pattern: McCalls 7387
fabric: Liberty twill cotton from The Fabric Store
I’m not normally one to hop on a bandwagon when the general public seems to become a fanatic of one particular thing, be it a movie, a musician, a book, or in this case, a pattern. Example: everyone I know, including my wife, has talked on and on (and on and on and on!) about what a phenom Zadie Smith is, but I just haven’t been able to make it through any of her books. I’ve started a couple of them, never imagining for one second that White Teeth wouldn’t make it’s way into my Top 20 novels before I even started reading the first page, but it turns out it just wasn’t for me. This of course doesn’t mean that it’s not an incredible book or that my wife and all those other people raving about Smith’s work don’t have excellent taste (I’m sure it is and I know that they do), but timing matters, and perhaps more importantly, nothing can be everything to everyone. I try and remember this when I get criticism for projects I have been a part of, both large and small- more often than not, someone’s disinterest in a work of art isn’t personal, it’s just subjective, and that rings true for the sewing community as well. Which is why I bring this up- I don’t want to offend anyone who loves this pattern I am about to blog about (and according to the internet, many of you do)!
I came to Pattern Review pretty late, and I still don’t use it as a resource as often as I could. It is one of the first online spaces to begin cultivating an enthusiastic sewing community, so not only are their archives pretty massive, it is also one of the largest online forums dedicated to sewcialists in existence today, and from what I can tell, it has been beneficial to hundreds of thousands of people, both technically and socially, for years. Now that so many people have blogs, I do a simple google search when I am looking for details about a specific pattern that I want to make, and usually several entries will pop up, frequently from people whose blogs I already follow. But back in the day before so many people had access to creating their own blogs and writing about personal projects, PR was the place where you could easily share information about your makes- what worked, what didn’t, how the sizing was, what mods you made, and what the final project looked like. What has interested me most lately on PR has been rifling through the annual BEST OF posts, where they determine which patterns get sewn most often with the highest reviews/success rates. A lot of the same patterns seem to make the list every year, which has it’s pros and cons- it’s cool to know which patterns have “staying power” and are TNTs for the sewing community at large, but it would also be great to see a bit more variety in what people are trying and loving.
Anyways, two patterns caught my eye when I skimmed through the lists from the past few years. McCalls 7387, a loose fitting button-up shirt dress and M6886, a fitted knit dress, drafted to be a little looser than a body-con dress. Both were very simple silhouettes that didn’t look as if they needed a lot of tinkering. As such, I decided to make a size 10/12 in the button up shirt dress with no adjustments other than grading from the bust to the waist. It has such a loose, body skimming fit and interesting details that I couldn’t imagine that it wouldn’t fit great as-is.
But.
I.
Was.
Wrong.
First of all, this pattern is REALLLLLY FUSSY. I have no idea why they drafted the button band the way they did. I understand wanting to have a concealed placket for the band, and I like that detail (or at least I did before I had to construct it) but this one was just ridiculously complicated and messy looking. On top of that, the instructions are quite lacking for this part of the pattern, so I ended up having to make the band twice, cutting new pieces from my fabric and interfacing. I haven’t made a lot of concealed plackets in my life so maybe part of my distaste for the method demonstrated in this pattern is just based on inexperience, but the last one I DID make was for the Hannah dress, and it was a dream to put together compared to this one. This dress has you cut out several placket and band pieces, a couple of which are interfaced, but the instructions don’t do a good job of letting you know which pieces go together and there is no labeling on them other than what the general name of the pieces are (I would have found it helpful if they were labeled right/left/top/bottom etc.- the illustration in the instructions do a poor job of showing which pieces are which and which directions they should be facing). Because there are so many pieces required for the button band, not only was it needlessly complicated to construct, it also looks very bulky when finished, even though I graded my seams, understitched whenever I could, and chose a fabric that was not particularly bulky (it is on the lighter side of a mid-weight fabric). My outside placket doesn’t lay down properly and instead just kind of floats open in the air, so the hidden placket doesn’t even effectively hide the buttons it’s supposed to be concealing.
Aside from the construction method of the button band, I also dislike that it isn’t applied to the length of the front openings. The band starts a few inches down from the collar of the dress and ends at some point around the knees although there is still several inches of dress left beneath it. When I was making it I had no idea it would bother me as much as it does but for some reason I think it’s really unflattering. The placket ending where it does at the bottom doesn’t bother me so much, but I think the neckline looks just awful on me. I would prefer to have a button band going all the way up to the collar as it would on a traditional button up shirt with the option to leave a few buttons undone at the neck if you want that open collar look. As drafted, the dress splays open at my chest and just…I dunno, it just doesn’t look right to me, for whatever reason.
A few other details on this dress missed the mark for me. I love the high-low hem of the version I made, but it seems much more dramatic than necessary, and I didn’t realize how long the back was until it was finished- it’s so long that I can’t wear the dress without heels (or in my case, clogs), which cuts down on the different ways I can wear it. I also don’t like that the sides have a split at each seam; I think it looks too busy. It could have benefited from one or the other design element- a high/low hem or slits up the seams- but not both. Wasn’t it Coco Chanel, that fashionable but irredeemable (IMO) Nazi spy, who said that before leaving the house you should always remove one accessory so you don’t look overdone? I feel like that’s what this pattern needed- some major detail editing. Too bad I didn’t realize it until the entire dress was complete!
My final, but most frustrating complaint about the dress is the back pattern piece. The construction of the yoke is what I originally loved best about the dress from the technical design because the folded over pieces made me think of the Hannah Dress, but unfortunately it doesn’t wear very well. Or, rather, it doesn’t wear well on my body type (more booty!) The back piece is drafted VERY wide since it is folded on top of itself to create a sort of pleated effect. But as that extra fabric falls toward the hips, the folded pleat disappears and the fabric ends up pooling around the top of my butt in this really weird way. I
It’s hard to describe, but I think it’s because the excess fabric from the top of the pattern piece isn’t graded out at the hips, it just collects in one area, and I think it’s so noticeable on me because of my butt-to-waist ratio. The way the fabric falls in the back is very unflattering, and I even tried belting it in a million different ways as a last ditch attempt to “save” this dress. FYI, cinching a wide dress that has no seamed waist has always been a look that I am decidedly NOT into, but I would do it if it made this dress work better. Unfortunately it did not. So when I wear it (and yes, as much as I am complaining about this dress, I will wear it because I love the fabric!), it will just be worn baggy with a pool of collected fabric congregating at my lower back. Unless I find some time to unpick the yoke stitching at the back and gather the extra fabric at that seam instead of leaving it pleated as drafted. We are going to Costa Rica this summer and I imagine that this dress, with a few adjustments, will be a nice, easy garment to wear on warm, windy beaches with a bathing suit underneath. But I am most likely going to have to chop that weirdly long back hem down quite a bit so that I can wear the dress with sandals. And I will sew up those unnecessary side slits too while I’m at it.
Speaking of fabric, this spring-y floral print is made from a lightweight, opaque twill by Liberty of London, which came from none other than The Fabric Store. I love the color combination and the fabric’s softness- it feels like a fabric that has already been laundered 20 times. It’s light weight lends itself very well to this style of dress, which makes it look as breezy and easy to wear as it feels (aside from that blasted button band, of course!). So far, the fabric choice is my favorite thing about this dress, but perhaps once I adjust the hem it will look a little bit better to me. The only other things I really like about the dress are the sleeves, which are not set-in. They are drafted in a stuck-on style, but with a more subtle effect, and the cuffs tie them in with the tabs on the pockets- speaking of, could you tell this dress has pockets, one on each breast? The busy fabric kind of turns the whole thing into a seeing-eye puzzle!
I was so excited about this dress when I was working on it and I am really bummed that it came out the way it did. But this has been a good reminder for me to maintain a critical eye when shopping for sewing patterns, even when everyone else seems to be raving about them. I have mentioned a certain indie pattern brand on the blog several times before that has exquisite styling, design details and branding for their company, but the patterns look horrid on me. I made several patterns of theirs in my first couple of years sewing which were almost immediately relegated to the Butthole Bin™ before I faced the harsh reality that these patterns simply weren’t suitable for my body type. I wanted so badly to hop on the band wagon with everyone else in the sewing community and stay there, but I got to a point where I couldn’t bear to spend any more time and fabric sewing a garment that I knew was most likely going to look unflattering on me. Although I usually have much better luck with Big 4 patterns, I still need to keep my eye discerning and focused, because it usually doesn’t steer me wrong (unless we are talking about that disaster that was that Vena Cava for Vogue dress I tried my hand at a couple of weeks ago! hahahaha! But I digress…)
I will be sure to share some photos of the “new” version of this button down dress with the hem and side slits fixed and hopefully the back piece adjusted as well when I get around to it. Stay tuned 🙂
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