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July 15, 2011

My First Dress~



I love wearing skirts and dresses! Especially when the scale tips the 90′s. There’s nothing quite like the feeling of a soft, light material swinging around you in the gentle breezes of summer. For this reason, I’m trying my hand at dressmaking. The pattern I’ve choosen is McCall’s M5619 (seen above) in green with 3/4 length sleeves.  The material is a lightweight cotton swiss dot in the palest teal with small pink and yellow flowers purchased from Hancock Fabrics.



The dress is rated as “easy” although it presents several challenges right off the bat.  Gathered bodice and sleeves, sleeve cuffs and the installation of a 22″ zipper.  Fun! Fun!  I’ve also upped the anty by deciding to add underlining to the bodice for modesty (the material is quite see through) and a full skirt lining. 
As of today all materials have been prewashed, pressed, cut, marked and basted.  

Lesson 1:  Follow cutting layout directions exactly!  There is a reason the pieces are not all squashed together in an arrangement that gives you the most leftovers but rather according to “grain”.  Although I’d heard this mentioned more than once, when it came to the layout and cutting, I thought I knew best.  

Result:  Not all pattern pieces follow the proper grain line which will inevitibly cause issues with the hang of the dress.  We will see….

Lesson 2:  Hand baste the underlining to the pattern pieces!  Machine basting, although quicker, causes the primary material to bunch up. 

Result:  Ripped out all machine basted stitches and sewed them again, by hand….now that looks a lot better.

Next step is to begin the construction.  Wish me luck!