Dotty Dress

McCalls 9456

This is incarnation number two of McCalls 9456. (Here’s the first one.)

As you can see, this is a knee-length version with short sleeves. The fabric is a viscose/cotton jersey which is just hovering around the edges of being too fiddly for me to work with. It’s very light and drapey, and even using the differential feed on my sewing machine it did have a tendency to drag. I edged the sleeves and hem on the overlocker.

This is the second glorious weekend in a row that I’ve been stuck indoors sewing, instead of making the most of the weather and getting out into the garden. The reason this time is that we’re having a new kitchen delivered this week, and that means putting the entire contents of the existing kitchen out in my sewing Shed. I won’t be able to get at the machine or the cutting table for two or three weeks, so I wanted to get this little dress done first.

I’m going into hospital at the beginning of May, and I’ll be on crutches when I come out again, so I wanted a simple little dress that I can wear for lounging around. Wearing this one should cheer me up nicely… and if I get bored while I’m recuperating, I can always embroider something in the spots!

McCalls 9456

McCalls 9456

New job, new dress! I imagine this theme will continue for quite a while, until I’ve got a wardrobe full of clothes that I’m happy to wear to my new job.

This one is McCalls 9456. I’ve had the pattern for years – so long, in fact, that it’s now gone out of print. It’s just a basic princess-seamed dress, designed for knit fabrics.

There’s plenty of ease in this pattern, so I made a size 14, and it’s still a little on the generous side. Next time I might trim the pattern down a size. It’s supposed to have an integral tie belt, but I left that out so I could layer it without the belt getting in the way. I also left off the sleeves, and finished it off with a lettuce hem.

The fabric is supposed to be a cotton lycra, but I picked it up in rather a hurry, and it isn’t quite what I was expecting. I thought it would be like a heavyweight t-shirting with more stretch (which is what I came home with the last time I bought cotton lycra), but this feels more like a pair of extremely thick cotton tights. Thankfully you can’t see through it, and the fabric drapes very nicely. I’m disappointed that it’s so flimsy though.

At the same time I also bought several metres of a bright printed cotton jersey that was apparently made for Monsoon. It has shades of lemon, lilac and pink, so it’ll go beautifully over the top of my three new shirts – or make a pretty summer dress in its own right. I also have a few fabrics which would be perfect to make a shorter version for layering, including a burnout stretch velvet and a grey mesh with a butterfly print.

The pattern went together very easily, and the dress is wonderfully comfortable to wear. I think I’ll be making quite a few of these!