Shining White - McCall's 6647

Hiiiii friends! I can't believe I've been away for a whole MONTH! So many things have been going on and I definitely haven't been sewing the way I THOUGHT I was going to be lol. I made my last garment on July 25th and hadn't touched my machine until this past weekend. Fortunately the absence will result in a couple more blog posts because I've been on the move!

This post is about the dress I made for my 25th birthday party! I ended not being able to celebrate my birthday ON my birthday because I was participating in wedding festivities so I ended up having a party a couple of weeks later. It had an All-White theme so you KNOW I had to make something special!

This is McCall's 6647. An "EASY" pattern with multiple cup sizes. I cut a 14C in the bodice and graded down to a 12 in the waist as well as cut a 12 for the skirt. The bust area fit SO perfect! I am def a multi-cup-sized pattern convert. The waist was another story though, more on that later.

The fabric I used for this dress is Satin that I got from Fabric Mart last summer. I got it during a $1/yd sale so I just copped 5 yards not knowing what I was going to make with it. It's so pretty up close. You can see the diamond stitching with a sequin at every point. And it's WHITE white. Not dingy looking or anything lol You can really see the sequins indoors but not much when the sun is shining on the white satin. Also, it was pretty opaque so I didn't need a lining for the skirt.

The pattern is supposed to be fully lined with a lace overlay but obviously I wasn't doing an overlay. But I still fully lined the bodice. I used a remnant of polyester voile from JoAnn Fabrics. It's super light and was exactly what I was looking for. I also used the voile for the pocket.

I was in a time crunch in finishing the dress (AS USUAL) so I had to come up with a creative way to enclose the rest of my seams because the polyester and satin were fraying like cray. My new best friend bias tape was the solution for me. I used it to bind the raw edge of the bottom cut out, the shoulder seams (instructions say to slipstitch them), and the hem.

 Okay, I made a couple of alterations to the dress. The first was that I added 4 inches to the hem. I could tell from the picture on the pattern that this dress was going to be shoooorrrrtttt lol I'm 5'9 so just imagine. The four inches made it a good length but I think I could have even gotten away with just 3 inches.

 The other alteration I made was to add an inch to the top cutout to make sure that my bra wouldn't show. I did make a muslin to check the fit on this dress and that is one of the adjustments that resulted.

I love that this dress has a pocket! They don't advertise it on the pattern envelope anywhere which may be a turn off for some people so I think that is something that should definitely be added. The pocket is on the right and was the perfect size for my phone.

 There is an invisible zipper on the left side and my invisible zipper insertion came at perfect. Not on the first try though....  On the first try, I was trying to follow the pattern instructions on how to insert the zipper and I was having a bit of trouble and wasting a lot of time. By the time I had finally got it in, I think there were a couple of stitches near the top that were keeping it from zipping up. I pulled at it so hard that I completely ripped the zipper pull off! *ugghhhh*. So I had to rip that out and I decided to do it the fool proof way I know how. And voila, zip perfection!

One change I will have to make in the future, though, has to do with the hook. There aren't any marks on where to place the hook and bar so I don't know if I just did it to loose or what. It keeps coming undone if I move around a lot. I'm thinking of just removing the hook and bar altogether and adding snaps instead.

 I am talking about how pleased I am with my dress but I can't say that I'm very pleased with the pattern instructions. First of all, the pattern is labeled "EASY" but it doesn't tell the sewer to complete ANY of the details needed for the a good finish. The instructions don't include anything about clipping OR understitching, both of which are paramount for all of the curves on this dress. Especially with a fully lined bodice. Both cutout curves, armholes, neckline; all of those areas need to be clipped and preferrably understitched for the bodice to lay flat. I think that a beginning sewer making this pattern would be extremely discouraged by the result they would get without those instructions included.

Also, there is an error in the instructions:

Step 8 says to stitch the bodice back to the bodice front at the right side and the picture supports that.

The same step for the lining, Step 12, says the exact same thing when it should actually say to stitch the bodice back to the bodice front at the LEFT side. The picture is right but the actual instruction is wrong.

I said I would talk about the area around the waist. There is a type of umpire piece at the waist. It looks baggy on my at times but I think that is my fault. Because I used bias tape on all of the raw edges, I have the seam allowance folded DOWN instead of UP like it's supposed to be. I believe that is what is making that middle area look as if it has excess fabric.

 I think those are all of my thoughts. Is it obvious I've been sitting on this a while? lol I will be back soon for sure and I will leave you with a couple of pics from my party! :-D

Me and my parents

Some of my favorite friends!