Doing Everything Wrong

...but, like, doing it all wrong intentionally...

So.

Years ago, I found this copy McCall's 5675 (1977) in a thrift store

At the time it was the right size, and I made a few shirts, and even a dress, from View C, and all with short sleeves.  After the weight gain, I considered trying to grade it up, but I never got around to it.

Then, in 2018, McCall's released 7868

It's obviously a descendant of 5675.  A modern, loose, unshaped-hem, very very loose descendant.  With extra looseness.

And only later did I look at the fabric suggestions and see that it's entirely light, slinky or floaty stuff.  Not from my stash it's not.  And reviews mentioned how very deep the front slit is, and how prone to coming open the hooks on the collar band are.

I borrowed the neck facing and collar band with ties and fabric suggestions from 5675 and used the bodice from 7868 and tossed aside the concept of sleeves altogether and made this

 as, y'know...proof of concept.



 I didn't give myself any time to second-guess or overthink anything, using the first piece of fabric I pulled out of the stash: a two-yard-ish length of not-full-width wax print (with a notable similarity in appearance to worm on a string) that had been brought by the person with the relative's destash,  thanks again.

And I decided to use a contrast thread, because, again, it was already on a very full bobbin...well, technically, the bobbin thread is not the same as the top thread, but it's close enough in color and weight that I wasn't going to worry.

I did have to put some thought into cutting out the neck band pieces, because they're cut on the bias and can't just be cut mirrored on the fold, and they had to be pieced to be long enough.  Still, pressing a bias band of heavy-ish cotton like this is always a dream to do.  'course, when I was edge stitching things (I have not learned the secrets to turning tiny tubes of bias, no matter how many times I read about the wonders of bobby pins, so I press and edge stitch instead), I wandered out of alignment a few times and went back and stitched over the wobbles without picking out the errant stitches, so there're some thick stitches here and there.

I did that on the armholes, too, although in this case it was because I used the rolled hem attachment and some of the curves were a bit too extreme for my current level of rolled-hem-attachment skills, so I had to pick things out and re-sew.

Again: I am not worrying.


I did the hem with the rolled hem attachment as well, and it ended up with the expected amount of back stitching.

 Also visible here: the two threads used.  Not worrying.

There was no way I was going to hand-stitch the collar band in place, so, instead of stitching in the ditch, I edge stitched on the collar band, playing up the contrast thread. 

 

Nothing special going on back here.

 I decided to follow pattern expectations just a bit and cut size 16, tapering out to 20 at the hip.  I do believe I was over-cautious and can probably make the next iteration in 14-to-18.

 The entire reason I sewed this, and sewed it so fast, was because I'd dug out a pair of jeans that had no chance of fitting over my abdomen, but worked everywhere else, and added, basically, a maternity panel to them

but, like, y'know, loudly.  I have some dresses I made that are a bit short and will work fine over jeans, but I decided I should make some actual long shirts and tunics, too.

It works.