McCall’s M5974 – My first time wearing Orange …

I do like this fabric.  But this is the first time I have had Orange in my closet.  I guess it is okay for the warm, sunny summer months?  It was just beautiful outside when I started taking photos of my finished Orange dress, until the wind picked up!

For my #sewtogetherforsummer Challenge I asked you which fabric I should use for my wrap dress,  you all voted on it here.  Since this Orange knit fabric was the runner up by a close margin, I thought I would use it next for my McCall’s M5974, view A.  A reader was curious to know how I liked this pattern… and I just want to tell you I LOVED it!  It went together very easily.  I might just make another, except next time I would use a more stable knit than I did this time.  The Orange knit I used was in reality more suitable for activewear.  But it survived, and so did I!

Seems like this pattern was well-loved on Patternreview too!

I delayed making this dress as I wanted to wait until my tracing paper arrived.  I ordered “Medical Pattern Paper for Patternmaking, Drafting, and Tracing”.  A silly long name, but tracing paper is quite useful for someone like me who doesn’t want to cut into patterns.  I’d order it again.

My markings were easy to transfer and this tracing paper was stronger than the pattern paper that came in the McCalls envelope, or any other pattern paper that I have seen.

Now my fabric pieces on the other hand were a pain to cut out as they kept curling on the edges.  I had to use twice as many weights.  I barely survived!  I should have used a more stable knit!

Excessive curling!

At least the pattern went together easily.  Make the front, sew it together with the back and sew on the sleeves.  Then sew up the side seams right into the sleeve seam.  Oh!  Before I forget.  I left the back zipper out, just placing the back on the fold, as this was a really stretchy knit and I knew the dress would just slide on over my head.

The sleeves were easy to attach too.  Before started sewing my dress, I practiced on scraps of fabric to find the tiniest zig zag stitch and used that for my whole dress, stretching the fabric slightly as I sewed.  Yes, I know my Janome 3160QDC has a stretch stitch but old habits die hard, as they say!

Now for the neckline there isn’t a neck facing included in the pattern.  For a stable knit this wouldn’t be a problem. But I could see this fabric had incredible potential to stretch out of shape so I opted for a neck facing.  

I drew my own neck facing pieces by following the curves and shape of my bodice front and back.

Neck facing, drawn, cut, interfaced, and sewn.  Now to attach it to the dress.

To prevent further stretching, I reinforced the shoulder seams with some twill tape.  I also hemmed my dress with a band of interfacing wrapped inside, sewn with a rolled hem.  The excess interfacing was carefully trimmed away.

Anything else? Oh yes!  Before hemming, this dress hung of “Dolly” for a couple of days to let this knit fabric settle down.  To even the hem up after, while Dolly was wearing the dress, I measured an even hem from the floor all the way around.  In some places I didn’t trim anything off, in others I took off up to 3/4”.

So what do you think of my Orange dress?  This is my first time wearing Orange!

It was the weirdest weather, hot and sunny, and then the wind would pick up for a minute and I actually thought I could see fog rolling in from the water!  Then it would get calm, hot and sunny again!

When was the last time you tried a colour that you have never tried before?  What was it?  I think I am going to have to hunt down some JADE GREEN fabric next!

Happy Sewing!

STASH BUSTING WITH THIS PROJECT?  2 metres!  Still 134.5 metres remaining!

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