For the past few weeks I have been sewing McCall's Hazel dress C pattern (M7774). This is a misses dress, so I sewed a size 12 for myself.
I have to admit that I didn't super enjoy sewing this dress. There were a few sections of the pattern and instructions that tested my patience. The first was step #24. My brain could not compute what the drawing (or the written instructions) was telling me to do.
After a few attempts, I realized that #24 should say, "Pin front and back together - right sides of the fabric together - at shoulders..."
Once I figured that out, I had to slipstitch the armhole edges as it says in #25. Had to remind myself what slipstitching was! I used this youtube video by jdna which was straightforward.
In looking back at my YouTube history, I realize that I also had to look up how to understitch facing which the pattern calls for in steps #21 & #22. I used this 'How to Understitch a Facing' video by Threads Sewing.
The pattern involved sewing in a hidden zipper which was a challenge for me (but yay for new skills!) It took me three shots to actually correctly sew the bodice (step #26).
One key piece of learning: you need to make sure that if you're slipstitching the underfacing to the zipper tape, you need to leave enough room between the fabric and the zipper piece that runs along the teeth. Otherwise, the zipper piece will get caught in the fabric! Duh, right? Well, that took me a few attempts and I just cleaned it up yesterday. Below is what it looked like as I was slipstitching (for the 2nd time). I made sure to draw a line out far enough from the teeth so the zipper piece could run along the teeth smoothly and not get caught in the bodice fabric. I used that line to follow while slipstitching.
Though the pattern says it's easy, this dress took me a long time to sew mainly due to the hiccups described above! I should start keeping track of my hours...
Overall, I like the dress. The only thing is that I wish I had either used less bulky fabric (the fabric was a gift and I thought, hey what the heck, I'll just use this) for the skirt portion OR that I had cut down the amount of fabric gathered at the skirt. See what you think in the photos below.
Happy sewing!