The Return of the McCalls Shirtdress

Two sewing repeats back to back? Tsk, tsk. Someone needs to plan my life better so this sort of thing doesn't happen. In fact let me just get a ghost blogger so I can focus all my attention on my real loves, cake and toy frogs. :)  But not toy frog cake because that would be weird.

Anyway, let's just blame Roisin for pattern repeat number 2 and move on.  She's been cranking out McCall's 6696 like clockwork and with every post my desire to sew another has increased. There was even a moment where I thought, "My wardrobe really needs a M6696 sewn in Liberty Carline," forgetting that I'd already sewn one. Derp. To be honest though two Carline shirtdresses would not be a bad thing.

Not having any other colors of Carline in the stash, I did the next best thing and chose a Liberty Lawn in a different print.  It's name did not lodge itself in my head, but it's the one with all the different colored pears. When purchasing this fabric I thought, "OOOOHHH FRUIT PRINT ON SALE!" and grabbed 3 yards. This probably would have been more than enough fabric for most garments if a. The print wasn't directional and b. The pears are set up in stripes so you have to stripe match if you don't want the garment to look like a pile of dog poop. I did luck out was able to fussy cut most of the garment correctly  One button band had to be squeezed out without any regard to pattern placement, the inside waist facing is pieced and my skirt side seams aren't perfectly aligned. But the center front looks pretty great which is what's really important...right...right? *twitches slightly when looking at sideways pictures*

This dress was cut out at the end of May, a few days before we took a trip to my in-laws.  The plan was to get most of the machine sewing parts done and then do all that tedious hand sewing at their house. No machine no problem, I'm still making garments!!!  Well the fly in the ointment is that my hand sewing is slow and even with the assistance of audiobooks,  incredibly boring. At the end of that weekend only half of the sewing was done. The stash busting contest started in June and this poor dress sat around in a tote bag for most of that time.  I finally picked it back up during/after? our long term power outage and finished up all the fiddly handiwork. 

There are a few minor pattern alterations to this version. After pulling last year's dress out of storage and putting it on, the bodice length felt too short.  I went back and removed my bodice length alteration of 1/2" and sewed this one as drafted.  The waist hits where I want it now, but it seems like this change makes the back puffer.  That's my current theory anyway since the fabrics are exactly the same.

My preference for skirt length as also changed in a year, so I added 3 3/4" to the pattern to make it 27" long. This change was also made to the button band because you want all those pieces to fit together. ;)  On this dress I gathered the edge to ease in the extra fullness and catch stitched a 1 3/4" hem.

In any future versions I'd tweak the back gathers a bit. They may just need to be distributed over a larger area since I do like the feel of that much ease across my broad upper back. I'd also make the pockets bigger, a change that had to be skipped on this is dress due to fabric yardage concerns.

All in all it was a good stash busting project to crank out since I didn't need to buy a thing to sew this dress. Isn't it nice when all your hoarding pays off in the future. There was even a pear brooch already lurking in my collection. (Somehow not surprising thanks to my brooch addiction.) Though I'd like to go back in time and tell past Heather to buy these sandals in navy too. Still kicking myself about that years later.

In parting I'll leave you with a picture from a different location in the park.  The house in the background is an office space for some of the local government employees, but hasn't lost any of it charm....if we ignore the AC units. It might also amuse you to know that a family found my photo taking entertaining enough to stand around watching for about 10 minutes.  In truth watching me try to climb up this wall before the camera stopped responding to the remote probably was hilarious. Climb overly dressed women, climb!

Bettie Drapering It Up - McCall's 6696

Being Don's wife is hard work. All those cigarettes to smoke, wine to drink, all while actively ignoring the children.  "Shut up Sally and stop shoving food in your face." God knows how I find the time to make bitchy comments with Francine. Just the other day I got so fed up with everything that I shot a few of the neighbor's pigeons. At least Sally and Bobby made sure to keep my wine glass topped up that night. Don finally came home and said I look pretty in my new dress. Guess I'll grace him with a smile tonight.

This post could be alternately titled, "Clare made me do it." McCall's 6696 wasn't a pattern I'd noticed when it came out.  I only skim big 4 offerings when they release. If something doesn't grab me then right then it gets forgotten. Well Clare went and remade this pattern, reminding me that I wanted this dress as well as her legs and her Don robot. I contented myself with only purchasing the pattern.

My plans for a straight skirt version where quickly abandoned after realizing that the full skirt view would go great with the Carline Liberty Lawn in the stash.  That fabric was supposed to be a shirt dress anyway, the one from Gertie's first book.  Long story short, fitting that particular pattern was a nightmare. "What Is Wrong With This Bodice?!  Do my arms come out at weird angles or something. AHHHHHHH!" The Gertie shirt dress ended up sewn in lobster quilting cotton and the Liberty went back into the stash cave.

As much as I'd love to hoard Liberty lawn forever, it stuck me that McCalls 6696 had the right details for my taste.  I took the plunge and put scissors to those luscious red roses. Eck! Even having a well fitting muslin doesn't take the sting out of cutting into Liberty. "What if I screw this up? The sewing goddess will surely curse me forever." However once you get over that hump, sewing with Liberty is such a joy. I start wondering why can't I be filthy rich and have bolts of it? Who wants to plan a Liberty lawn heist with me? Hashtag #LLheist. I'm sure there's no way they can trace it back to this blog.

Anyway let's put my criminal plans aside and get back to sewing.  Great things about this pattern include, a two piece collar, pretty gathers in the back, pockets and an inset waist band that make sewing belt loops on a snap.  With the different views it's easy to get shirt dress with either a retro or modern feel.  Props to the design department for giving you options like that. I'll probably sew the straight skirt version with sleeves in denim for fall. (Seems everything is denim this fall.)
Bad thing about this pattern, or maybe just view A, is that it takes a shit ton of hand sewing. So Much Hand Sewing....what have I done? Save me from the needle's wrath! Finishing the dress was a slog and the only thing keeping me going was staring at red roses and Stephen King's Dark Tower series on audio book. Ahhh yeah, scratch my science fiction/western itch.

Pattern
McCall's 6696 - View A. Henceforth referred to the view of copious hand sewing.

Fabrics used
Liberty Tana Lawn in the discontinued Carline print. Dear Liberty, how can I convince to start reprinting this design again? Cookies? Buying more lawn? Not planning to rob your store? Let me know. Smooches

Pattern changes/alterations
1. I excitedly bought the larger size nest without looking at the measurements on the envelope.  Turns out that the 36" bust size 14 is in the smaller size nest. Doh! Since I needed the size 16 for my lower body I decided to do a little fast and loose grading on the top half of the pattern rather than exchange the pattern.  I used the method of grading using the existing sizes explained in this post. But instead of grading up, I did the opposite and graded down.

2. This was my first time using a McCall's pattern that had the different cup size options. Since I wear a DD US/E European bra size I traced the D cup bodice.  When I mocked up the dress I found a fitting problem that I'd never encountered before.  The neck/shoulders, which had been graded down, fit perfectly. The hip area also fit perfectly. But in the bust/waist area I literally had inches of extra ease. I'm going to guess that the different cup sizes have FBA adjustments already made to them.  Since I rarely need one of those, using the D sized bodice might not be the best fitting option for me.  To fix the ease problem I took 3/4" out of the side seam of the entire bodice and waistband. The top of the skirt was nipped in 3/4" to match the waistband and then graded out to zero at the hip.

3. The bodice was shortened 1/2" and the waist dart shortened 1".

4. Standard dropping of the side seam dart an 1".

5. Standard 1/2" forward shoulder adjustment made.

In retrospect, it would have been a lot less work to start with the size 14 and just grade out the hip a bit.  Oh well, I couldn't have foreseen this unless someone explicitly mentioned it in a PR review. (I didn't bother to check before plunging into the project.)

Confessions/Advice
1. Confession - I hated sewing this dress because it was about 50% hand stitching. The first half of assembly is fine and then suddenly you find yourself doing yards and yards of hand stitching with one machine seam in between.  If you make view A you will have to hand stitch, the waist band facing, the giant hem, both button band facings, both armhole bias bindings, and finish with sewing on 12 buttons.  I did most of this with a head cold, which did not improve the process.

2. The shoulder strap piece for the included slip does a fine job doubling as bias binding piece for the armholes. You know if you had a brain fart and thought it actually was a bias binding pattern piece and already cut the fabric.  I did use a 1/4" seam allowance to sew the strip on due to the width of the piece.

4. There was some sort of nonsense in the directions about turning the hem up 2 + inches and then trimming it down. I guess a wider hem would be a nice design element in a semi-see through fabric like the eyelet they used in there pattern sample. I wanted the hem a little longer anyway so my dress has a 1 1/4" hem that did not need to be eased in. The button band was plenty long enough to accommodate this with out any adjustment.

5. I heard, through the grapevine, about some people feeling there was too much ease in the back.  For me this wasn't an issue, probably because my upper back is wide. I was able to skip my standard width adjustment since there was already plenty of ease to move my arms around.

Husband Comment
"It's got a collar and buttons. Do those buttons open up? Does it have pockets? Well that's convenient. Are you wearing a belt with that? Does the collar chafe your neck? No? OK that's good. It looks stylin'." *Then the spelling of styling was specified.*

My Final Thoughts
Even though I was cursing my lot during the hand sewing, I knew it was going to be fine in the end.  I could tell from the muslin that this would be a comfortable dress and easy to accessorize. The style of pattern is "me" or at least me at this current moment. (Damn changeable whims.) The Carline print was a perfect match and I admit enjoying the flurry of instagram liking while making this dress. None of you can resit the fabric's charms....and I don't blame you.  Roses goooood.

Coincidentally Mary just made this pattern too. Linking over so you can get a look at another lovely version. That's 3 shirt dresses for the price of one, cause I'm not trying to brain wash you into buying the pattern or anything. (Buuuuuuy Ittttt.)