Here’s a little story about the Who Made It Best Challenge that isn’t.
I’ve come close to making the popular shirtdress style when I made a Marigold dress a couple years back, but I hadn’t felt like I was losing out on anything by not having a proper one. When Stephanie from the Petite Sewist, suggested the M7351 shirtdress to do together for a Who Made It Best challenge, I was ok with the idea but didn’t think I’d wear it much outside of church on Sunday.
As we worked on our muslins, I found I had to go down a full size in the bodice and was alright from there. Stephanie was so frustrated getting the fit correct that she has put it in the naughty corner. The challenge was off, but I was starting to like the dress.
As I worked through the project I relearned the lesson to read through the directions ahead of time. Where I got burned on this was the instruction to hand stitch the entire placket and neckband facing – that equals about 8 feet of hand stitching on my dress. After doing all that handstitching, the next step is to topstitch all along that same seam. Gosh darn it, I could have just topstitched and skipped all that hand stitching. Catherine Daze’s Blog found the same thing in another McCalls shirtdress pattern too.
One of the final steps is the turn under and hem the sleeves. I just didn’t like the look of this, so I settled on the idea of adding a cuff. Going through my patterns I found the cuff from the Onyx Shirt by Paprika Patterns would give the look I was going for. First I shortened the sleeve by 1 1/2in at the hem line and determined that a size 7 cuff from the Onyx would fit my new opening, then attached the cuff following the directions for the Onyx.
The Pattern McCalls7351 view B with no pockets. Size 14 C cup in the bodice and size 16 skirt. My measurements put me in a straight size 16 but after muslining the bodice I sized down to the 14. Sleeve shortened by 1.5 inches and I added the size 7 cuff from the Onyx shirt pattern.
The Fabric Robert Kauffman yarndye in wineberry. Used 2.5 yards
As always, thanks for reading today.
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You may also like to see: my Marigold Dress
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