Chewing [Something] Over

 I removed the ease from the sleeve caps of the previous iteration of Fake Burda 6401 and tried again

Reasonable success!

I had used Simplicity 8523 (later reissued as Simplicity 8061 and again as Simplicity 9133) to create the bodice and sleeve parts of this pattern.  I traced the Simplicity sleeve, pivoting it on the shoulder seam alignment point to create the bell shape, and I guess all that ease was in there already.  I made a new version by tracing along the front and back armscyes while I pivoted them along the pervious sleeve pattern piece, stopping where the shoulder dot was, then cutting out a wedge between those points and ending at the lower edge and closing that gap before tracing a new piece.  The new version ended up being about 3"/75mm narrower.

 

 It fits the armscye very well!  Maybe a touch narrow--I've already made another iteration, with a bit more curve to, I hope, make up that difference.

I had initially made that next version of the sleeve have a dramatic downward curve at the hem, because of the angle the ends of the sleeves were at when on the hanger.  When I wore the dress, the angle wasn't as extreme, so I edited the curve on the pattern.  I also edited the previous version of the sleeve to be shorter, although that's getting away from the look of Burda 6401.  The Burda dress is just inspiration at this point--I don't know if it even has pockets?

Of course my version has pockets.

And white serging because I have not changed the serger thread.

The print fabric is something I've had in the stash for ages (I think it had been in Mom's fabric stash), saving for just the right project...well...except for when I decided to use a little bit of it as an "add length to keep this from being too short" contrast on a dress I made a few years ago.  That it turned out I didn't need.  So.  If I hadn't used that bit then, I probably would have had enough of it to make the whole dress now.

But it's fine!  The contrast band, made from the same fabric as the entire previous dress, is a relatively innocuous design detail, and matches the pinks in the print very well.  I'm pretty sure that both of these fabrics were made for interior decorating--the print selvedge says "A Cranston Home Fashions Print" (and has a website, so it's probably from the later 90s), and glazed cotton was a staple of home decorating fabrics for decades (I have no idea if it still is, even though chintz prints are popular again.)

  

I definitely could have made the contrast band, and thus the whole dress, longer, but I liked the idea of hemming it by folding it in half and stitching through all layers along the edge stitching I'd done at the seam attaching it to the rest of the skirt.  It's a deep hem, unencumbered by obvious stitching.

 The finished dress is undeniably short, but not short enough to make me uncomfortable, especially when worn with sewn tights or leggings.  Is it a babydoll dress?  I mean...it looks like the things I sew for dolls, at least...

I made the bodice significantly shorter on this version, compared to the previous version (and to the pattern pieces), a decision done entirely to save yardage, but it led to the realization that, if I raise the waist seam and scoop the neckline significantly more, I can get an emulation of McCall's 8197 out of this, too.

I do have 8197 (image copied from the Simplicity site), with all the tissue pieces cut out and ready to go

I have read a lot of reviews of 8197, and my main takeaway is that whoever at McCall's decided it didn't need interfacing should be held responsible for every review that says the neckline is just too ridiculously wide.  When I first saw how many reviews talked about the excessive neckline, I assumed they were the kinds of people who skip interfacing because they don't see the point of it, and I figured they'd skip stay stitching, too.  But! The pattern calls for neither! No interfacing! No stay stitching! Of course those big curved necklines grew so much while being handled before being stitched!

So I had planned to make 8197 with interfacing (yeah OK I'm not usually one to do stay stitching, but I understand the danger of that) just to prove that the lack of interfacing was the entire issue.

However...I'm not a fan of the scooped back neckline, either...  I figured I'd make a version of the back pattern piece with a higher neckline.  And a lot of the reviews also say that the zipper is unnecessary, not only due to the generous neck opening, but also because the empire seam hits mid-bust, so it's completely loose.

And if I'm going to raise the back neckline and omit the zipper to make the dress pullover, then this Fake Burda 6401 is practically there already (especially once I get the sleeves worked out.)  And I just realized: since I do have all the pieces already cut out for 8197, I can ~borrow~ that neckline for the pattern piece I make--and then make my own facings, because 8197 doesn't have those, either.