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Off-the-Shoulder Dress | M6558

I don't know how the weather has been in your part of the country/world, but here in Central Virginia it seems like we have had more cloudy/rainy days than sunny and I could count on one hand the number of days the temperature has gotten above 75, which is completely atypical for this area. It's basically felt like March for 3 months now and I CAN.NOT.WAIT. to be complaining about how hot and humid it is. Seriously! Consequently, this dress that I finished at the beginning of April hasn't been worn except to snap these photos :( It looks so sad hanging in my closet being all but ignored as I try to find sweaters and jackets that I'm not sick of wearing since October. My hope is that by blogging about it, some warm, sunny weather will be encouraged to head this way and stay for a while. Summer will come. It has to, right? I really hope so.

As you can see, I have punched my ticket for the off-the-should-trend bandwagon and I am not even slightly sorry! I used McCall's 6558 View B a modified it a little to get the look I was going for in my head.

I made a quick muslin of the size 10 and decided not to make any alterations for fit, so even with the muslin step this was a really quick sew. I only made a couple of design changes, specifically shortening the length to mid-thigh (using my Southport dress as a guide) and also shortening the shoulder ruffle by about 1 inch. If/when I make another version, I might give the skirt more of an a-line shape to add a little fullness.

I picked up this fabric on my very last trip to Hancock Fabrics (R.I.P). I am super bummed to see them go as the only places in Richmond to buy apparel fabrics are Joann or Hancock and I have never been impressed with Joann's selection/pricing/quality of apparel fabrics. I guess that means a lot more online fabric shopping for me! I picked up a few different wovens on this trip, this one being a cotton/linen blend that was super soft even before washing it. It sort of has a mid-weight hand to it but because of the content I'm sure it will be nice and light and comfortable to wear if the weather ever decides to warm up.

Construction on this dress was really straight forward. The hardest part for me was feeding the elastic through the casings as it was a veryyy tight squeeze. The armholes are finished with bias binding leftover from my Easter dress (yet to be blogged). I serged the side seams, and the hems on the ruffle and skirt are double folded and topstitched. My favorite sewing hack as of late is using doubled sided tape (like this) for hems. I used the 1/4" wide version for the hem on the ruffle. Just place it along the raw edge of the fabric, pull off the paper, fold up the fabric the width of the tape, fold up again, and stitch in place. The result is neat and even and there is no measuring involved! Love it.

While I was cutting and sewing this dress, the thought of adding pockets came to mind more than once but was rejected each time out of sheer laziness. Of course, the first thing I said to myself when I put it on to go take these pictures was "Man, I wish I had some pockets." I guess I could do some unpicking and throw in some inseam pockets, or maybe patch pockets on the front would be easier? I don't know, the lazy voice in my head is telling me it's not that big of a deal. Perhaps I will wait until I can really get some wear out of the dress before I make a final decision.

Oh! I almost forgot to tell you about my favorite part, the tag! This is one of those garments where it is impossible to tell the front from the back, so I knew I needed to add something to help me differentiate between the two. I went a little computer nerd and designed this guy in Inkscape then converted it to a digital embroidery file. I used one of the embroidery machines at work to embroider him onto a piece of scrap fabric which I made into a tag and sewed into the dress. And then all of the heart-eye cat face emojis. I love him, I really do! I realize that when I'm wearing the dress, no one will know it is there (except for you guys if you see me wearing it, haha) but there is just something about it that makes me happy. Maybe thats weird, but I don't care.

Anywaysss, I think that's all I have to say about this pretty straight-forward make. I'm going to go savor these last little bits of sunshine before it rains all weekend (again).

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Pattern:	M6558, View B by McCall Pattern Company
Fabric:	Striped Cotton/Linen Blend from Hancock Fabrics
Body Measurements:	Bust 36.5/Waist 27/Hip 37.5 (in inches)
Size:	10
Adjustments/Alterations:	shortened skirt to mid-thigh length, shortened shoulder ruffle 1 inch

Geometric Southport Dress

Wednesday was officially the first day of fall, so of course I am posting about a summer dress today! My timing might not be the best but I actually think this Southport Dress will be a good fall transition piece when layered with a cardigan/tights/boots (but it was in the upper 80s when these pics were taken so you won't see any of those things today).

I have a "dress" that I bought years ago from Forever21 that I love (I think it is supposed to be a dress but it is completely inappropriate without leggings, so I wear it as a tunic). It is a tank with a front button placket and elasticized waist. It is one of those items of clothing that I seem to wear whenever it is clean, so when Kelli of True Bias released the Southport Dress pattern that is so similar to my well-loved "dress" I knew I wanted to make one.

I found this rayon challis at Hancock Fabrics. Black & white geometric print in my favorite textile ever? Yes, please! I can't remember exactly how much I paid for it but I know they were having a really good sale that weekend. It was probably about or just under $10 for the 1.5 yards I needed and that's not a bad deal for a dress at all. I am pretty impressed with the quality, too; it is definitely one of the softer rayon challises that I have come across.

I don't really have a whole lot to say about this pattern except it is awesome and I love it. The instructions were great and for me the fit right out of the envelope was awesome. I opted to leave off the front bodice button placket for this version. It's a pretty busy print and I felt like the buttons would just get lost anyway so I saved myself some time by cutting the front bodice on the fold at the center front. I also decided to use elastic in the waist instead of the drawstring that comes with the pattern. This required a little modification to the construction, but not much. I lengthened the casing so that it would be the entire width of the dress, then instead of sewing the casing into the waist seam so that it folds to the outside of the dress, I simply sewed it so that it would fold to the inside of the dress. I stitched all around the bottom of the casing like in the pattern instructions, left a hole to feed the elastic through, fed the elastic through, and then sewed up the hole. And voilá, no drawstrings to fiddle with.

I finished the neckline and armholes with some vintage lavender bias tape that was gifted to me by my boss's mom (seriously, I may never need to buy bias or hem tape ever again). I'm still working on getting necklines to lay flat when finishing them this way, as you can see from the photos. Surprisingly, the pokey-outey-ness bothers me way more in these photos than it does IRL, so that's good, I guess. I used french seams throughout the dress, even on the side seam pockets which was interesting (I used this tutorial). The point where the pocket and the side seam intersect was a little funky but overall I'm happy with how they turned out, and from the outside they look just like any other side seam pocket.

I had a lot of fun during the whole process of sewing this dress but I think my favorite part was the fact that I did not have to make any fit adjustments! I had read a few other posts mentioning that the bodice runs a little big and the skirt a little narrow so I wanted to play it safe and sewed up a muslin. My body measurements are exactly a size 8 on the size chart, but based on the finished measurements I decided to size down to a 6 and the fit is pretty spot on. Don't you just love it when that happens?

I absolutely have plans for more Southports, though they might be put on hold until the spring to make way for some more seasonally appropriate sewing. But I think it would be super cute to add a shirttail hem detail to the skirt. I don't own any maxi dresses (gasp!, I know) but I am definitely interested in giving the maxi version a go, too.

Do you have any favorite patterns that fit right out of the envelope? Do you like making fit adjustments to patterns? Sometimes I find the whole fitting process fun (I love a good challenge/puzzle) but being able to skip it is such a time saver.

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Pattern:	Southport Dress by True Bias Patterns
Fabric:	Rayon Challis from Hancock Fabrics
Body Measurements:	Bust 36/Waist 29/Hip 38 (in inches)
Size:	6
Adjustments/Alterations:	no adjustments for fit; cut front bodice on fold and removed front button placket; removed drawstring and added elasticized waist