Meet Gillian

Hello all! Today, I'm excited to introduce you to Gillian - the latest Muse pattern.

Gillian is a wrap-around dress, top or skirt, made up in knit fabric. With its vee neckline and yoke details, Gillian has subtle design elements reminiscent of the 1970's (the decade best known for wrap dresses) and the 1940's, while remaining modern in cut and overall look.

There's a midriff band and waist ties, to add a bit of structure and definition around the waist area. A v-neckline has a band which is top stitched down and eased onto the neckline to help prevent the dreaded gape-while-leaning-forward. And the bottom front has rounded corners, just for fun.

With two skirt lengths and three sleeve lengths to choose from, Gillian is great for all seasons. You could make up the dress version with long sleeves in a soft merino blend for a cozy winter garment, or with short sleeves and the shorter skirt in a lightweight cotton for a casual summer dress. Make the skirt version in a heavy wool blend for winter wear with boots and tights, or in a lightweight knit for a great garment to wear to the beach.

As with all Muse patterns, the Gillian wrap dress design was inspired by a fabulous women. In this case, by a wonderful friend of mine - Gillian! Gill is one of those amazingly generous and lovely people - always lending a hand, helping people out and caring deeply for her friends and family, while at the same time going through life with a wonderfully sly and naughty sense of humour. Passionate, full of energy, and balancing a very practical brain with great creativity, she's someone I've always been glad to have in my life. And since she loves wrap dresses (and looks rather stunning in them, too!), it seemed only right to design a wrap dress pattern for her!

And since Gill is such a generous person, it also seems like a good time to kick off something I've been wanting to do for a while - namely, a bit of a charity project.

Gill is a big support of the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation, and with good reason - it's a pretty awesome charity, doing lots of amazing work. So for the first week the Gillian pattern is up for sale, 100% of the sale price (less transaction fees) will be donated to the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation. Yep, that's right - all patterns sold between now and midnight (NZ time) on 19 October will be raising money for this great charity.

There's also a little gift for you - use the code 'GILLIANDRESS' between now and midnight (NZ time) on 19 October to get 15% off the Gillian wrap dress pattern. (Note: the space to enter the discount code comes after the Paypal screen when you checkout.)