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Hello everyone!   As you may recall I pledged £10 to make McCalls M6696 here for the Made Up Initiative. Made Up Initiative is the brainchild of sewcialist extraordinaire Karen Ball aka Did you Make That. Its raised over £2300 as of posting for the National Literacy Trust. Its pretty awesome being part of such a wonderful community of sewers :-).

I made this dress in a fine cotton lawn that attracted me with all these lovely summery shades. Its the same fabric used to make my beloved Vogue V1440 top. I love this fabric so much despite my apparent inability to pattern match plaids.

mccall's m6696mccall's m6696 4
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Everything went well sewing wise except for 3 things. (I will try to be brief):

1. The lawn is quite a loose weave so when interfaced it shrunk considerably such that for my waist band and button band they were shortened by about 1.5″. I had to merge with scraps. In future when working with this type of fabric I will block fuse then cut the pieces.

2. I folded a bias cut button band in half so it actually doesn’t lie as flat as I would like. In future if I am cutting on the bias I need to sew 2 pieces together.

3. Something went with the pleats – not sure what but I ended up loosing 2 pleats at the button band end. Next time I will press the pleats with the pattern paper still on to ensure I get them perfectly right.

mccall's m6696 6mccall's m6696 7 mccall's m6696 8mccall's m6696 9 I didn’t bother with a neck button since I wouldn’t ever wear this buttoned all the way up.mccall's m6696 10mccall's m6696 11 mccall's m6696 12mccall's m6696 13mccall's m6696 14McCalls M6996For the inside yoke I used pink cotton voile. Armholes were finished with fancy floral bias binding which I do likey 🙂 PicMonkey CollageDespite all the hand stitching involved – I finished it in time to enjoy a brilliantly sunny weekend. I love this dress. Like really love it! Love the length. Love the gathers at the back. Love the pleats. Did I mention its got pockets (I was so busy twirling I forgot to get shots with my hands in my pockets).Will I be making again? Yes! I am very excited about the variations I want to make. This pattern is a keeper for me and I am glad this challenge came along and I sorted it out.

For more details of the awesome Made Up Initiative hosted by Karen of Did you Make  click to  Karen’s post here for full details. Go on and make a pledge too!

Thanks for stopping by and Happy sewing everyone!

Hila

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