It’s taken me a year to have a chance to make this dress. From the moment I found the fabric at JoAnn’s, I knew that I wanted to pair it with remanent black lace pieces I already had. I just wasn’t sure in what way I wanted to pair them together. I did some sketches.
I looked through my patterns and I decided that while I liked the sketches of these dresses, they all used patterns that I had already sewn before. I was interested in trying a new pattern.
I liked the dress from McCall’s M6711 because the back panel was the perfect length for the black lace panel I wanted to do. Also instead of just having an elastic waist it had an elastic drawstring waist.
I’ve had a lot of practice making dresses with elastic waists. Each pattern has directions that are slightly different. Since this pattern was going to incorporate drawstrings, it advised that I make a button hole for the drawstrings to pass through. Embarrassed to admit after having this sewing machine for several years, I hadn’t tried the button hole attachment yet. But proud to admit, that I did it! It turned out great! I did a practice button hole on scrap fabric first before adding it to the bodice.
I also liked this pattern because I wanted to have the stripes go in several different directions to keep the dress interesting. The sketching helped me figure out which stripe direction I liked best. For the front bodice since there is a seam in the middle, I decided to rotate the fabric so that the stripes would be at a diagonal.
The only part I’m unhappy about is the way the elastic threaded through the casing in the waist. Maybe since the cotton is thicker and the elastic is close to the same height, the fabric is not gathering as easy as it could when I tie the drawstring. The nice thing about having a drawstring connected to the elastic is that I can easily yank it out and re-thread it.
Crafty, AMPlified. 