours of the prints which works so well for the wool. I appreciate Liberty’s attention to detail in choosing only certain colour ways of the prints to use on the wool, it is right that certain fabric bases best lend themselves to particular colours and tones. In the end however, I was drawn to the large flowers of Decadent Blooms for its drama and dark beauty. This particular colour way features dusty peach-pink roses and peonies with classically blue forget-me-nots on a black ground. It is very striking. The print itself was based on a painting unearthed in the Liberty Archive. It was originally printed as a furnishing fabric in 1989 and I am pleased to report that even 33 years later the quality of the print on the Lantana is great. The strokes of the artist’s brush can be clearly seen in the flowers, it is like they have been painted directly onto the fabric itself. The quality of digital printing continues to amaze me and Liberty do it so well whatever the fabric base, not that we should be surprised by that!”
“Usually I have a clear vision of what the project will look like but for this dress I just started cutting and figured it out as I went. Not going to lie, right up until I finished it I was super worried it wasn’t going to look good at all! It ended up a bit Tudor-ish with the dropped shoulder and massive sleeves?? No idea where that came from but I like it, hopefully you do too! About the only thing that felt planned were the pleats. I admit I love wearing them but don’t like sewing them because that also means I have to pattern make them and I hate pattern making pleats because who even has the time/enough extra paper and tape for that?! Therefore, my go-to for volume is usually gathers out of pleat-pattern related anxiety. But! I saw the most life-changing tutorial video on Instagram that showed an actual genius using a fork to make perfectly even pleats in fabric and I could have cried because, YES! The answer to easy pleats we have all been praying for is: THE HUMBLE FORK! Hurrah, sewers everywhere celebrate.
Of course, I had to tip out my cutlery drawer and try out a few differently sized forks to figure out which one would work best but, again, so worth it. I’ll never pattern make a pleat again! “
“To pleat with a fork all you have to do is slide the fork onto the edge of the fabric with its spokes on both sides of the fabric. Then, rotate the fork 180º, slip it out and pin the resulting pleat in place. Easy peasy! The video actually showed someone at a sewing machine pleating a continuous length of fabric (probably to use as a pleated trim), using the fork to make the pleat just before the fabric passed under the sewing foot. I’ll definitely be trying that myself one day. I imagine that technique would work with ribbon, bias binding or fabric strips just as well. Just imagine a pretty Liberty Bias Binding pleated trim- so nice!”
“I will be swishing around in this dress for the rest of winter and probably for most of spring, too. The long skirt and big sleeves make it the perfect dress to stay cosy in. I can add the belt to make it more fitted or wear it without for a looser, comfy style so it is great for all occasions. Between you and me, this dress will be lucky if it is washed before now and April as I never ever want to take it off!! Probably best to admire me from afar, just in case!”
