Week 3 of 52

I’m trying to sew up the fabrics I have which means I keep adding dresses to my wardrobe. I don’t need dresses, especially in a pandemic, but they are fun to make!

This dress is made from fabric that is still available at my local Joann’s so it might be available on their website. The pattern is a McCall’s pattern M7745.

I love the look of the ruffle on the skirt, but it is labor intensive to assemble. The gathering evenly feels like it takes an eternity. I love how the skirt turned out and one of the people I follow on instagram has frequently turned this dress into a skirt. It looks amazing as just a skirt.

The bodice felt like it to took forever to assemble. I made the D size cup and the darts are positioned weird. This dress is one that I’d recommend making a muslin of the bust before cutting precious fabric. It fits ok, but not well. If I ever make it again, I’d make a muslin. The sleeves are very unusual, I was very confused for a while during assembly. I thought for a while that I had messed up either in cutting it out or put them together backwards. I had not messed up but rather my previous experiences were messing me up. The dress itself is part of the sleeve, it’s a very unusual construction method I hadn’t seen before.

This pattern called for ribbon to tie the sides, but I didn’t like that idea so I made my own out of the fabric.

The dart is too high and you can see here how the sleeve connects.

The bodice turned out to be a couple of inches bigger than the skirt so I created a pleat in the back to fix it.

I can’t say that I loved the construction of this dress and it’s hard to feel like the top lays right with the ruffle and lining. I wish I’d finished the bodice the same way I finished the edge of the skirt.

Overall it’s a cute dress, a little low cut but a cute summer dress.

Next week I’ll be making myself some new shorts. I’ve put on weight over the past 18 months and my shorts are not fitting well. I made these for my capsule wardrobe and love them. I’ll be making two more pairs and tops to match if there is time.