Blue Square Dress

I got a lot of nifty yardages from the Doll Person's Destash last year, including the seersucker used for the Bluebird Dress posted last month, and also the fabric used for today's project.  It's brushed cotton, about 2½ yards of 60" wide, in a vivid cobalt blue with black, teal, and red jacquard that is pretending to be plaid.  I'm pretty sure it's also completely unsuited to the pattern I used, McCall's 5451 from 1991

I chose view B, which called for 3 yards of 60" for size 16. I was pretty sure I could make the 2½ yards work, and with at least a nod toward pattern matching along one axis of the faux plaid.  I saved a bit of length by shortening the bodice, to eliminate the blousing (and you better believe I never intended to add the waist elastic and wear this with a belt.)   And now I know I probably could have cut it in size 14, because

Hi!  Yes!  It's me! Don't I look thrilled?




OK, how about this

and that's still better than it looked on the hanger

although maybe not by much

I once again overrode my inclinations and didn't top stitch a thing

(although I did tack the facings at the shoulder seams.  Oh, and, this is supposed to have shoulder pads.  I declined.)

And I fully admit that I make vertical button holes because they seem like they're easier to place than horizontal button holes.  Maybe someday I'll find out I'm wrong about that.  Until then, I'll probably also keep forgetting to use heavier interfacing and end up with...this.  Wiggle wiggle wiggle.

Not that it needed the opening provided by working buttons, anyway.

It's...roomy.  In retrospect, I guess the extra fabric needed to make it blouse, as it was designed, is also distributed across the back.  Without that, it might not be bad

And, honestly, I think I didn't need to fold out the length in the bodice, either.  So, next time: go a size down, trust the bodice length, use cloth with less body, maybeeeee possiblyyyyy consider adding the waist elastic after all?  The casing for it is made by sewing the skirt seam allowance to the bodice, so it wouldn't be too much trouble to add.  Buuut, if my goal is "loose and breezy summer dress," then it would be best without elastic.

And I do want to make it again!  A big reason is that it has pockets

so there's none of the effort that would be needed to hack pockets on a pattern without them.

The skirt hem was sewn with the machine

But!  I did not use the automated blind hem stitch.  I'll probably avoid using the cam-controlled stitches until I figure out what needs to be tweaked on the cam stack control so that it doesn't need to be fought with to return to a regular, plain, boring, non-reverse-cycle straight stitch.

But, did I really want to hand stitch the hem?  Enh.  If I had been enthused by the rest of the project, maybe.

But.

My machine is a Necchi 539, and its stitch width selector looks like this

Normally when I zigzag, I set it like this

However...it can also do this

The technical reason the two stop doohickeys can move separately is so decorative zigzag stitches with variations in width can be made manually.  Y'know, the kinds of decorative stitches that are often accomplished with cams.  Soooo...  It's entirely possible to recreate a blind hem stitch by making four regular straight stitches, then moving the center lever (which is what actually controls the stitch width)  all the way to the full zigzag position for one stitch, then letting it spring back to the straight stitch position.  I got the timing wrong a lot, which resulted in the needle veering to the right instead of to the left, but I just let it take another stitch before releasing the lever and it was fine.  And few times the normal "reach up to the right to press something" reflex took over and I accidentally hit the reverse, but I just considered that...uh...stitch security.

A bit troublesome, sure, but faster than figuring out what to fix on the cam stack, and a lot easier than fighting to get the stitch back to normal the way it is.

Oh, oh, and, all the button holes were made with a vintage automatic buttonholer attachment

And the gathers at the sleeve cuffs were made with a ruffler.  I like my contraption attachments.

I went into this project expecting a wearable muslin, so I don't consider it a complete loss

And, of course, I know what to do next time, whenever next time is.