The latest edition of Fibremood is here and, as usual, it’s full of fun and different patterns. I chose the Niva, which has draping and pleats at the front, a stand-up collar, faced armholes, and an invisible zip at the centre back which creates an elegant top, suitable for layering.

The front fold is symmetrical but mine turned out slightly asymmetrical, which didn’t both me too much.

The fabric is the most beautiful mushroom coloured cotton twill which was given to me by a friend, I was hesitant to use it as brown is not my colour, but this doesn’t clash too badly with my skin tone. The fabric doesn’t have a lot of drape, but this pattern was made in leather for the modelled Fibremood photos, so I felt that it would be ok. I’m hoping that the colour will be quite versatile.

The standup collar was quite high and I couldn’t imagine wearing this in the height of summer, so I unpicked it, removed the zip, halved the height of the collar and stitched everything back together.

In the process I managed to ruin the perfectly matching invisible zip, I knew that I didn’t have another one in the invisible zip box, so began to explore the dress zips, and what do you know, I found an identical zip, which had been misfiled. I was thrilled!

The first zip had gone in beautifully, but the second one? not so much, but I’ve decided to live with it. My big machine is being serviced, and when I get it back I’ll use the invisible zip foot to fix this. The amount of unpicking I did on this seam is ridiculous.

I wore the top but decided that it was missing something, I couldn’t decide what, so I pondered as I went for my walk and decided it needed some buttons. I had four reindeer antler buttons left over from some that a friend had brought me back from Iceland and I thought they would be perfect. I stitched them on and feel that they finish it off nicely.

Although the top is quite an attractive colour, I keep thinking of it as brown, so the buttons help lift it.

I wore the top out to meet a friend and it does layer beautifully. I love how it goes with my sofa Stokx Square Pants.

As the weather warms up I’ll team it with other things, and I’m quite looking forward to that.