McCalls 7833 and the skin tight dress

OK, typically, I don’t do tight, I made an exception for this dress because the boss likes it so much (wiggling eyebrows lol).   This is a basic knit dress with gathers on one side and for this view, an angled hem.  This could have been drafted from the famous McCalls 6886 or any other t-shirt pattern, but for $1.99 why tho?

I needed a black dress for the Sew Much Talent Little black dress challenge and I wanted to make a classic dress (think Breakfast at Tiffany’s).  I also wanted to participate in the #Sewyourview campaign on instagram so,  I changed my mind and just tried something off the wall,  they’re calling it “sewing frosting” (those projects that are different, creative and totally not basic! the best parts, frosting lol) I know, I’m a rebel who loves frosting, and if you say you don’t like frosting because it’s too sweet, you get a quadruple eye roll lol, but not judgement.

I have too much fabric ( I know I must be crazy) actually I have too much of the wrong type of fabric, knits and stiff cottons.  Now, I don’t have the fabric stash that will rival some of my favorite sewist, but the space that I’ve been allotted ( insert eye roll) is jammed packed!  I still have fabric in bags and boxes (hey FabricMart boo! LOL) and I just don’t have a good system.  I can use another closet, but first I would have to clean out the closet (quadruple eye roll) and then it will be in another room (sigh).  I really need one of my sew sisters to come to the house and just fix this issue lol!

The moral to the story is I didn’t want to buy any fabric for this.  This is a trendy dress that I may remake (not so tight lol) or not so I don’t want to invest too much into it.  I had tons of remnants and knit pieces from my Hancock Fabrics shopping days so I decided to just make it work.  I still want to make a little black dress and I have some silk dupioni, but I think I’d like to make it out of wool crepe.  I don’t have any in my stash so I think I’ll wait for the fabric to miraculously go on sale at FabricMart (great strategy, right?)

The facing was not cooperating I will have to tack it down in more places than instructed.

Duster is modified M6996 seen here.

Mini review:

The dress is solid, the instructions were good, and I made a few adjustments.  I cut as size 22 and graded up.  I made view d with view c’s hem.  I’m not a fan of facings on knits and they kept peaking out even after I under stitched, I think bands would work better or top stitch the facings down.  This dress has like two to three inches of negative ease, that was a lot for me as I typically don’t sew up garments with negative ease, I typically make it the same size as my body or in some cases an inch of positive ease.  I just don’t like fabric settling in areas around my belly, my back and under my butt, just my preference.  The only advice on fabric is try to get something with 75% stretch (4 way) with good recovery, pattern recommends 50% stretch, I don’t think that’s enough IMO.  I like beefier knits because tight ITY or jersey can get transparent and this isn’t lined sooo it looks a little cheap if using lighter weight knits with this much negative ease IMO.  I guess you could wear a slip, but nah.

I used a beefier Casa collection sparkle knit from Joann’s and a rayon/spandex blend ponte for the back.  I also adjusted for my forward shoulder by decreasing the shoulder 5/8″ when I cut the front out and extended the back shoulder an inch when I cut it out, I was too lazy to make separate pattern pieces for front and back LOL.  I lengthened just above the waist 1.5inches front and back and added one inch to the side seams to grade the pattern up, the 22 had a final garment measurement of 44″ and the measurement chart has the size 22 hip at 46″.  My hip is 49″ so I made this dress with two inches of negative ease and both my fabrics passed the pick a knit test on the envelope.  I still think it’s a bit fitted but it worked, I would recommend it with close attention to fabric.  I think you could make this with both sides gathered if you use the straight hem and cut on fold.

I’m still waiting on my hubby to pick fabric for his shirt and I ordered a pattern from the last McCalls pattern online sale since they didn’t have the pattern he wanted in the store (insert eye roll) so in the mean time, I have a flannel shirt I want to make.  I’m still working on my pants block, but I have to get back in that mode, it takes a lot of my time with fitting and corrections, I just want to sew at this point.

Until next time..