McCalls 6713 x2

 This was the last thing I made before taking my sewing machine to the doctor.  The problem with things electronic is that you can't fix them yourself.  Hopefully it's just a dirty sensor as the doctor thinks, but since I haven't heard from him yet - well fingers crossed.  The good news is that I have a back up machine and sewing *will* happen over my 4-day weekend. 

This is the second version of McCalls 6713 - this time with the flounce.  The brown spotty version was the 'muslin' for this fabric.  And honestly - that brown dress has become a favorite and while I hate wearing the same clothes often - I've already worn it twice! 

This fabric was a very lightweight, but heavy (if that makes sense - and if you sew you know what I mean) knit.  I would guess that even if you don't sew you have some items of clothing that are very thin, but the fabric itself is heavy.  Anyway - because of that it stretched and hung different that the more stable brown spotty fabric. 

Again - no changes to the pattern, I just cut it out and sewed it up - mostly on the serger - remember, my machine wasn't playing nice. 

I cut the flounce in a single layer, rather than the self-lined and instructed in the pattern.  I felt this would be okay because the back of the fabric is a nice grey (is it grEy or grAy?)  and if it was visible it would be okay.  I chose to leave the edges of the flounce raw and unfinished as it's a knit and won't ravel and I didn't want the added bulk of another layer at my waist were everything is joined. 

I wore the dress with red pumps, red cardigan and red jewelry.  JB was less than impressed with this make.  He couldn't really verbalize what was different, but he said it looked more casual than my other dresses.    Looking at the photos - it's not nearly as cute as I thought it was when I left the house in the morning. 

The one major 'fix' was to serge a dart out of the center back.  Umm - yea - seriously.  When I first put this dress on, there was about 3" of extra fabric at the center of my back.  Remember - light but heavy fabric.  The back is cut on the fold, the neckline was already finished and it looked horrible.  Possibly a belt could have saved it - but it honestly needed some sort of adjustment to the back to make it fit.  So I folded the dress in half at the skirt center back seam, laid my french curve down on the dress marking about 1 1/4" at the waist seam - down about 5" and all the way up to the neckline but not through it.  I then took it to the serger, said a little prayer and serged with the left needle on the chalk line.  Let out breath, try dress on and the back fits!  Win!!