The Red Poppy Dress

I finished the McCalls 6503 dress, or as I call it, the Red Poppy Dress.  I made view A which has a ruffled collar and a gathered skirt.  Above is a not-so-great photo (I'm half in sunlight and half out), but I ended up loving the dress, despite some trepidations while making it. 

Here's the back:

 Mostly what worried me during the construction of this dress was the Liberty of London fabric; not only was it expensive (I bought it in 2004 on a trip to Glasgow, Scotland and I made no muslin), but I feared that it would have the same tendancy to wrinkle like my Easter Dress.  While making the dress, it seemed it wrinkled every time I looked it; I was ironing it constantly.  But strangely enough, it doesn't wrinkle nearly as bad while wearing it.  I don't know if this fabric is Liberty's "tana lawn" or not.  But it wears very well and has a wonderful sheen to it.

The pattern is well drafted and the finished dress measurements are very helpfully printed on the pattern.  Size 12 has a 28 1/2 inch waist, so I added a half inch to the waist.  The waistband on this dress makes waist alterations easy:  I just made the front waistband a half inch larger and adjusted the gathers according; no alterations to the front bodice were necessary.  Another change I made was to use scrap fabric bias strips to bind the armholes rather than using purchased bias binding as called for in the instructions.  I also didn't bother to add the facing to the waistband.  I cut it out, but by the time it came to apply it, I was sort of aggravated with this dress, and I realized that the facing was just to make the inside look pretty and really had no structural purpose whatsoever. 

This dress seemed to take me a long time to put together.  Which suprised me because one blogger said that the dress only took her two hours to sew (not counting cutting out).  I don't see how this is possible -  it took me about that long to make the neckline ruffle, attach it to the bodice, and sew the bodice facing.  Having finally learned my lesson while making my wedding dress, I took the time and sewed three lines of gathering stitches on the skirt to make the gathering process easier. 

But in the end it was all worth it:

You can see my "slip" peeking out from my collar above; my "slip" is really a simple Kwik Sew nightgown that I use as a slip if need be.  Because the cotton fabric was a bit thin, I decide an undergarment wouldn't be amiss. 

The sweater is from Lands End and the color matches the red poppies pretty well!

Overall, a very good pattern.  But I'm putting it away and resisting the temptation to make another view in accordance with my new resolve of no repeats - onward to the next project!