Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Another McCall 5615 and Simplicity 8550

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had another version of these patterns I wanted to make for dd.  This outfit will be the last from these patterns at least for this year.  How many matching capri outfits does a girl need for one summer?

I used fabrics purchased from Sew It Up.  They have really cute kits on their website, so I ordered this from them, minus the pattern because I had similar ones already.  At this point I cannot remember what patterns they suggested?



The top is a straightforward sew, but I still dislike the floppy waist.  On this version I ran 3 columns of stitching down it to hold the gathers in place.  The seersucker, if it was a plain cotton or a poly/cotton blend, would've behaved nicely.  As it was the seersucker was a cotton/lycra blend so it had a little "sproing" about it.  The gathers aren't as nice as I might have wished, but they aren't terrible either (unless I point them out to you!).

The bubble fabric in contrast to the seersucker is an ultra crispy densely woven 100% cotton--rather nice.  Both fabrics are something I never would've found around here.  It was a case where it was really nice to have bought a kit.  I had plenty of fabric to work with or around since I did line the upper bodice with some plain white batiste.  The kit should've been made up a few years ago...in which case the slight fabric improvisation would not have been necessary.  On the other hand, the bubbles might've shown through so I probably would've done the same thing.

Here are some pictures of the outfit in action during our sewing guild's first ever sewing camp!

Working on lounge pants.
Terrible posture...but the back does hang very nicely.  
To accurately place the second row of elastic, I cheated and ironed on some lightweight fusible interfacing from SewKeysE.  It was a quick and easy way to align the bias tape on the back to hold the elastic.



Edited to add a photo with her standing up straight for a back view!




After I made the lavender set, I noticed that dd's could use some adjustments.  My other dd never needed any adjustments, and  I suppose since it's been awhile since I've sewed for this dd I just didn't think about it.  For the pants, I had to scoop out the back then add the same to the crotch seam.  I also added some height to the top of the back pants--she has a huge problem with pants/jeans sliding down when she bends or sits.  Rather frustrating for us both.  This adjustment (which I should've photographed) seems to have worked really well for her.

The rest of this summer has largely been spent sewing for me!  Yay!  More later.


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