My #thesewbackproject Dress

Hello to you lovely sewists!

Just to let you know, I’m going to be extending the deadline for #thesewbackproject until the end of July instead of the end of June! I know that there are a lot of sewalongs ending this month, so to give you a chance and so that you won’t need to rush, I thought extending it would be the best way forward.

So, today I finished my shirt dress for both the sewback project and the #sewtogetherforsummer sewalongs – I figured that I’m allowed to put it in for two seeing as I’m the one hosting the project and so definitely won’t be winning that!

I was recreating a cute little shirt dress I wore a lot when I was younger, which was orange and pink in a large checked pattern. I’m not sure that I’d be able to pull off that colour combo now, so I went for a much simpler pink gingham – I’m very glad that I made that choice! The fabric was, admittedly, a little too weighty for the pattern I used – McCalls’ M7314, so it hangs a little more stiff than I’d like, but I’m not toooo concerned. I just know that next time I use the pattern I’ll opt for a cotton lawn or something lighter.

Another error I made was interfacing both pieces of the collar… I got a bit carried away! Admittedly it is a bit stiffer than a usual collar, but not so much so that it sticks out weirdly or is any trouble to press, so as Gabby says – I totally did that on purpose! Onto the review of the pattern:

There wasn’t anything major at all that I found within the pattern, and I’m so pleased I got it – I think it’s going to become my new Hollyburn Skirt! (for some context, I’ve made four Hollyburns in 10 months) The things that I changed are all very little, and mostly just personal preference. There are lovely massive pockets in this dress (yay!) but the way that the pattern wants you to stitch them closed means that the majority of the pocket is actually wasted, and they’re not nearly as deep as they could be. Fixing this is super simple though, you just need to change the stitching lines so that the gap for the pocket is closer to the top of the pattern piece. 

 

Something that was a little frustrating is the lack of notches on the top of the skirt and the bottom of the bodice for when you’re joining them together. While it is pretty easy to figure out, the amount of gathering needed on the skirt means that things could quite easily become a little ‘off’ and distort the view of the dress.

Those two things are really all of the problems that I found, though, and I know that I’m going to be making another one of these shirt dresses very soon! Happy sewing!

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My Makes, Uncategorizedgingham dress, hobbling handmades, M7314, M7314 review, mccalls pattern co, pattern review, shirtdress, the sewback project