Last year I offered to sew my cousin Freya a dress as her birthday gift.  She asked me to sew her a classic shirt dress, so we decided on McCalls 6696 as the pattern.  This pattern has 112 reviews on Pattern Review,  the earliest from 2013, too many blog reviews to count, and video sewalongs on YouTube.  And it’s still in print – it must be a big seller, and that’s clearly with good reason.  So many people love it.

Although so many people love it, I hadn’t made it before. Regular readers of my blog know why – I don’t sew clothing for myself that emphasises my waist. Freya however has an hourglass shape and this type of dress is just perfect for her. We headed to The Cloth Shop, Ivanhoe and bought this divine digitally printed linen. So pretty!

Because this was pretty special fabric, and from reading many reviews, I knew that I’d need to make a bodice muslin. I sewed up size 12 from an old cotton sheet, then organised a time for Freya to try it on. We decided that she needed more room in the bust and waist, but the shoulders were fine. We also added a considerable amount to the length – Freya prefers her dresses to be longer rather than shorter. I recut the pattern pieces, grading where needed, then cut the fabric and eventually got to sewing.

There are lots of pieces to this dress, and lots of details. It’s not difficult to sew, but it’s comparatively time-consuming. Collar and stand, yoke attached burrito style, gathers in the back.

The waistband is interfaced and fitted, and the front bands are interfaced and cut to the final length of the dress – you need to determine the finished length prior to construction. And there are plenty of buttonholes to sew! My machine does a four-step buttonhole, so I need to pay attention to keep them consistent (I start with the buttonhole nearest the hemline of the dress and work my way up the front to the neck; practice makes perfect). The buttons are vintage, from last year’s Restash (thanks Libby). And there are all those pleats to do for the skirt.

So as you’ve probably gathered, this was a slow sew; many hours went in to making this dress.  I wanted to do it well, and am really pleased with the construction. The linen was beautiful to work with. And a photo of the finished dress in it’s entirety? Here you go! Front, and back.

Now, the perils of sewing for someone else who is not available to try on as you go unfortunately came to the fore. When I finished the dress and gave it to Freya, it was too big through the waist and torso. So disappointing! This is why I’d sewn the muslin! The shoulders were okay, as was the skirt, but it just wasn’t fitting at the waist. Maybe the linen had much more give than the sheet I’d sewn the muslin in, and sewing the original size would have worked. The biggest difficulty with invisibly altering this dress is that the waistband is cut in one piece, so there are no seamlines to take in.  I had constructed the rest of the dress with the sewing machine, only using the overlocker to finish edges, so taking the bodice along the side seams was definitely an option. But the waist couldn’t be altered without introducing new seams. Freya lives half an hour away from me and we both have busy lives, so she plans to take it to her local alterations place to have those adjustments made. I am really disappointed and annoyed with myself that it didn’t fit Freya properly, but at the same time I am also really pleased with the construction and overall look of the finished dress, and enjoyed the process of making it.

Hopefully Freya has been able to have it altered successfully, and at some stage I’ll update this post with a photo of her wearing it.