Easter Spring Dress Reveal

My Easter Spring Dress

This month I did something a little different and entered the Easter Spring Dress Challenge. Judith of Judith Dee’s World and Akram of Akram’s Ideas are the administrators of the Seamstress of YouTube and they dreamed up this fabulous challenge. Ladies from all over YouTube have been sewing Easter Spring Dresses and will be revealing them before April 16th. I am thrilled to say that a few of the ladies will be joining us on Tuesday night’s That Sewing Blab to share their lovely creations as well. It should be a great show.

I really enjoyed participating in this challenge and I have met a lot of new and talented sewists on YouTube thanks to it and the cherry on top is that I will have a lovely dress to wear this summer too.

The Deets on the Pattern

I used  McCall’s M7119 as my dress pattern. I love view B but I added the sleeves from view C to the dress. I did this because Spring here in Canada isn’t warm enough for me to wear the sleeveless version. As you can see in the photo below there was still piles of snow around when we did the photo shoot.

Here are a few features of the dress I made:

• wrap around style
• it is designed for medium weight fabrics
• it is gathered at the sleeve cap and at the centre back
• it has a long skirt that is shorter in the front than the back.
• it is not lined

Alterations

Besides adding short sleeves to dress B I made only one alteration and that was to the hip area. I traced off the pattern with a size 12 bodice and then enlarged the pattern just above the hip to the hem of the skirt (size 14 markings on the pattern). This was to ensure the dress would fit both my hips and at the bust area.

Finishing Touches

I finished the two side seams of the skirt with French Seams and overlocked all other exposed seams. As I mentioned above the fabric does fray a bit and I wanted to make sure I could wear the dress for years to come.

There is a little bit of hand sewing asked for in the instructions. I hand stitched the dress side of the band on the bodice to the wrong side of the dress. It took about an hour but only because I was watching Netflix at the same time. You could stitch in the ditch from the front but it would not look as nice on the inside of the garment.

Two Words of Caution

If you make this pattern make sure you like the wrong side of the fabric as you will be able to see it when you make view B of this pattern. The fabric I used just had a faded appearance of the right side so I think it looks lovely.

Like most wrap dresses you would probably want to wear a slip with this dress. The front edge of the skirt can open up in the wind or if you are walking quickly. I feel the neckline is high enough that you can probably wear a half slip. I never felt like it was going to gape open.

Overall Review

McCall’s M7119 is an easy dress to make and is suitable for a beginner level sewists as it has no buttons, zips or any other complicated steps. Some people could be annoyed while sewing the skirt hem as it is curved or at the small amount of hand stitching that is required but I believe it is worth it. This is a fantastic design and I can see myself living in it this Spring and Summer. I am already trying to decide what fabric I  will use to make the sleeveless version. Thanks, McCall’s!

Vlog Number Two is on YouTube!!!!

I uploaded my second vlog. I discuss the Easter Spring Dress and say a very special thank you to the fabulous sewists listed below for making my month with their lovely cards and well wishes. I made a  video to say thank you to them and added it to the end of my vlog. It is short in duration and heavy with geekiness. Bunny Vs Brownie was meant to show what it felt like to get the cards and the brownies I received in the mail. I was trying to get across it was like getting a hug from someone you love but my niece and I ended up having far too much fun with it and it went a wee bit off the rails. All joking aside thank you to everyone who has sent cards, left comments on my blog or social media, or gave me a thumbs up on my YouTube channel. Your kind words and support are very much appreciated.

An extra huge thank you to:

Myra from the blog Simple Inspirations and the co-host of That Sewing Blab, Anita from the blog Anita by Design, Faye from the blog Faye’s Sewing Adventure and the amazing Charlene @bless1 on Periscope.