Cutout Dress (McCall's 6887)

I picked up McCall's 6887 a while ago but was waiting on it since I wasn't sure which fabric to use. It's a simple A-line dress with sleeve, pencil skirt, and back cutout options. Instead of doing a proper muslin, I started sewing view A (sleeveless A-line with the back cutout) out of a bed sheet I had leftover from another dress. I should really make real muslins instead of doing these sort of half muslins that I end up making into real pieces of ill-fitting clothing. Someday I'll learn my lesson. Maybe.

My measurements put me between a size 20 and 22, and I decided to go with the 20. I'm glad I did because it's still a hair too big. This pattern uses cup sizes and I was right on the borderline between an A/B cup and a C cup. I cut the C cup size since in real life I wear a DD and couldn't imagine that an A/B cup would fit. I was wrong, the C cup ended up being a bit poochy, especially above the bust. It's still wearable with a padded bra.

However, the back cutout is not compatible with any of my bras. The piece that is supposed to cover the band is wide enough but sits way too high on my back. It wouldn't be too hard to alter the pattern and make it work, but it's too late for this dress since the top is fully lined and installed. I forgot to put interfacing in where the buttonholes go, so I sewed the buttons through both panels. It's easy to slip the dress over my head so this was a non-issue.

The pattern calls for the bodice lining to be slipstitched in by hand which was annoying but ended up looking nice. There aren't great instructions about how to attach the edges of the bodice to the skirt so I just overlapped it a tad and stitched it up. Not the most elegant, but it works and isn't really noticeable unless you're the one sewing it.

The main problem with this pattern is the skirt. Something is definitely wrong with the pattern- I had to cut out 11" from the back of the skirt, eliminating two entire panels and parts of two more. I ended up pinching out the extra fabric, sewing down the middle of the back and installing the zipper there. Not a hard fix but I was glad to be using a bed sheet instead of nice fabric!

Overall, it's a cute pattern and the modifications will be easy when I make this dress with "real" fabric.