Stripes and zigzags

Squeaking in at the deadline here– this is my spots and stripes project for the month. I’ll admit that neither print is one that I generally gravitate towards. I’m more of a plaid and paisley girl! But I found this colorful Aztec-style knit hard to resist when checking out a local hole-in-the-wall fabric shop two summers ago. Since my current sewing is basically limited to simple, stretchy things that I can sneak in during naptimes and after putting my son to bed, a simple maxi-dress was definitely the way to go.

This pattern is McCall’s 6559, which is about as simple as it gets. It’s literally two pieces with simply hemmed armholes and neckline. The most time-consuming part of making this was definitely matching up the stripes, both while cutting and sewing! I did have to rip out part of a serged seam and redo it, but I think the effort was worth it.

One thing that surprised me with this one was just how much trouble I’m having with getting the neckline to stay where I want it to! I did stabilize the shoulder seams with twill tape, and this cottony knit is very lightweight. But it’s still pulling down quite a bit more in this version than a previous knee-length one that I’d made. So my easy fix is that I’m wearing this dress backwards! I met up with several of my girlfriends yesterday after taking these pictures.They were both amused when I told them this, and complimentary on how it looks.

For the sake of comparison, this is what the dress looks like the “right” way. Which is ok, but the one time I did wear it out like this, I spent the entire day trying to tug the neckline back into place and debating whether I should insert something to make it a bit higher, or shorten the straps and risk making the armholes too small. With my limited sewing time, I think my backwards fix is going to work much better!

Hopefully I’ll see you back here soon…we’ll see if I manage to get something in for August’s theme or not!