McCall's 7745 Mod

Remember when I used my beautiful floral rayon challis to make the nightmarish M7745?

 I wear this dress grudgingly.
It's pretty. So pretty.
I love the fabric.
I love the skirt.

The bodice was an absolute nightmare. But the skirt!!! :-)

I used the skirt pieces as is and knew I wanted to draft a contoured waistband vs. straight.

I don't know how to draft a waistband.


I traced the waistline of the skirt pieces onto tracing paper, decided on a 'height' and used my French curve to finish the upper part, then added seam allowances. I hadn't even cut it out of fabric before I realized it was strangely sloped at the sides. So I cut it out and then used that as a template to shape it better. I think it came out okay...but it's an exercise I'd actually like to learn to do properly.

The fabric is actually cotton shirting! I fell in love with the plaid pattern and colors and decided way back in April when I ordered it that it would one day become a skirt from this pattern.

I paid a little attention to plaid matching at the side seams and did not think ONCE about the waistband. Oy! But look at that beautiful ruffle!!!!

It was cut size 16 and added a CB seam. I handled the ruffle the same as before; rolled hem on my machine (it works really well!!) and gathered in 3 sections. I sewed it on and had sewn the skirt to itself. For like, 15"! LOL!!!!!!!!! Unpicked it and did it again! But only for a few inches. So after all of THAT unpicking...I made a tiny hole in my fabric. I put some fraycheck on it and kind of folded the skirt on itself where the hole was and put some black interfacing over it. With the print and the ruffle...you can't even tell.

Also, I opted for skinny ties vs wider ones more integrated with the waistband. And I hate making a pass-through hole for the belt in a true wrap. If you look closely in the pic above you'll see my little elastic loop; there's a button on the interior of the waistband.

I had spent so much time on the ruffle and the unpicking and resewing that I opted to do a "clean" waistband facing. I am 100% for serging it and leaving it be. I have no problems with it and it's what I do like 95% of the time. Every now and then I add bias tape. I do like how nicely this looks though!

I have not had time to get pics and this has been finished 2 weeks AND we're in a never-ending cycle of rain and gray skies so I'll have to use the (still, not that good) photo I took the first time I wore it:

LOVE. I'm so glad I didn't set this pattern on fire like I wanted to after making the dress!

In other news, I am mojo-less. It happens. I know it'll come back. This time even reorganizing fabric, flipping through Burda or looking at patterns has triggered the mojo. We'll see...