As soon as I saw that bolt of blue water, pink flamingos, and green palm trees, I knew I had to make a vacation dress. A breezy sundress with super cute crossing straps would be perfect for Galveston. Hence, McCall's M7118, view B!
But boy was this dress a doozy. Here's what went down...
I know my self-taken measurements aren't accurate, so I decided I'd trace a size 10 and cut a muslin. The muslin flew together in 45 minutes, but I didn't like how tight the skirt portion of the dress fit. I weighed two options: retrace a 12 or retrace a blended 10 on top and 12 on bottom. Not confident in my abilities to mix two sizes, I just retraced a size 12 pattern and then set to work cutting it out.
And that's where the fun began. For some bizarre reason, the back piece isn't cut on the fold. No. You get to cut the back pieces out separately. For fabric with a nap like the flamingo/flower/tree pattern, this quickly became a problem. See, the pattern on the fabric repeats... but it's got a really wide spread between repeats. I cut out one back piece to use to find the place to cut the second. Which ended up being, like, the middle of my fabric. Since this was such terrible placement, I wanted to lay out the rest of the pieces to make sure I would be able to fit everything.
Determined, I started cutting out the other pieces, being careful to not cut into my very precisely placed back piece. Two pieces in, the unthinkable happened. I cut a chunk out of the bottom corner of the back of my dress. I had to walk away.
I finally got the rest of the fabric cut out the next day and started sewing the day after. The sewing went pretty quickly. I did have a couple of hiccups sewing the front facing on, because I didn't pull the straps out of the way and sewed them into a weird place. A few minutes with my trusty seam ripper and I was good to go.
And then there were the side seams... According to the pattern, the front and back facings are supposed to line up at the side seams and you sew from the facing and down. The end result is that everything folds up nicely on the inside of the dress. That was not my end result. I took out some stitches and tried again, but gave up.
After trying the "finished" dress on, I realized that it was HUGE on top and just fine on the bottom. I shortened the straps (which was possibly the easiest part of this whole dress debacle). I did not finish my side seams, and due to the chunk I cut out of the bottom of the hem, I had to do a faced hem with commercial bias tape to preserve some of the dress' length. You can see a little bit of the raw edge at the hem in that cut spot, but I'm so done worrying about it.
I wore this dress to dinner on our trip, and it's currently in the back of my closet. Where it'll stay.
Project Costs:
Looking forward to my next projects!
After trying the "finished" dress on, I realized that it was HUGE on top and just fine on the bottom. I shortened the straps (which was possibly the easiest part of this whole dress debacle). I did not finish my side seams, and due to the chunk I cut out of the bottom of the hem, I had to do a faced hem with commercial bias tape to preserve some of the dress' length. You can see a little bit of the raw edge at the hem in that cut spot, but I'm so done worrying about it.
I wore this dress to dinner on our trip, and it's currently in the back of my closet. Where it'll stay.
Project Costs:
| Raw Materials Cost | $ 15.68 |
| Sewing Time Cost | $ 68.97 |
| Total Cost | $ 84.65 |
Looking forward to my next projects!
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