And the dress

I mentioned I made a dress over break. I had seen the pattern for it at the near-to-me JoAnn's, fell in love with the style, and bought the pattern. I took it with me over break in the hopes of finding a good fabric and being able to make the dress.

The pattern is labeled McCall's MP408 on the cover, but M7086 on the pattern sheet. (Uh, yeah.) On their website, they refer to it as M7086.

They call it "Vintage 1963" but I'd bet it's designed to fit today's bodies and especially today's tendency not to wear things like girdles.

I greatly preferred the full skirted version. I made a "Women's 18," and yeah, it hurts a little to have to go up a couple sizes in patterns from ready-to-wear, but that's how patterns often work - and it's easier to cut things DOWN than it is to size up.

The one really big modification - and I was glad I had my mom there to help me with it - was it was WAY too short-waisted. I am not unusually long-waisted (I don't think, I'm about 5' 7" and I have an inseam of 29", as long as a couple of taller men I know). But it would have hit at an unflattering point, so we lengthened it by almost 2"

I really love the fabric I found. It's slightly lighter than a quilting-weight cotton, and is fine and crisp - it's almost the same texture as some of the Liberty cottons, but without the Liberty price. (It was 60" wide and about $10 a yard. The nice thing about the wide fabric is you need less and it's easier to lay out the pattern). I also think the pattern on the fabric is in keeping with the era of the design:



This also shows the little waist detail. There's a folded faux self-belt sort of thing on the front. Another clever bit to the design - the skirt is gathered but at the center front and back, for about 3 or 4 inches, there aren't any gathers, which I think makes a more flattering design. Also, the sleeves are designed as one-piece-in with the bodice: no sleeves to set in.

Here's as close to a full length shot as I could get:



Unfortunately the flash washes it out a little.



Maybe a little more of the length of the dress:



No flash here, this is the truer color of the fabric:



I think this is (technically speaking) the best dress I have ever made - it fits very well (one or two I have made in recent years wound up being a bit too loose), the finishing is good. I'm particularly happy with the interfacing - I don't use iron-on interfacing, I don't like it, and I found a slightly crisper sew-in interfacing for the neck facing and that was what it really needed.

I also always do handpicked zippers (no photo of that! The zip is on the back). Even though hand-sewing the zipper in takes longer, it is far less frustrating for me to do it that way, and I think it gives a neater finish than trying to machine-sew it in.