McCall´s 6553 Dress

On Saturday I used my post-vacation sewing mojo to finish the two knit dresses, that I mentioned in my last post. One of them is a black knit dress - McCall´s 6553.

I was really looking forward to sew this one up. I had a look at some reviews and the pattern looked like a simple one, consisting of just a few pieces, that come together easily. It has proven to be true - it is not a complicated pattern, just a great fabric eater. 

I used a piece of black knit bought particularly for this dress. It is not too heavy, nor too thin, so an ideal material for what I had in my mind. I was trying to avoid using any even a bit stiffer fabric to not to end up with a big black tent.

Soo, since the pattern is so simple, why not to make it a bit complicated, right? I decided to add about 7cm to the length of the dress. Not so complicated, right? Well, I added 3,5cm at both "lengthen/shorten here" lines and thought that it would be easy to blend the side lines and keep the width of the dress very close to its original size 6. Nope, it wasn´t easy for me. I didn´t want to lose the shape of the dress and couldn´t manage to draw a line that would keep both the longer length and the original shape of size 6, so I had to broaden it at both sides as the pattern was leading me. Thinking about it, I think I might be able to do better now, but, well, too laaaaaate. Grrrrr :-)... So, I ended up with a dress, that is longer, but also wider than the original pattern. Not a big tragedy with such a loose dress.

I wanted to take some quality pictures to show the one-of-a-kind shape of this dress, but the weather does not cooperate anymore and I couldn´t wear it out yet. So I snapped a couple of pictures inside, but inside pictures of a black dress in a rather gloomy weather behind the windows never turn out really well.

At least some pathetic attempts:

 

There are some other minor changes I made:

- I omitted the loop and the button on the back side. If I read the sewing instructions carefully before the actual sewing process, I would have known, that there is no sewn-in fabric loop or a button hole, but a thread loop recommended. This was no option for me, so I have just sewn the two parts together from the inside with a couple of hand stitches and the collar is wide enough to serve its purpose without a button.

- The side holes for the sash are quite wide - so wide, that you can see the skin through them. I read this in one of the reviews, but obviously, I had to see for myself to actually believe how big they are... No big deal, So I made them a bit smaller with a couple of hand stitches from the inside.

Don´t ask me what this pose should have looked like. It makes me look pregnant.

Oh, maybe because I am :-).

See you soon :-).