Week Three In Corduroy

Week three is complete, and to be honest I'm glad. I chose the McCall's pattern 8865 printed in 1967. It is a simple A-line dress with a front panel and button detail. I pick a vintage corduroy I had in my stash and a vintage plastic floral button. The pattern is a size 12 which is equal to a modern women's size small. I went with version A because I liked the 3/4" sleeve. The finished product turned out lovely, but the getting there was rough.

pattern and fabric 

Button at neckline

First I would like to say that I was not happy with the instructions for this pattern. Particularly when i got to the front panel. The instructions were overly complicated, and too confusing to follow for what should have been a simple dress. I ended up just putting them to the side, and making the dress the way I wanted too. If you are familiar with dress making then construction on this one isn't an issue.  I am not overly fond of McCall's, and patterns like this are the reasons why. You may feel differently. This is just my opinion.

The pattern had you sewing the front side planes to the back (right sides together), then doing the neck facings, and lastly turning right side out attaching the front panel by folding the edge under and top stitching it.  While that sounds simple enough it was the overly detailed instructions that made it a challenge. 

After reading through it a few times I decided to do a simpler approach. I sewed the front side panels together by putting right sides together, and the turning out top stitching the seam lines. After that I attached the dress front to the back, then did the lining, and attached the sleeves. I felt it was a much quicker way to the same result. 

Another issue I ran into was that the hem lines didn't meet up at all. This could just be chocked up to the fact that the pattern was used. It had been pre-cut by the previous owner and could just be that she chose to shorten it, and only altered the one pattern piece. Anyways its an easy fix and didn't affect the finished dress.

wrong side view of front and back panels

All in all I think the dress itself turned out really cute. I love the floral corduroy, but I think that this dress would look so great in a solid color too.

There she is