McCalls 6201, a New TNT Pattern

McCall's 6201

I'm quite happy with how this simple sheath dress has turned out this week.  McCall's 6201 McCall's 6201 is a simple sheath dress in their Made for You line of patterns.   These are the patterns which have alternative front pattern pieces for A, B, C and D bust cup sizing.
A darted sheath dress has been on my mind for several years now.  I was wowed by Annette's dress in the Patternreview 2009 Little Black Dress contest Little Black Dress winners and always love reading Carolyn's blog with her beautifully fashionable dress wardrobe Carolyn, the sewing fanatic.  I made a dress in October that I was pleased with but wanted something with even simpler lines and this McCall's is just what I had in mind.

I did my fitting muslin last week and used this fabric for my alterations.  It's a size 14 at the shoulders and 16 by the high hip area.  I did make separate right and left pattern pieces but since this is one front piece and two back pieces I didn't mind that too much.  I'm still not totally pleased with the large side darts on the D cup pattern and will refine them a little as I sew more of these dresses this summer.  I'm relatively narrow shouldered and narrow in the front so that dart doesn' have a lot of room before it peaks, if you know what I mean.  It would be better for fitting purposes changing this to full length shoulder princess seams (which I will do eventually) but some prints, like this one, need an uninterrupted pattern piece.  Since I have a few of these planned specifically to wear with some of these cardigan sweaters, the bust dart is less crucial right now.  Other alterations: reduced the width of the front and back mid section darts, added to the front armhole area to cover some that bulgy stuff peaking outward on a sleeveless dress, lowered the right shoulder and underarm area for that right side body dip and added about 1/4 inch to the front and back high hip area on my right side as well with a 3/4 sway back adjustment as well.

Isn't this fabric fun?  It's cotton pique with some lycra from Fabric Mart, of course.  I made one of my many Kwik Sew jeans jackets from it and had lots left over so it's been on the muslin fabric pile for a while now.  I was pleased enough with my alterations to go ahead and turn it into this dress.  To give it a little umph, there's piping on the neckline, with some bias of this very soft tone on tone fabric, I think a rayon, cotton, silk blend also from my beloved FM.   I had already installed an invisible zipper or else I would have lined this dress.  Instead, I did a bias binding on the armholes with the same fabric.

So why is there brown paper on our much photographed hallway?  The master bathroom project is still underway....delayed for more than a week for one more sheet of the shower border tile, special order, of course.  No problem, it should be finished soon and it's quite a transformation.  
Ok, tired and it's time to sleep.  We're pet sitting for our neighbors this week but going to their house at least three or four times a day to walk, feed and play with their two year old dog.  Some evenings we take Lucky the rescue dog and they run around for a while but Sam the 12 year old guy is not up to managing two rambunctious dogs in his space.  Instead, Sam got to head downtown for an afternoon concert today and enjoy being the only dog again, briefly.