For my first post I'm excited to share with you a dress of which I'm very proud. This is my pistachio and polkadot shirtdress, made from McCalls 6696 using a nice cotton poplin from Clothkits in Chichester. I'd seen this dress on a number of different sewing blogs and thought it would be both a practical dress to own and also a reasonable sewing challenge. I made the version with sleeves and the full pleated skirt and I'm reallly pleased with how it turned out.
This is actually the first commercial pattern I've used and I read a lot of reviews before deciding which size to cut. I anticipated a lot of ease and after having a good think about the finished garment measurements (which took ages to find on the packet flap!) I cut out a size 8 and made a muslin of the bodice. I decided the bodice felt a little short, and tight at the waist, so I lengthened it by half an inch and added one and a half inches at the waist. I probably added too much to the waist, but I think the shape still looks flattering; I have a lot of freedom of movement, and it's been perfectly cool to wear in the recent summer heat. I also shortened the skirt (I am only 5'2" - I shorten the bottom half of everything) but I just chopped the hem at the end of the process rather than making the change to the pattern.
These photos were taken after a whole day at work in this dress. For me, this generally indicates a successful project, but it is rather creased. I find ironing incredibly tedious so I skipped doing it in favour of taking pictures - sorry about my wrinkly armpits! I've found the poplin does crease quite easily - which I suppose is good for the skirt pleats. The colour is a little greener than in these pics, which look rather grey. You can see the bodice is slightly roomy, but I think the evening light has exaggerated this. It doesn't look this big in real life.
I'm a little disappointed that the collar sits so flat- it would be nice if it stood up more - like the type on a man's shirt. I use a cheap fusible interfacing that I bought three meters of ages ago, so I've been slowly using it up. I think a better quality, heavier interfacing would help. If anyone had any recommendations as to where I can buy some online I'd be grateful!
When it came to actually sewing the collar, this is the first time the whole process hasn't been a massive bag of stress, as I had the help of this well known, excellent tutorial. I did run into into trouble when I discovered both the collar stand and outer collar were far too big for the neckline. I know sometimes a little bit of easing in is required, but when I measured it up there was a whole two inches excess, not including the seam allowance. I'm fairly certain I didn't make a mistake when cutting out the pattern - as I cut the smallest size it would have been difficult to mess this up. Of course, I only realised this was an issue after all my fabric had been used up, so couldn't cut out new pieces. Instead, I chopped each collar piece down the middle, overlapped two inches less the seam allowance, and sewed them back up. As you can see above this has resulted in a seam down the back of the collar, but it's not too noticeable and my hair covers it up much of the time.
The quality of this dress really benefited from my recent acquisition of an edgestitch foot for my sewing machine. My topstitching in previous garments has quite frankly been piss-poor because I've only had my standard foot. Ugly top stitching is an eyesore and it's ruined the look of many an otherwise good dress or top of mine. So I'm very pleased with all my topstitching on this dress!
Here's an indoor picture that shows the truer colour. What do you think of our wallpaper? It came with the house and we don't currently have a redecorating budget so you're allowed to tell me it's gross!
All in all, I'm very happy with this shirtdress, making it was enjoyable and it stretched my sewing skills just the right amount. I was so thrilled with this that right after I'd finished, I immediately went back to the drawing board and started making another version, this time sleeveless and with the straight skirt. I've run into a few problems with that one, but it's nearly finished so stay tuned.
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For the moment, I'm just happy wearing this dress out and about in the lovely sunshine :) Have you made anything great for the summer recently?
