I’ve been working sporadically on McCall’s M6612 for over a
year now, and it’s still not right, but I think I’m making progress. I have two
muslins of two different views of the dress, and I actually wore one of them. I’ll
never wear the other. Here we go…
I first started working on View A, and made a couple of
initial muslins. Many thanks to Andrea of Satin Bird Designs for her advice on
alterations, which got me to my third and most productive muslin. I'm just going to focus on that one.
I cut a size 14 and did a cheater FBA by moving the armscye
up 2” and adding ½” of ease at the side seam. I made the corresponding changes
to the cowl, which folds and down and lines up perfectly with the armscye and
the top couple of inches on the side seam. I think this adjustment ruined the
cowl. Also, I don’t really know how to adjust the sleeve cap to fit an armscye
adjustment, so I just gathered the top of the sleeve so it would fit. I have to
learn how to actually make that alteration. The gathering made the sleeve too
tight on the top of my shoulder, which I guess doesn’t matter since I’m never
going to wear this dress.
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| Add caption |
There are two major major fit issues with this dress. First, the
cowl is way too big now and doesn’t feel secure. I also hate the way it drapes.
I think this might be a combination of the alteration and my fabric choice. I
think I need to choose a fabric that has a little bit heavier drape and is
maybe just a little bit slinky. The other major major horrible issue is that
the self-facing of the cowl lands right at my bustline and is visible through
the dress and feels awkward and uncomfortable. I think I need to lengthen it
and maybe put some elastic in it to make it a shelf bra. That thing needs to
stay put, for real.
I guess a third major fit issue would be that overall, it's too big. Totally fixable.
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| Ugh, why does this cowl suck so much? |
On to my next version of M6612…
We (ecology and evolution grad students and faculty) have a
fancy party every December before the holidays. We call it the wine party, and
we wear our fanciest and bring the cheapest bottle of wine we can find (more or
less). I wanted something new to wear. I still had this bridesmaid dress in my
closet from a dear friend’s wedding a few years ago, and I had worn it to the
wine party once, but I didn’t really want to wear it again. (I also couldn’t
wear it again because it wouldn’t zip anymore.)
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| Unfortunately I don't have a good picture of myself wearing this dress, though I know there are some good ones from my friend Katharine's wedding. |
Refashion time!
I cut View C in size 14, and did a cheater FBA by adding
ease to the side seams by the bust. I used the sleeve pattern from View A and
shortened the sleeves to elbow length due to fabric limitations. I also raised
the hem as much as I felt comfortable, scooped out the front neckline a little
bit lower, and scooped out the back neckline a lot lower (it was for a fancy
party after all). I wanted to use the gorgeous satin as accents, so I trimmed
the sleeves with it and made ties to go across my shoulder blades to give me
some security that the dress wouldn’t slip over and expose my bra straps.
My issues with this dress mostly have to do with sewing
quality. First, this material doesn’t hold a press at all. Not even for a moment. Second, the fabric slipped all over the place. Constantly. Third, satin
frays like it was born to fray, and being pretty and shiny is just icing on a weird frayed cake. Combine all these things and the dress looks
like a mess, but I wore it anyway. There are some minor fit issues that I won’t
be able to change at this point, but the fabric has really great recovery so I
can redo the sewing with my new walking foot, and I think I will want to wear
it again and feel pretty good about it. I also don’t like the width of the satin trim on the sleeves. Those
are coming off and I don’t know what I’ll do in their place. Don't worry, I'll figure it out.
Did you notice my sparky shoes? I glittered some BCBG nude
pumps that I bought at Goodwill. I got the idea from this tutorial over at
Merrick’s Art. I wanted to go for a rose gold effect, so I mixed some pink
glitter into some gold glitter until it was the color that I wanted. I should
have gone for the finer glitter but the pink wasn’t quite right. They were fun.
Now for fit issues in common between View A and View C.
I need to start experimenting with swayback adjustments,
which I learned recently with some other unblogged garments, and from reaching
out to the Florida Fashion Sewists Facebook group. You can't really see the excess fabric at the small of my back in the purple dress, and the green dress is too big overall, so you might just have to take my word for it
Do you notice anything else?
Although you could argue that I should have made some more
muslins before cutting into my sage knit and my bridesmaid dress, I think it
worked out kind of well to make two versions of the same dress, because it
allowed me to see what fit issues were caused by my alterations and what fit
issues are just due to the way the pattern fits my body. Perhaps I’m on my way to learning
what my “usual” alterations will be.
I’d really like to work out the fit issues with View A,
because I think it would actually make a great top and I could use some more of
those. For a top, I might actually make the self facing go the whole way to the
bottom hem. Thoughts?
